Back in the day, Yahoo! used to have pretty incredible year end parties. When the Carol Bartz era began, she aggressively started cutting costs, and the year end parties were axed. Some of my co-workers who've been around for awhile (4-5 years with the company) suddenly regretted never attending those parties because they were always busy, and thought well... maybe I'll go next year. Then you have some of the newer employees who've been around for 1-2 years, and they've never experienced one of these parties. It's a bit more disheartening with the new college grads because they see classmates in similar tech companies having a blast at their year end parties. All of this changed when Marissa Mayer came on as CEO; her goal was to get morale up, and get us competitive with other tech companies as well. In November, it was decreed that we would be having a year end party again.
The party was conveniently a week after Thanksgiving. When I went through my drawer for dress pants, I realize they didn't fit anymore (no, it wasn't due to overeating during Thanksgiving), I think I bought those pants 10 years ago, and I've put on two inches since, that's not bad. So I picked up a spiffy new suit during Black Friday sales. I went with a purple and black colour scheme since purple is the company colour.
On the day of the party, I picked up some co-workers and my guest, and we were off to Pier 48 in San Francisco. It was a lovely day on the highways as there were torrential rains. On the drive up, I had to warn my party about a couple co-workers we would run into who are ..... pretty interesting. I introduced one fellow as, 'the man with no filter', in that he says whatever comes to mind, and it usually comes out wrong, so beware.
When we got to the venue, I noticed that the venue was a smaller and more intimate venue than previous years. I actually liked it better because it was easier to serendipitously bump into acquaintances and friends. The venue was divided up into a couple major sections:
Photobooths
Bollywood (featuring Indian food)
Western Theme (w/ American food and Casinos)
Lounge Area
Dance Club (featuring made-to-order sushi)
Arcade (video games and foosball)
I naturally gravitated towards the sushi bar. It was pretty awesome, there were sushi chefs making sushi on the fly for you. I asked my guest how adventurous she was feeling towards sushi, and the response was, 'very adventurous.' The "scariest" thing on the menu was eel, and she went for it. Put me down as impressed. Usually for sushi noobies, California rolls are 'adventurous'.
I bumped into a school of my co-workers half-way through. Hilarious conversations ensued:
The Man With No Filter: Ohhhh.... Chris, you brought a guest this year! Way better than the one last time. Me: Uhhh.... the last time was 3 years ago, and three years ago I came alone.
Me: Oh crap, [Stewart] is coming up, and I don't remember his wife's name. What's her name again? Co-worker: You should know Chris, you've met her before. Me: That was three years ago!
Me: Oh crap, the QA team just spotted us, and I don't know one of their names. Co-worker: Don't you work with these people? Me: Very tangentially, and they never introduced themselves to me. Co-worker: Didn't you introduce yourselves to them? Me: They learned my name because I was brought in to their team to fight off a PM. The PM asked who the heck I was, and the room went silent, and some people gasped. Then someone whispered, "That's Chris Chan, Hack Day Champion." Co-worker: That's quite the introduction. Me: Yeah, it was pretty good.
Can you tell that I'm bad with names?
(This one occurred the Monday after the party) Justine: Did you get a new haircut? It looks different. Me: Uhhh, yeah, I got a haircut for the year end party. You saw me there. I got a new suit as well. Justine: Oh I didn't notice, I was too busy paying attention to your guest. Me: Hey, supervillains have feelings too!
We spent the rest of the time enjoying an evening of music by Train. They played live at the party, apparently our SVP of Marketing had some connections and managed to book them. The music was absolutely fantastic, and the lead singer's banter and interaction with the audience was very funny. There's a couple clips of the performance floating around on the Internet such as this one below (featuring two Yahoos singing along).
We finished off the evening enjoying some of the views of San Francisco from Pier 48. There were some spectacular views of the Bay Bridge (which was lit up at night) and downtown San Francisco.
All in all, very grateful for the year end party. As I saw different co-workers, you could see that they didn't have a single worry in the world that night. Some of us from the old guard breathed a collective sigh of relief that as we looked around, we realize we made it through 2012, we're alive and still kicking. At the beginning of the year, we really didn't know if any of us would still have jobs. It was a very turbulent year and somehow things are looking up. Marissa Mayer, I think you succeeded in your mission to boost morale. Definitely one of the best parties I have ever attended in my life.
P.S. The following Monday, I saw some friends who work at Facebook lament that the Facebook Year-End Party was also at Pier 48 (the same venue), but no musical performance by Train. Kudos on making our tech company's perks more 'competitive'.
