Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom. I hope you have all had a great week, all-in-all I’d say mine has been pretty stellar. We are proceeding with our new house so we will be closing on that one at the end of the month! Just means working hard to ensure we are ready to move right into that one and then turn around get our current house on the market as soon as humanly possible! Besides that, work has actually been pretty quiet without much incident. Some pretty long meetings but nothing too crazy, and even phones have been quiet so a good week! So since work has been so chill, we will be focusing our Breakdown on happenings outside of the office, so let us jump right in.
There was one fun moment at work and that was when Michael decided to entertain us all with him showing off his talents as a magician. Turns out he loves studying magic (having attended numerous camps over the summer, normally for children) and he was all to eager to show us his latest trick. Not one to go for something easy, he wanted to show us how he could get himself out of a straightjacket and chains! He started off confident, giving us a great show as he moved around to show that he was entirely locked in. Then I saw him accidentally spit out a key; Jim also noticed this and quickly hid it under his shoe and that was sort of the end of the act. Michael tried to look for the key but it was obvious that was his only source of escape, and he just went into his office and never came back out. My personal tip, if you are going to do a magic trick for your office you should perhaps stick to something that if you mess up on it, it doesn’t leave you tied up.
No on to the big events for the office, the key one being that our CFO, David Wallace, is hosting a cocktail party at his home for various management employees. Jan and Michael are invited (although Michael also invited Dwight) and then Jim and Karen were invited as well so they are preparing to attend that. Although I wasn’t there, I did hear all about what happened. This started with Michael and Dwight going incredibly early, hours before the party even started. Michael’s theory is that only best friends arrive to a party that early, so since he arrived that early this makes them best friends. He also brought along potato salad because he is a firm believer that you should never arrive to a party emptyhanded. Although, evidently his potato salad had been sitting out in his car all day so he felt it was going to be questionable so he pry should have just skipped it. Jan ultimately showed up later and the big news was she and Michael filled out relationship disclosures for the company. These can be seen at times, essentially they are disclosing that a leader and their employee are in a relationship so the company is aware and to help limit the risk of a lawsuit. So how fun was the party in the end? Well, Michael and Jan were getting on each other’s nerves all night long and ultimately left no happier than they arrived. Karen decided to pull one of her pranks on Jim making her think she slept with every guy at the party. He was certainly caught off guard, although he got to play some basketball with David Wallace so that was some pretty major points for him. And Dwight ended up going around the entire house to check the ins out and outs of the structure. So to answer that question, it sounds about as fun as any other cocktail party.
So what exactly is a cocktail party? Simply put, it is a party where the main focus is that cocktails and drinks are offered where the guests can socialize but typically there is no other main focus of the event. There may often be food but it will confined to appetizers and similar snacks, but no actual sit down meal. These are often related to work events (and might be called “mixers”) as they are meant to be a great chance to network and get to know other employees within your company. But they can certainly be a means of entertainment as well, perhaps to get your friends over without having to arrange a big meal or event such as games. So what do you need to know before hosting your own cocktail party? Obviously the drinks are a key ingredient, although mocktail events are certainly a thing as well. If you’re really looking to impress people but don’t want to have a general open bar, you could come up with a couple signature cocktails. There are a thousand recipes books out there including The Art of Mixology or The Cocktail Codex so there is more than enough books out there to use as inspiration. You could even do a theme night and peruse something like the Downton Abbey Cocktail Guide. I have meaning to do a theme night centered around Clue, although that really falls more under a murder mystery night where I’d also want a themed dinner so it’s a bit more than just a cocktail party. My biggest recommendation is to focus on some sort of theme (I am a very theme-oriented person) and to ensure a proper appetizer that pairs well with the theme and cocktail. For instance if you are doing a brunch-timed out party then mimosas and bloody Mary’s go great with some egg bites or perhaps miniature French toasts. But some of the best advice would come from the German author, Walter Leonhardt whose primary rules to a good cocktail party included:
- It should not last long, an hour and a half maximum, the time one can stand up, even if there are chairs for weaker constitutions.
- Guests should enter and leave freely, avoiding elaborate greetings on arrival and departure.
