misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

My project team went on a "bonding" event yesterday (during which I learned a number of fantastic new business cliches: ideation, on-boarding, and value proposition. I've always enjoyed when business people create their own words to feel more exclusive and intelligent than they really are. Let's get this straight right now: When a doctor uses the phrase "Pulmonary Fibrosis", it is necessary and relevant, to mention nothing of the face he earned the right to say terms like that via 8 years of schooling. Likewise, when a lawyer asks for a "Motion for a Summary Judgment", he has thousands of years of legal tradition to justify the phrase, and has no alternatives. When a dipshit project manager from La Mesa Community College asks for an "ideation session", there is no basis or justification for using that term instead of "brainstorm", or the term "coming up with ideas". Douches.). Anyway, sorry, I got a bit off-topic. So, to "bond", like a bunch of hydrogen electrons, we jumped on what is more commonly known as a "booze cruise". Welcome, Skyline Princess:

Yes, this picture is, in fact, worth a thousand words. Booze cruises should be left to public high school graduation festivities, christmas parties for companies that sell shoelaces, and Theta Chi/Delta Gamma mixers. Something about them is inherently 80s. Cruising around New York Harbor, I fully expected to see someone in a Fila jumpsuit doing jazzercise to a Kansas song.

To further awkward-ify the event, only about thirty-five people came out, even though the boat was built for ten times that. So there were small groups of us standing around a lounge area in the middle deck, gripping Budweisers and cheap Merlots, as adolescent Puerto Rican servers with pimply faces served trays of Pigs in a Blanket and Mini Spinach Quiches. This boat in particular had seen better days. Scuff marks from black-soled rubber shoes (probably Reeboks) streaked across every inch of the cheap linoleum floor, like millions of exclamation marks to happier times. The chairs were covered in stained white satin, probably without a washing since the Truman presidency. After about thirty minutes of this, we were brought upstairs for a cheap full-course dinner, where I had to sit uncomfortably next to other uncomfortable people eating dry potato balls, green beans, and prime rib to the backdrop of the Jersey coast. And this is all before 5 PM. Hence, the other issue with Booze Cruises: Escape is impossible. As people fidgeted at the tables, making conversations about last week's projects, it might of well been the cafeteria at Alcatraz. When the boat finally docked, people literally fled. My science may be poor, but I do know once two electrons are "bonded" to an atom, it takes a whole lot of energy to break that bond. In our case, I think it is safe to say the bonds weren't all that strong.