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Okay, so today is 16th of December, and it's getting towards the end of 2023, which is insane
to think about. But yeah, so last week, my boss hosted a holiday party. It's a bit early, but
you know, he wanted to be considerate of people who are leaving for holidays earlier, and
then, but what I didn't think he was considerate about is that he hosted on Saturday night.
Weekends. Like, it's a work holiday party. Yeah, yeah. And like, I mean, he's a nice guy,
but he's still my boss, and I have people, I have better things to do than seeing my boss
on a Saturday night. We're not that friend, you know? Why did he choose Saturday night?
I don't know. I think because his wife also works, and you know, because they hosted it at his place.
Maybe he wanted to make sure that like, his, like, him and his wife are both available or something.
But like, this could have been Friday night at most, right? Usually, at least in my US labs,
when we had that kind of holiday gathering, it was like, weekday at like, 5pm so that people
can get off work early, and you know, have an excuse to have nice food and drink at boss's
expense, usually. So like, that I understand, but like, Saturday night? Come on.
So, I don't know if you're planning a bonenkai with your lab, but don't do it on Saturday.
I already had a bonenkai. Oh, you did? Yeah, yeah. Okay, that was quick.
I think it was Thursday night. Okay, see? See? You did the sensible thing of hosting it on Thursday
night. Yeah, I've never hosted, you know, bonenkai on a Saturday or Sunday night.
People, yeah, I don't think people would like it. Yeah, I mean, I think a decent number of us came
because many of us are here on our own, like, rather than with families, so we have like,
less family commitment to negotiate with. Like, a lot of married people, even, are like, here
in Hong Kong alone because, you know, their spouse's work cannot be in Hong Kong or something
like that. So, I mean, it worked out fine, there was good attendance and party was nice, but like,
yeah, come on, it's not Saturday, man. Yeah. Anywho, I feel like holiday work parties in
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different cultures, like, let's say you're going from Japanese bonenkai culture to
American western style, like, home parties or like, Nishoku party style. I think it can be awkward,
so, and I, at least, I didn't find it extremely fun at first. Yeah, like, at first, I was just
like, oh, this is like the most awkward gathering because, you know, it's work people and we don't
really have common things other than work and none of us want to talk about work. So, what do you do
then, right? And I think I have now experienced decent number of holiday gathering to know a trick
or two, so I wanted to share this with you and the listeners. Number one, which is very important
and it's very helpful, but it also depends on the host family, but hang out with their pets.
What? Hanging out with their dogs, their cats, the host family's pets. Oh,
so that's, yeah, during the party? During the party, like, you know, if you don't really know
what to talk with your work people or you're like, your favorite work people is not there yet and you
need to kill time, hang out with their dogs. Yeah, instead of standing awkwardly in a corner
with a champagne, pet the dog or pet the cat, you know, unless you are severely allergic,
that's usually a guaranteed fun time and unlike humans, you don't need to make conversation
with dogs or cats and the most important thing is that you look busy, you look like you're doing
something, so people, when they want to talk to you, can either say, oh, Asami looks busy with a
dog, so I'm gonna leave her alone or I'm gonna talk to Asami about the dog, which is a common
conversation topic. I see. So this is, again, hinges on the fact that one, the host family
needs to have a dog or cat or any pettable pets, not like, I don't know, snakes, you know,
but number two, that you're not allergic to these furry companions, so if you can pass
these two conditions, I highly recommend hanging out with the host family's pets. Okay, good to know.
Number one, yeah, and number two, again, this also depends on the exact layout of the home,
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the party set up, but usually a home party is happening like when your lab boss is hosting a
party, unless they're doing it at a restaurant or something, it's usually at their place,
their home, right? Yeah. And asking the host, which is likely your boss or the boss's spouse,
you know, wife or husband or some partners, of the host for a house door is a good way to kill,
this will get you maybe, depending on how big the house is, five to ten minutes of looking busy.
Nice, okay. And perks is that you get to see a little bit more private side of your bosses,
you know, because like your living room and kitchen, they're all impeccably ready to host
people, but maybe the basement or maybe their hobby room or maybe their backyard and like
things like that, and if they have a nice house, especially usually they're not mad about giving
a house door, so this only works, again, if one, they agree to do the house door, and two, if they
have a nice enough house to do the house door, but it will give you five to ten minutes where
you don't really have to make a conversation, but you can do something and look busy.
I see, I see. Yeah, and it's funny, so like that's how I found out that I,
at the time I found out that my boss has a billiard table in a hobby room, and once I found
it out, enough people were interested in billiard that like we just played billiard the entire night
without actually having to sit down and have a conversation, so that was nice,
and I also found out that he likes whiskey, he has like a shelf full of whiskey collections,
so it was very easy for me to ask my parents to grab some Japanese whiskey as a thank you when
they came to the fence, and I've never seen him happier than when I gave him a bottle of hibiki to him.
You know, we have numbers exchanged in case of emergency, but we never really used each
other's number, right, but the night I gave him the whiskey, I got a selfie of him with a little glass
looking extremely happy saying, please thank your parents for bringing this all the way from Japan,
and I was like, clearly this is the happiest I've ever seen him.
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I am now his favorite student. No, I don't know that yet, but yeah, it was funny though because
I didn't realize, I didn't know, I don't know anything about whiskey, my parents also don't
know anything about whiskey, so they picked the one that was like famous, right, and hibiki
means resonance in English, right, and I mean, it's more like musical resonance,
like harmonious resonance, but in our research, we do resonance ionization spectroscopy, so we were
like, hey, that's kind of cheeky little trick too, that we are, you know, it's like I'm giving you,
my research advisor, a resonance whiskey. Yeah, so nice. So, I don't know, I, well, you said you're
already done with the bonenkai, and I guess these two tips don't really apply for your Japanese
bonenkai style. Yeah, it was just like 10 of my love members, they just, oh, and there were two
who are not love members, but we've been knowing for a while. Yeah, unofficial love mates. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, exactly, unofficial love mates, so we just, you know, get drunk and then
talk about all sorts of stuff, like science related in one corner, and the other corner,
it was, there was, I'm not sure what they were talking about, but they were talking about
something, so it was just the regular chatting and gossips, and lots of gossips. I feel like
that's very different from, like, western style. Yeah, very different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Christmas
parties, very different. Yeah, if for this holiday season, you need to attend these things,
one of these home parties, and you don't really know what to do, how to behave yourself. Right.
Yeah, small talks. Hopefully, these two tips are helpful. Yeah, go find a dog, cat, whatever,
and also ask for the house tour. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening, and find us on X at Eigo de Science, that is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C.
See you next time!
