Inevitable (?) office party thread

Leo

Well-known member
Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models Into This Year’s Holiday Parties

“Ambiance and atmosphere models” contractually obligated to pretend they’re party guests are in record demand from local agencies.

Along with a seemingly endless string of harassment and discrimination scandals, Silicon Valley’s homogeneity has a more trivial side effect: boring holiday parties. A fete meant to retain all your talented engineers is almost certain to wind up with a rather same-y crowd, made up mostly of guys. At this year’s holiday parties, however, there’ll be a surprising influx of attractive women, and a few pretty men, mingling with the engineers. They’re being paid to.

Local modeling agencies, which work with Facebook- and Google-size companies as well as much smaller businesses and the occasional wealthy individual, say a record number of tech companies are quietly paying $50 to $200 an hour for each model hired solely to chat up attendees.

For a typical party, scheduled for the weekend of Dec. 8, Cre8 Agency LLC is sending 25 women and 5 men, all good-looking, to hang out with “pretty much all men” who work for a large gaming company in San Francisco, says Cre8 President Farnaz Kermaani. The company, which she wouldn’t name, has handpicked the models based on photos, made them sign nondisclosure agreements, and given them names of employees to pretend they’re friends with, in case anyone asks why he’s never seen them around the foosball table.

“The companies don’t want their staff to be talking to someone and think, Oh, this person was hired to socialize with me,” says Kermaani, who’s sending models to seven tech parties in the same weekend.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ampaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top-stories
 

john eden

male pale and stale
It seems quote odd that John Eden should be Mr. Office Party.

I don’t love them or even particularly look forward to them? :)

But there can be good bits of them. You have to dive in and not be one of these twats who are all “oh I hate everyone I work with I never go to these things”. The social stuff makes the working day more bearable.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's photocopying your arse season again. Poetix has his tomorrow. Craner pulled at his one a couple of years ago. What's going to happen this time round?
 

luka

Well-known member
When I see the various 'teams' in their paper crowns and Christmas sweaters, shuffling off to their office parties, febrile with repressed desire and giddy with anticipation, I feel a kind of longing for belonging. Nose pressed up against the glass. It's the one time of year I envy people who work in offices. Nurturing a crush on someone for six years and never acting on it. All that romantic stuff.
 
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yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
christmas office party three years ago i went home with the most beautiful girl of the office.
christmas office party two years ago i urinated in the office. i was out of my mind drunk. my colleagues put me in a taxi and told the driver to take me home. i convinced the taxi driver to take me to a bar though and i drunk more. a colleague of mine showed up in that bar later, pure coincidence, out of all the bars in berlin she decided that one.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
The theme is "the roaring 20s" and I will be wearing a flapper dress with lots of sequins, and playing the sax solo from "Rocking around the Christmas Tree" on an electric guitar.
 

Leo

Well-known member
christmas office party three years ago i went home with the most beautiful girl of the office.

congrats! so how was the next day back in the office? did the relationship last? was it a relationship at all or just a one-night stand?
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
congrats! so how was the next day back in the office? did the relationship last? was it a relationship at all or just a one-night stand?

unfortunately she moved back to italy soon afterwards. she did send me a 7" record of ornella vanoni over the post some weeks later.

:love:
 

beiser

Well-known member
Went to one "holiday party" in the summer. (Commerce world—holiday season is peak time, so you move it out.) Very strange vibe. Very clear who was on the engineering side, and who was in business. Bit of an older, more established crowd, many folks well besuited or in very impressive cocktail attire. No planted models. I can't imagine who would do that though—you have to be big enough that not everyone will be recognized (>150 people) but small enough that dumb ideas like that still seem coherent.
 
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