- Conversation must avoid passionate subjects (personal, political or religious topics) to keep a harmonious and cheerful ambiance.1
Why are these rules so important. First, cocktail parties normally do not have a ton of sitting so you want to keep the event just long enough where people do not start to get uncomfortable. However, it is also so they do not get so comfortable that they overstay their welcome which is key for my fell Boo Radley’s out there. Second, my fellow Midwesterners know all too well that greeting someone at the door or (especially) saying goodbye to them can easily fill up a good half hour. We are too famous for out Minnesota Goodbyes, so instead these parties should focus on a gracious French Exit. Finally, topics should be kept as fun and light because otherwise we risk getting so emotionally invested that we might spoil the party for someone. These are not meant to be debates or a salon, but a simple cocktail party, where light and frothy are the typical moods you are going for. Has anyone hosted a recent such party? Tell us all about it int he comments, especially if you happened to have any sort of theme or perhaps settled on a signature drink? Now, for those who are not very good at coming up fun drinks or perhaps worry about investing in a bunch of supplies only to be used once, not to worry because they also sell mixers where you just the alcohol. Craftmix, for instance, just needs the liquor, water and ice to put together and you can simply omit the alcohol if you want to make them mocktails. Cocktail parties no longer need to have alcohol and I have been (and hosted) plenty of events where stayed away for the drink. The key benefit is I usually have more money and time to put into my food, and I think most people will agree that is where I really shine.
You will remember that I was not actually invited to the cocktail party and instead was with the rest of the office (having simply heard about all that happened from people who were there). We decided to do a more casual event and all went out to Poor Richards for happy hour after work. This is not a big thing we do as an office, but with Michael gone it seemed like the perfect time to coordinate hanging out together. It was a pretty relaxing night, getting to talk outside of work, plus it is always fun to see what sort of drinks people like to get. We have the generic beer or wine drinkers, then there are those go right for liquor straight, and of course we have the cocktail drinkers. I do love my cocktails, personally, and will typically do a vodka cranberry, although I remember the most amazing mojitos in Paris that could certainly go for again. Then many of us got together to play Up Jenkins, Down Jenkins (aka. Up Chickens, Down Chickens). The game is pretty straightforward, as explained by Wikipedia:
“The captain of one team takes a coin and passes it under the table to the second person of the team. The players on that team pass the coin under the table back and forth from one player to another. The object of the game is to do it so carefully that the opposing team cannot guess which player has the coin.
Once this selection is made, the opposing team’s captain yells “Up Jenkins” at which point all players on the team with the coin place their elbows on the table with their hands, closed in a fist, pointing straight toward the ceiling. The opposing team’s captain then yells “Down Jenkins” , at which point the “coin” team slams their palms face-down on the table. The goal of this stage of the game is to conceal the “clink” of the coin on the table to confuse the other team as to where the coin is.
In the guessing phase of the game, the non-coin team selects palms, one by one, in an attempt to isolate the coin as the “last palm standing.” Where the games is played in conjunction with alcohol, successful isolation results in the coin team drinking. Failure to do so results in the non-coin team drinking. The quantity of alcohol consumed per round is a matter of house rules or local variation.2“
I thought the night was going pretty well, but of course someone had to throw a wrench into the whole thing. So Pam and Roy had been doing pretty well lately as they worked to rebuild their relationship after calling off the wedding last year. Turns out, Pam called off because she and Jim kissed at Casino Night last year and she decided this was the time and place to tell Roy about it. Well, Roy and his brother (Kenny) start wrecking the bar so I think we know how well Pam is at reading the situation. Those of us still around got out pretty dang fast after that; I suppose glass flying in the air beats a lot of our other teambuilding days at the office.
And that was today’s Breakdown! I hope I was able to give you some advice into arranging your next cocktail party, I’m starting to think I need to designate an entire segment just to the Party Planning Committee where I can help you plan your parties. And I provided some shocking news about Jim and Pam, I wonder what Roy is going to do about this? Guess we will have to wait until next week to find out! Until then, please remember that Teeb Con is coming up in a few weeks, and if you haven’t gotten your tickets please head on over to https://mnswca.org/teeb-con-2024 where you can also review and sign up for any of the number of tournaments going on, including Magic the Gathering. Plus, special guests including Leilani Shiu known for her work with the Star Wars universe and Martin Klebba from Pirates of the Caribbean. Besides seeing you at Teeb Con, I can’t wait to see you all again next week right here at the Breakroom.
- Leonhardt, R. Walter (1963). “44”. Las 77 Inglaterras [The 77 Englands] (in Spanish). Translated by Aguilera, Joaquín. Madrid: Ediciones Cid. p. 170. Depósito legal M. 16.467 -1963. ↩︎
- Up Jenkins. (2024, March 31). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Jenkins#:~:text=5%20References-,Gameplay,which%20player%20has%20the%20coin. ↩︎
