Wow, guys, you know what the only thing better than working an 11-hour day is? You might say "Nothing," but I have the answer: working an 11-hour day and then going out to a business dinner where you talk about work the whole time. Oh, but wait, stop, hold on, there's something still better than that: if you can immerse yourself in that situation but then also be conversationally marginalized the entire time, and then whenever you try to bring the topic off of work you're interrupted with non sequiturs the entire night, that's the only way the night could get even better. I swear, the older I get and the more time I spend in the professional world, the more I realize that people skills don't really have that much to do with getting ahead in the business world.
I can understand the desire to talk about work at a business dinner: everyone can relate to the topic, you get to dish all sorts of gossip, people are talking about their coworkers in a way that they would never do if they were sober, alright, that's great. Still, doesn't anyone appreciate the opportunity to really get to know the people they're working with? And do we really still have to kiss our superiors' asses outside of the office? Isn't that the time that we should be ignoring office politics more than ever in order to rebel against the onus imposed by the workplace where we spent the vast majority of our day?
Admittedly, I'm a very social person, so I'm probably just upset that everyone I work with doesn't interact with other people in the same way that I do. This whole rant makes me a bit of a hypocrite since I believe that people in general weigh communication skills too heavily when assessing someone else's intelligence and now I'm turning around and doing exactly that with my coworkers. I guess at the end of the day this blog could be viewed as a perspective on how people interact differently in social situations. Still, it's disappointing to spend three hours with a group of people that fuel the entire night's discussion with stories about themselves.
By the way, we ate a a restaurant called Koi tonight, which is a sushi place in West Hollywood that was featured in an episode of Entourage (so my coworkers tell me). The CEO of my client told me that he had been there once before for dinner with Michael Bolton and Nicolette Sheridan. There were a few paparazzi outside the restaurant tonight. The inside of the restaurant was filled with fake blonds, fake tans, fake tits, short skirts, long legs, and several older gentlemen escorting several more younger ladies.
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