- CPE Classes: Being a CPA, I have to complete 40 hours of continuing professional education per year. Throughout the year I take a bunch of hour long free cpe webinars to get a lot of my hours, but every year I get to kick off the holiday season with a two day local conference full of exhilarating accounting talk. I’ve been going since my first job out of college a million years ago. It’s fun getting out of the office for a few days and seeing old colleagues, but it gets real boring real fast. It’s always the Thursday and Friday before Thanksgiving and it’s always decorated up for Christmas. Like Christmas Town decorated. For a number of years we were leaving right after this conference for a Thanksgiving week at Disney World. That made the conference exciting because I was done with work and leaving for fun right after. Unfortunately, it has made the years we weren’t going to Disney World pretty depressing, because all I had to look forward to was discussions on lease accounting, fraud, and effective excel shortcuts. This is one of those years.
- Potluck Lunches: Why, why, why, why? Why do we have to make work even worse by making things more complicated and less fun? A day is always picked 2 or 3 days before the holiday to force us to stay in for lunch and have to eat everybody’s crappy food. Then we still have to come in to work for those few days after and act like we haven’t already celebrated. If we have to do this thing, why can’t it be on our last day of work? Celebrate, leave, holiday. Nothing about this is fun. The list of what to bring, the politics of the nazis who organize it, the money spent, the dragging in of your food item, and the realization that after all that effort – your dish was barely touched…
- Being Reminded that the Homeless Only Need Food and Shelter During the Holiday Season: I mean, that’s what all the charities and media stories tell us, right? It’s almost Thanksgiving, so bring that food item to the food bank collection boxes at your local event! The homeless have plenty to eat the rest of the year, but come Thanksgiving and Christmas….
- Holiday Decorations: And the complaining that they are not religious enough, thus we must do the kind, understanding, and charitable thing and – Boycott, Boycott, Boycott! Just as Jesus would’ve done.
- Concerts!: My daughter plays the violin and piano, so for the next month we will be treated with no fewer than 4 holiday season concerts and recitals. Holiday music, dressing up, new outfits, rehearsals, churches, racing to venues after work and school, coordinating family and friends, crying kids in the audience. But also a lot of really great performances…
- Illogical Behavior: Now, it is illogical to bring a live tree into your house, wear really ugly sweaters, cover your house in lights, spend tons of money, listen to songs over and over again that you don’t really like, go outside in the cold and sing, and hang out with a bunch of relatives? Right? Right? No?
- Drinking: See above.
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