Spam & Xmas parties

Any of you, gentle readers, who find yourselves down in the dumps during the stressful holiday season, are welcome to come down to the newspaper office and browse through the incredible diversity of spam e-mail we get. Just give me some advance notice that you’d like to look at this stuff.
In case you are unfamiliar with the term, spam e-mail is pretty much what it sounds like it would be - namely, Junk. It bears a family resemblance to the junk mail you get in your mailbox almost every day, except we don’t get coupons for a dollar off the price of something we don’t want and wouldn’t use, nor do we get return address stickers from charitable organizations attempting to raise money.
No, Indeed. What we get is a continuing soap opera of reputable organizations (and some not so reputable) trying to get their message into the newspaper free of charge. For the most part, these are commercial businesses who attempt to disguise advertisements as press releases or public service messages.
This type of spam really doesn’t bother me so much. I won’t use it in the newspaper, but I understand the motivation of the public relations guys who sent it. No harm, no foul. But ever since September 11, we’ve received a fairly steady stream of such stuff from companies who are clearly trying to make a profit off what happened in New York and Washington on that day. They wrap their messages in American Flags and suggest that any newspaper editor who doesn’t publish it is not only un-patriotic but also probably working for an arab terrorist front organization.
For the record, these guys have a lot in common with vultures and critics. You know what a critic is, don’t you? It’s somebody who comes in after the battle is over and bayonets the wounded.
Of course, along with the genuinely offensive e-mail, we also get a healthy supply of just plain goofiness. Last week, I got one from a woman with the unfortunate name of Merry Meyer.
I mean this lady’s parents were in severe need of counseling. Their misdirected sense of humor in naming their child no doubt had something to do with her decision to make a career as the public relations director for an on-line job search outfit called Office Team.
These folks went to all the time, trouble and expense to survey 150 executives in the nation’s 1,000 largest companies, or so they say. I’m not that great at math, but even I can figure out that at least 850 of those companies didn’t make the survey.
Anyway, the crucial information provided by this survey concerns the waning popularity of the annual office Christmas party. So, like, who cares? Somehow I find it difficult to work up much of an emotional response to whether or not the poor suckers who find themselves stuck in meaningless dead-end jobs with enormous, faceless companies are getting a big charge out of the office Christmas party.
Merry, good little P.R. person that she is, went so far as to include some helpful tips on how to make your office Christmas party more appealing. These included “get feedback - management’s idea of a good time may differ from that of the rest of the team. Poll employees at every level for opinions on what food to serve, the location of the party, and more. People who have a say in the process are more likely to attend.”
Well, do tell.
I’d be willing to bet that the Budweiser and beer nuts provided by management in the company lunch room wouldn’t have nearly the positive response of champaign and shrimp cocktails served at the local country club like the employees want.
Over my long and speckled professional career, I’ve attended a number of office Christmas parties with quite a few different organizations. Some of them were very different, indeed.
I must report, however, that I have never encountered the wild, drunken debauchery that has become the popular conception of the big company Christmas party. I guess I’ve just been going to the wrong parties.