Company Picnic 2008

It's that time of year again! That magical day when we celebrate the summer by getting unlimited picnic food and the afternoon off for the bargain basement price of $6. Really, you can't beat that.

The formula was really the same as every previous picnic- I ate too much food, we threw around the frisbee and I kind of felt like I was going to barf, etc. There were a few key differences though, like having it professionally catered. While this was awesome (the food was great), that meant that there was no budget for raffle prizes for the adults. So, my win streak ended at two. I feel it was a good trade-off. There were raffles for the kids- and speaking of kids, either a lot of people brought their children or I am getting old! I swear half of the picnic was high-schoolers, but I'd get close to some of them and see that they were wearing Navair badges! It's like when you go to a college football game and most of the current students don't look old enough to drive.

But here's the biggest difference from this year: I participated in the games. That's right- I usually shun all manner of organized events in favor of pickup volleyball or frisbee, but they were having trouble getting enough participants for the sponge race. One of our branch heads tracked down our group (who I until recently thought of as "the young people." I guess now we're the "30-ish childless crowd") and asked us to round out the competition. I was like "Uhhhhhhhhh....okay." Four of five of us formed a group to compete with the other teams, which were comprised of 40-ish people with their 10-ish kids. This is where my competitiveness kicked in. As the relay was in high gear I was like "C'mon people! Squeeze the sponge before you dunk it! Pull it apart under water to soak faster! MOVE IT!!" And actually, I had just eaten quite a bit of food since I wasn't planning on doing any more activities, so I asked the judge if it would count if I puked in to our bucket. Long story short, we lost by a nose. But as the winning team was awarded dollar store plastic gold medals with a big "#1" on them, my co-workers and I looked at each other with the common understanding that it was now our goal to rack up as many medals as possible before the day was through.

Next up: the sack race relay. I don't want to brag, but my team simply possessed an overwhelming height advantage and we won by a mile. Medals: 1.

Time for the 3-legged race! A coworker and I paired off on a height basis, and we had at least a head on every other team. We figured this one was in the bag! We didn't start out too well- we couldn't really get in rhythm until half way through the course, and at that point it was like finding a new gear and we shot off. But it was too late. This team of little girls shot off like a rocket right from the start, and our speed burst just wasn't enough to catch them. Next time, girls. Next time.

Event #4 was the pie eating contest. To be honest, I really felt like I was on the verge of barfing already, so I skipped it (as did all my friends). We'll just have to let that one go. I did watch, and it turns out the pies were just crust, jello and whipped cream. So even though it wasn't a real pie, the crust alone is still pretty bad, so this was a good event to miss.

Finally it was time for the volleyball tournament. This was organized by division- so you and a team of co-workers played a team of people you don't really work with. Our team was composed of me, six other people from my department, and a guy we'll call "Raffiki." Who was Raffiki? Nobody knows, because he wandered on to our side of the court a few points in to the first match and no one had ever seen him before (except that I'm pretty sure he was on the losing side of the previous match). I guess no one wanted to tell him to scram, this being a feel-good event and all, but we probably should have. 1, because this was a department vs department tournament, and he clearly doesn't work with us. 2, because the skill breakdown looked like this:

3 of my co-workers: Good volleyball players.
Me and 3 other co-workers: Competent volleyball players.
Raffiki: Destroying our team from the inside like a volleyball cancer.

And we can say that Raffiki was terrible, but that doesn't quite sum it up. I don't mean terrible in the "I meant to hit it left but it went right" or even the occasional "too-powerful hit that lands 5 feet out of bounds" ways, because God knows I'm just as guilty as anyone of those. Hell, at one point I yelled "Don't touch it! It's going out of bounds!" for a ball that landed a good two feet in bounds. No, Raffiki was terrible in that "running around the court like an ADD kid on a sugar high, swinging his arms madly at every ball that came within his reach" way. You know how some people know what they're supposed to do, but just come up short? And other people are so actively bad that they repeatedly overreach their ability and submarine their whole team? He was the latter.

I guess the best examples are when the ball was headed right for a player who yelled "Got it!" Right as he's attempting to hit it, Raffiki flies in out of nowhere and swats the ball with all his might- in the exact opposite direction of the net. It defied all logic and reason. I mean, what was he trying to do? Another time I executed a beautiful dig (if I do say so myself) and the ball was on the way to another competent player, when Raffiki runs in and bats it absolutely sideways. I think it almost made it to the parking lot. My reaction was like "I dove for that. I have sand up my shirt and down my pants, and you just carelessly pummeled the ball away." After every devastating play he'd say something like "Oops! Sorry! I'm really bad at volleyball." Then why are you trying to dominate the game!?!? He was transcending bad. It was more like he was actively trying to lose.

And let us not forget- this was a tournament game, and he wasn't supposed to be on our team. When you think about it, it's entirely conceivable that he worked for the department we were playing against and was deliberately sabotaging us. This may seem laughable for a company picnic, but you weren't there. The more I think about it, the more likely this seems.

In any case, we were down 0-6 (we played to 7) when we finally rotated into dream position: I was serving, the 3 good players were on the front line, and Raffiki was in a back corner where another teammate basically boxed him out of the action. We got 8 straight points. Medals: 2!

Withing minutes of the winning point, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain, so we all ran for our cars. Personally, I got a ton of sand in my car that I spent the evening vacuuming out. It was still may favorite company picnic so far, even without a gift card. And you better believe those plastic medals are hanging up at my desk!