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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (298585)	11/29/2004 2:11:25 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Between gold, oil and metals of various sorts, its been a very good year.... can't "blame" it all on Bush although certainly energy is getting a spike because of him, in part. Well done shrub! But even there, he has help. The global energy supply race continues. Energy-hungry China frantic for new supplies Beijing looking to Canada and beyond for sources of oil, gas, electricity and coal Monday, November 29, 2004 - Page B3 theglobeandmail.com

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (298585)	11/30/2004 9:14:16 AM
From: Pogeu Mahone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

a little reminder for the CFZ:``Falling down drunk is not good.'' -g- Office Party 101: The dos and don’ts of holiday bashes By Jay Fitzgerald Tuesday, November 30, 2004 Oh, they'll remember. How could bosses forget? The inebriated employee slurring words, the skimpy dress, the obnoxious uninvited guest, the flirting with a boss' spouse, the not-so-subtle stolen food bulging out of a coat pocket, the worker who blew off a party or, equally risky, stayed too late. ``Holiday parties are fraught with career dangers,'' warns Rosanne Thomas, head of Protocol Advisors Inc., a Boston consulting company specializing in business protocol and etiquette. ``Employees think it's a social occasion - but it's not. It's still business.'' Holiday parties are also brutal business if a worker engages in a little too much merriment - and a boss makes a mental note of it or a rival uses an embarrassing episode against an employee. ``People are still making assumptions about you at these events,'' says Hilka Klinkenberg, founder of Etiquette International, a New York consulting company. ``If (bad behavior) doesn't go down in an employment record, it still remains in the memory.'' Ah, the war stories etiquette professionals have heard from the holiday-party trenches. There's the young and aspiring investment banker who showed up at a party in a black lace minidress, with certain extremely revealing see-through spots, who was the talk of the office-cooler crowd the next day. She couldn't quite be seen in the same professional light after her risque holiday exhibition, Klinkenberg noted. That and other fashion tales prove the need to carefully follow rule No. 2 at office holiday parties: Dress appropriately. What's rule No. 1? Go easy on the booze, especially at an open bar, experts say. The list of holiday-party overimbibing horror stories is too long to recount, though one can never neglect to mention the human resources director at a major U.S. company who made it to the front page of The Wall Street Journal for getting smashed and dancing on a table during a holiday bash. ``You can't beat that one,'' Klinkenberg said. Go easy on the finger foods, too. ``I almost got killed once in a shrimp stampede,'' former John Hancock chief David D'Alessandro recalled in an anecdote from his 2003 book ``Career Warfare.'' ``The hotel pulled out these big bowls of shrimp,'' D'Alessandro wrote. ``People reacted as if the hotel had served up bowls of gold coins instead. They were stuffing shrimp into plastic bags that were lining their suit pockets. Funny, not one of the shrimp stuffers was ever promoted by me.'' The lesson: You're always being judged. Experts urge the following if you can't stay away from the punch bowl: Don't sidle up next to the boss and complain what's wrong with the company, management or other colleagues. Don't ask for a raise or promotion. Don't hit on a stranger. It just might be - and has proven to be at some holiday gigs - the boss' spouse or significant other. And, of course, ``don't fall down,'' Thomas notes. ``Falling down drunk is not good.'' Other holiday-party tips to avoid career setbacks: don't bring uninvited guests; do RSVP; don't RSVP but do the opposite of what you said you'd do; do mingle with guests; don't hang out with the malcontents snickering at others. And, it's worth repeating: Don't fall down.