Friday, February 03, 2006

Chinese New Year Dinner Party

Today is my company's DnD which is also our Chinese New Year Party. My department was in charge of the party last year and had a resounding success, as a result, we were being tasked to do it again this year. Which is a big mistake.

Our department is tiny, with only 7 people, and that includes my big boss, who is never around (jet set life wor, he have the Kris flyer card, the highest level attainable one). So how is 6 people going to organize a dinner party for 500 in a time span of 2 months, with minimal budget and having our normal daily work?

It's a mammoth task and due to the success last year, we have overwhelming response. We only targeted 500 pax for the dinner but 2 weeks ago, we already had 500+ who RSVP-ed. It's crazy man.

We got an events company to help out, but they are blood suckers!! They charge us like nobody's business and we had to negotiate and negotiate..

Worst, I think they are too complacent and thus a lot of things are not done properly, a lot of last minute things. Like the lion dance. Today's the dinner and only on Wed did they tell me that their troop cannot make it down and ask me for help! Duh! I offered to help a long time ago but they did not want it, fine then, just one less call for me. Then now they want it again! Duh! Waste my time leh!

But let's not talk about the events company, my department is also one kind. I'm in charge of the menu, so I had to call the hotel to talk about the dishes and such. And guess what, last week, before chinese new year, I was talking to the events manager about the menu and she told me that the events contract is not signed yet!! The event is only a week away and it's not signed?! That's why it was very hard for me to negotiate the different dishes with them, coz the contract is not even signed! Duh!

Always do these kinda last minute work! Irritating!

Then someone came up with this stupid idea that the girls in the department are supposed to dress up as Princess. Fine with that, since Chinese Princess is easy mah, then my China colleague can help us buy the costumes in China. But guess what? Some stupid person suggested that we should dress up as princess of different countries! Duh! How to go find? It's difficult enough to find one country's costumes, now they want 5 different countries. What the fuck are they thinking of?

Nvm, so yesterday I went down to somewhere near Beach Road to rent a thai costume (I don't even know how am I going to claim back the 60 bucks for rental). It's not royalty, not princess, but I don't give a damn. And it looks kinda ugly, coz it don't fit well but then again, I don't give a fuck. Damn pissed right now, so I don't care!

That brings me to another point. This costume is for one time and that's it. One of my colleague is supposed to dress up as an Indian princess, so she went down to Little India and got herself saree and accessories.. guess how much she spent? A freaking 140 bucks!? Hello.. that's little India, you can get a saree for less than 20 bucks lor. Ok, maybe she needs to get something a little more presentable, but 100 bucks for a saree?! Silk one ar, hello.. it's for one time wearing only.

And 40 bucks on accessories. She can just go buy all those cheap cheap metal pieces lor. I really wonder how she managed to spend so much. Not her money then don't bother? Our budget is way off liao lor.

Damn sianz over this whole dinner thing, I was so tempted to call in sick today. So so tempted.

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