The Software Engineer’s Christmas🎄Party
Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash
I don’t know about your place, but our company has a big Christmas party in early December each year. This year they are determined to make the party the biggest and the best ever.
Remember, don’t post anything on social media.
Sexism to the rescue
In the enforced fun it became obvious that the CEO had some interest in some of the younger girls in the business.
A message had gone out to the male staff members that formal attire would be required, but nothing of the sort was featured in the communications to female staff members. Verbally? They were encouraged to dress in as few clothes as possible allowing senior management to see rather more of their staff than might be expected.
Rock and Roll?
It’s not up to me to be prudish. I really thought the free bar that opened early in the afternoon would be more than enough for our group of developers to have a very Merry Christmas.
It certainly seemed enough for one junior developer who became incapable after downing several shots and had to be carried back to their room.
The team building event instead took on a more chemical nature to some in the toilets at the plush hotel. Who said that rock and roll is dead? I’m pretty sure that they didn’t mean our back-end developers.
Opting out
This isn’t to say that the few over 30s in the organization didn’t display good behavior. Many came up with inventive excuses to stay away or retreated to their rooms when things became more heated.
Yet those staff are often told that they are not “team players” and that the company has looked elsewhere for promotion candidates.
It’s not what you know sometimes, it’s about playing the right game with the right people in order to win.
Certainly, some were playing this better than others this Christmas.
But in Software Development, everything is fair. Right?
So, what happened next?
You probably already know this.
The behavior continues on all sides.
Nobody learnt anything.
Next year’s party? It’s going to be the same.