The Christmas goose was made out of bamboos

I crashed the “holiday” party of a certain company whose business plan makes no sense. Sadly, I think every corporate Christmas party I've ever experienced has topped this one by far. Still, there was free food and drink, so it was probably worth sneaking in.

The party comprised a booze-and-snack phase, a corporate announcement phase, a gambling and dinner phase, and the gift giveaway phase. I have been to plenty of fake casino parties, and this one totally lacked the typical 'zazz. More interesting was when one woman tried to blow the CEO, her fiancé interceded, and there was much disdain as it was revealed that he was a college dropout.

After the casino people packed up their tables, people exchanged their chips for raffle tickets. They ran out of raffle tickets before everyone had cashed in their chips. Already this seemed convoluted and broken to me, but it wasn't just a simple raffle.

The CEO announced that he had absolute power and was gonna shake things up and make them more interesting. Each time a raffle ticket was drawn, the “winner” would have the opportunity to open a new gift bag or to swap for one of the gifts already claimed. When he said this, two people next to me clutched each other and squealed that it was just like The Office, because, well, someone had obviously been inspired by the “Yankee Swap” featured in episode #2.16 of the American version of the show of the same name.

Horrifying.