What’s full of rum, a little fizzy and topped with a tiny umbrella? Well, if it’s about 2PM on the day before Thanksgiving then the answer would be: me. A couple hours before that and the answer would be: the ridiculous tiki drink ordered at the Chinese food joint.
Work traditions are a key ritual in bonding you and your co-workers together and, at the same time, alienating your group from the other work groups surrounding them. Some groups do March Madness pools, some play fantasy football, some even power walk around the parking lot at lunch. My group, we bond over bad food and alcohol.
For the past four years, we’ve dutifully pretended to work the half day that is the day before Thanksgiving: a day where the parking lot is empty and the people who bother to show up are granted the magical status of “reliable” by the senior staff who, themselves, don’t even bother coming in. Then, at noon, we gather up our meager belongings and head out to get our drink on.
For us, this tradition started on a fateful Thanksgiving eve when a major major project was going live (geek talk for “we let the morons who are going to break this application use it”) and Pepsi had the horrible foresight to provide us with all the free MDX we could drink. Let me tell you, after imbibing three MDX’s, you can see the future. We were sleep deprived, caffeinated out the gills and more than a little loopy. What’s the next logical step? Tiki drinks, of course!
From there, the tradition stuck. Two hours from now, we’ll sit down at the Chinese place and confuse the hell out of the waiter by making short order of the beverage menu. Every year the same guy gives us shocked looks as we start in on Zombies, Navy Grog, Scorpions and Fuji Volcanoes. Everyone has their “go to” starter. Naturally, mine is a Zombie, but I’ve been pretty damn happy with the Scorpion, so there may be upheaval this year.
Sure we get stares from staff and patrons as we laugh over cocktails at noon, and, if one of our group has our company logo on their shirt, we even get some panicked stares (my work deals peripherally with public safety). We eat our lunch, drink some more, and set out to get ready for our turkey comas. It’s a fun way to kick off the time of year where no one really does any real work.
Funnily enough, Thanksgiving eve is the only day we ever go get tiki drinks.