A bad day at work (in a post which has absolutely nothing to do with SL or naturism for once).

There’s a Christmas dinner coming up…and we’re being asked to state our intentions in August. Furthermore, the cost is £50 per head. We live in an era of ‘austerity’, and quite frankly I don’t want to spend fifty quid on a dinner with people ( (mostly) am glad to see the back of on a Friday evening, much less spend extra time with them.

More importantly, less facetiously, I resent the idea of spending £50 on a meal. It offends me. The ingredients are likely to cost…what? £5-10 a head? Less?

Yes, I know I’m paying for ‘the location’, ‘the waiting staff’ (probably on minimum wage), ‘the chef’ (who, unless he’s Michelin starred, won’t be on huge wages) and everything else, but still…where’s my £40 going?

Despite untold pressure to sign up (‘Oh, come on, it’ll be fun…the chance to mix with senior management and impress), I’ve said ‘No’. I would presume my chance to ‘impress senior management’ should be more fixed on my capacity to do my job well, not ‘scrub up well’ at a dinner. I’m probably being silly in that assessment, of course…

And I’ve said ‘No’ because I can spend the evening with someone I love, having a quiet dinner for two, with things cooked they way I like them, with music I like playing, with the candlelit atmosphere I like twinkling, and I can send £40 to Unicef, to eradicate hunger around the bits of the world not buying into this ludicrous set of bourgeois values which don’t impress me. Approaching Christmas, the idea of having filled some hungry child’s belly impresses me more. It should you too.

So, come on, when they’re asking you to buy a ticket for this Christmas’ works-do, don’t be afraid to say ‘no’, and say it for the reasons outlined above.

Trine