I wish I could have gone!  Did anyone attend the Marco Pierre White Restaurant at the Chelsea Football Club in Fulham?  How was it?  Meet with interesting peers?

At one time I had a very strong network of peers and friends.  I kinda sorta still do on linkedin but if I lot my job I doubt any of them would be good leads.  As I am thinking of the next steps in my career, it is something i need to revisit.

I use my iphone for work, an Ipad on trips, we use web conferencing, have my live scribe pen, use voip for our phones, we are getting a white board that prints out what is written, yes we are pretty techy.

4th of July is not it.  :-)  I love to decorated with flowers on Easter, celebrate Canadian and US Thanksgiving, one with hubbies family, one with mine.   I think it is Thanksgiving.  At work my favorite holiday is Christmas/New Years because we get the time in between off :-)

Same as Marie, if you really abuse it .. they notice, but 99% of the population don't so it is fine.

Nope, I don't have one but your words ring true.  Right now I feel I am too late, but never say never!

For me personally, I HAVE to have my email organized.   I get SO much email everyday from 10 people I support and every company we deal with.  If I didn't keep it organized I couldn't find anything. 

I will have to remember the quiz one for .. another time.   I like it so maybe we can use it before a "holiday" season.  We did tackiest sweater and it turned out great!   Every person who wore a sweater was able to vote and the winner got the bosses regifted tackiest "business" gift.  Thanks, it turned out better and more fun than I had even hoped for.  I don't think everyone has laughed so much in the office in a long time.

Our company is struggling and our morale is a bit low this holiday season.  Does anyone have any fun office activities that don't take a lot of planning and are fun?  I am thinking one day this week we have a cookie exchanged, people bring in 3 cookies, home made or bought, and we just have fun with it.   Another idea is an afternoon holiday music guessing game, any other ideas?  I am looking for some thing that can be put together by a team of three, trying to motivate other admins, management's approval and a small budget.

Looking back at what I wanted to accomplish in 2011 I find I didn't accomplish most of what I wanted.  Economy, just bad luck, a company that is struggling.  It just didn't add up.  For 2012 I may try more "attainable" goals.  Ones that are controlled 100% by me at least.   It is hard to look at what you wanted to accomplish, and feel you have failed.  I hope others had better luck then me this year.

Long time lurker here.  I usually just read what is going on and move on but I would like some opinions today.   I work for a large company (international, over 100,000 in total) our department is 48 people.  We have always scheduled our holiday by seniority.   I have been with this company 12 years, I have 4 weeks a year.  This year another assistant was able to schedule hers first and wants the same time as I do.  She only has 2 years or less at the company!  I had had a simple medical procedure done when they filled out the schedule for this year (which was back in mid December)  It slipped my mind because taking time off was never a problem.   My sister is getting married in Italy and she is staying home but is having some company come into town.  Am I being selfish to want to take a week off when I missed the actual scheduling?   I know they would give her 1 or 2 days off but don't want both of us out at the same time for a full week or more.  I have asked for it and was told, talk to this other person and work it out.  I think she is avoiding me because she knows what I am going to ask?  What would you do?