The Christmas party. At the festive time of year it is custom for a company, similar to the one I work in, to have a Christmas party. Well, the Soderquist Center is a little different than most companies due to the fact that we have two Christmas parties; one for the whole team and one for each individual business unit.
As is tradition, the Christmas party for the whole team met at Andy’s (the CEO) house. The food was good. We had some fun fellowship, but this year was a little different.
Surprise #1:
Let me introduce you to Frank. Frank works on the lovely grounds at Greystone with Rex. Frank is a very outgoing guy that loves to joke around with people. A while back, Frank lost his work keys. He searched high and low for those keys checking all of his pockets. But they were not to be found….. or were they?
After dinner on that afternoon at the team Christmas party, Andy had a special announcement. Frank’s keys were found, but where they were found was the interesting. Upstairs in the Greystone Estate, there is a sitting room that has a couch that you just sink into. A cushion of that couch was lift and Frank’s keys magically appeared.
When Rex handed Frank his keys, Andy stated an interesting observation. “Nothing really falls out of your pocket when you sit down, it usually only happens when you lay down. So Frank, what exactly were you doing?”
Surprise #2:
Lynette, my roommate from college who currently has my boss’ old job, sent me a picture that she found in her file of Gary when he first started working at Indiana Wesleyan University. The pictures are so priceless that it was important to reveal them at the right time and in the perfect way.
Well that perfect way came this Christmas. I rounded up a few accomplices to help with the special project. Each had the assignment to get a picture of the rest of the directors that had the same priceless quality that the picture of Gary possessed.
I must say that I picked the right people to do the job because they came through with flying colors.
The final product was a Christmas card that had all of their pictures on the inside top of the card so when the card was opened it had the element of surprise that would only produce a great reaction.
After all of the staff signed a card for their head director, the cards were presented to the directors as the lined up in the front of the room. All the effort was worth it as they opened the card and a wave of expressions swept over their faces. It was so great!
Surprise # 3:
Showguns Japanese Restaurant was were the Experiential Learning team and the Leadership Development team went for our business unit Christmas party. Our chefs did a fine job of entertaining us but the highlight was the awards ceremony. Many of the staff didn’t know about this portion of our event so it was a great surprise.
Some of the best awards:
Bob received the #1 OCD (#1 obsessive compulsive driller) award. When you put a drill in that boy’s hands that has a 36 in bit on it, he just starts drilling holes in things that don’t need a hole drilled in it.
Dusty was awarded the Chick Magnet award included a little black book which is the prefect place to write all of the numbers from his adoring young, female fans.
Afternoon at the Lake 
Lynette's twisted-maple- jaked-full-of-carb-goodness
Mindy didn't do so well on this bowl because the flash from the camera was a bit of a distraction Whoops, my bad-> 
