Pico de Greedo
by Scott Hardie on May 4, 2014
On Friday, my company threw a part Mexican, part Star Wars party in celebration of Cinco de Mayo and Star Wars Day ("May the 4th be with you"). It was a weird combination but it worked, with games like a lightsaber piñata bash. Kelly made "lightsabers" (pretzel rods frosted with blue and red frosting), but she really got interested when I mentioned that the salsa contest offered three prizes and only had three teams on the signup sheet. She made two jars of her usual medium-hot salsa, I borrowed art from a webcomic to made a quick label, and the result won first prize, over the six other competitors that ultimately entered. The prize was just a $15 gift card to Taco Bell, but it was fun, and fun was the point. It was a good day.
It's the first time that I've entered a work contest since joining this company last fall, and really the first one in several years. I regret the way that I behaved after winning a contest at the last employer and decided not to enter any more contests as long as I worked there. That company sometimes offered really amazing prizes, like a $700 gift certificate to a local restaurant who couldn't pay their advertising bill and offered the certificate in trade, so when various bosses started hyping the "amazing" prize being offered one December, my team went nuts making a gingerbread office. We were quite disappointed with the first prize that we won, a 15-minute massage for each of us at some local parlor. The second-place team got a paid night out bowling together, which we would have much preferred. We moaned and griped about the prize so much that I came to feel really embarrassed about how entitled and ungrateful we must have seemed, and I decided that I wasn't mature enough to handle future contests. Hopefully my modest gratitude upon winning a simple lunch for two at Taco Bell this weekend is sign that I've grown.
Happy Star Ways Day and Cinco de Mayo, everybody.
One Reply to Pico de Greedo
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Moving Day
You don't think about how much unnecessary stuff you own until you're paying someone by the hour to move it all. After Kelly and I moved into our new home last night, here's the current state of our living room, guest room, and garage. The house is a mess, and so are we. Go »Great Weekend
Some people love going fishing all weekend; others prefer a romantic getaway. The perfect weekend for me these days means getting enough sleep and writing a FIN post from start to finish, since getting even one of those is a rarity. But this weekend, I put everything else aside and did both. Go »My Dinner with Amy
Nice to meet you, old friend. Go »The Time Has Come
My kingdom for an alarm clock that beeps once, gently, 60 seconds before it really begins going off. That way you're woken up comfortably and given a chance to turn it off, instead of being startled awake by loud shrieking and having to scramble for it. Go »The Honeymoon
After our wedding, it was time for Kelly and I to enjoy our honeymoon: Ten days in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the coastline between them. We (really I, with Kelly's signoff) spent weeks researching and scheduling to pull it off, and the effort was definitely worth it, as we had ten days of bliss. We rode new rides at Disneyland, toured a movie studio and historic ship, saw whales and dolphins up close, ate lunch atop a mountain, hiked among the redwoods, explored Chinatown and Alcatraz, and along the way ate some amazing food. Go »
Evie Totty | May 6, 2014
Good for you! I too have moments (too many) in my life where I let my ego run it.
And grats on the win! (It IS good stuff!)