Entre Les Murs

"Princeton could use a guy like..."

My office's holiday party was Friday night.  Janet left her own office well before her usual hour to make the trek that I make daily in order that she could attend.  It's much too far to grab a cab home, so we booked a hotel for the night.  This gave us a chance to look around a little in the morning.  I've been coming out to Princeton for a month now, but since I work in an office park on the outskirts I hadn't seen the town itself yet.  It reminded me of Kingston, without the lake.  We accepted a colleague's recommendation and had breakfast at PJ's Pancake house, apparently a Princeton institution.

Many of my colleagues are from South Asia, and I'd already met a few from Europe, so it wasn't too surprising that the party on Friday night turned out to be a very international affair (And blessedly free from speeches, although I might happily have traded that for the karaoke).  Since I've so recently joined the company, and so many of the people I work with day-to-day are from other offices so didn't stay for the party, I knew hardly a soul.  Without my own clique, Janet proposed that we join the table where the women had the nicest shoes.  It seemed arbitrary, but in fact the selection of companions who dressed well turned out to be a wise strategy.  It meant we were sitting with stylish people who came planning to enjoy themselves: there was a couple from France, a Dutch couple and a pair from the Côte d'Ivoire, as well as two more Canadians (we're everywhere).  I'm going to pay more attention to footware from now on.

(If you don't remember the quote in my title, it's from "Risky Business".)

posted 13.1.08