Holiday Cheer!

Holidays? Its February? It's never too late for a good story.

What comes to mind when you think of the holidays, family, friends, presents, good food? Moses? Jesus? Many of you out there who work your nine-to-five jobs probably also associate the holidays with extended paid leave from work, holiday bonuses, and company parties. Oh what a joyous time of year, a time of cheer, and a time of glee!

I want to share with you the wondrous joyous holiday party we held this past year at GenTechs.

I received a call from Bob a week or so before Jesus' birthday (by the way, happy 2007th birthday Jesus!) and Bob wanted to know about holiday parties and traditions, as well as what days are normally taken off from work. To many of you these may seem like odd questions to ask, but you must understand that Bob is not natively from the United States, he is actually Liechtensteinian (that means he is from Liechtenstein). Based on his foreign nationality, Bob just was not aware of our lavish American customs when it comes to the holidays. Bob's first suggestion was that we rent out his entire home country of Liechtenstein for a holiday party. When Bob came down from his zealous national pride and excitement he realized the cost to do that would be too great. Finally he asked about organizing a regular party to which I replied was a good idea. The conversation ended at that point.

A week or so had passed and everyone in the office was getting ready to leave early and begin their holiday plans. I received a call from Bob, who had not been in to the office since that phone call a week earlier. Out on other business ventures, no doubt. Anyways, he said he would be there in 30 minutes and had a surprise for us and would need help to bring it up. 2 and a half hours later Bob called to say he was downstairs. I went downstairs and grabbed a box out of his car and brought it back up to the office. After waiting about 45 minutes, Bob finally finished the trip up the single flight of stairs (he must have gotten sidetracked). He called a few of us into his office and proceeded to tell us that he brought us all some special gifts for the holidays. The box was clearly from a mail order company. He opened the box and showed us various boxes of assorted snacks and chocolates... like the ones you would find in a gift basket from mail order companies around the holidays. Bob turned to us and said "I brought these for you, and, you can each take two!" Wow! the generosity! Even though it looked like the choice items had already been taken, probably by Bob's family, and it wasn't presented in the lovely gift basket format we all know and love, it was still a wonderful gesture of appreciation. Seeing the look of joy in our eyes, Bob then told us all to have a nice holiday and enjoy our unpaid vacation days.

I hope you enjoyed reading about Holidays 2007 at GenTechs as much as I enjoyed telling it.

I have decided that my next posting will be a profiling of Bob, a short biography. I wanted to give you a story of the life of the man who is responsible for this blog. I also want to inform you of the path he has taken to success so that you may one day follow in his footsteps.