2. How Vendors Celebrated XMAS
โข Since itโs the holiday season, letโs take a break from all this high
tech & business stuff to look at the human side of HIS vendors.
โข How various HIS vendors celebrate Xmas through โ
โขPARTIES!
โข Yes, despite the bottom-line profit motivation and 90-day
earnings-per-share pressures, vendors are extremely old-
fashioned when it comes to Xmas, and their parties reflect their
culture. The vendor Xmas parties I remember most fondly were:
โข McAuto โ an office โopen houseโ where you took the kids.
โข HIS Inc. โ families too, where my son first played video
games!
โข But there is one vendor in particular where no one would dare
think of bringing their kids to the wildest Xmas parties of all!
3. SMSโ First Xmas Bash
โข Way back in 1969, SMSโ first year, the firm was still pretty small
(under 50 FTEs), and there was no Xmas โtraditionโ yetโฆ
โข We were all based in King of Prussia (only 1 regional office in LA),
so when a Xmas party was announced, it drew everyone!
โข It was held at the Valley Forge Tavern (which later blew up when
a boiler exploded!) in KOP, our favorite watering hole for lunch,
and in late Dec., SMS rented out the whole joint for the party.
Pictured on the left are two young IDs
couples decked out in their finest:
- Me & my unfortunate wife Judy
- Virgil Scott & his lovely wife Carolyn
These were actual period clothes, not
costumes! 3-piece suits were just
coming into fashion back thenโฆ
4. You had to be thereโฆ
โข VP John Marshall picked up the mike and gave out
Xmas presents/awards to our two founders:
โ Jim Macaleer, our President, was given a
gift for the โLongest Hair Awardโ โ a little
odd as you can see by his distinctly non-
hirsute appearance! He proceeded to
unwrap the package only to find a comb
inside. Silence reigned in the hallโฆ
โ Harvey Wilson, Sr. VP and sharp dresser, next got a
gift for the โLoudest Tie Awardโ โ a pair of scissors,
which John removed from the box and then used
to cut Harveyโs tie in half! Everyone roaredโฆ
โข We all expected the worst, but Jim & Harvey just
joined in the laughter, enjoying the jokes & banter.
โข Johnโs daring sense of humor started me thinkingโฆ
5. My Turn Next!My Turn Next!
โข One of the most popular TV shows back then was the Dean
Martin โRoastโ series, in which a bunch of stars & comics sat
behind a long table and took turns giving mock tributes to one of
their peers, who became the object of the insults & nasty jokes.
โข After being soundly โroasted,โ the poor target was then given the
mike, and he/she lashed back at the roasters, usually giving as
many mean/funny insults as they received, many even nastierโฆ
6. XMAS Party Idea!?
โข So my warped brain dreamed up a theme for a later Xmas party
in K of P, a few years later, after SMS had grown to over 100 FTEs.
โข One day, I approached Big Jim with the idea of a group of us
mimicking Deano, and roasting him at our upcoming Xmas partyโฆ
โ (remember, I was very young and even dumber at the time...)
โข Knowing that Big Jim would probably be the recipient
of some pretty barbed wise-cracks (especially from
his younger brother Terry who I had on the dais),
โข I tried to salvage what might be left of my career by
giving Jim a book I had found chock full of insults.
โข I even gave him a list of the โTop 10โ to use on usโฆ
โข I donโt know how many of todayโs image-conscious CEOs would
have acquiesced to being roasted in front of their entire firm, but
Big Jim was never one to shy from a fight, and to my amazement,
he agreed! He kept the โLittle Book of Insultsโ & my top 10 listโฆ
7. The Big Night
โข So as the night of the Xmas party rolled around, I assembled a dais
of fellow King-Of-Prussians who also has sufficient chutzpah ( and
lack of intelligence) to dare to insult โthe manโ โ our president
(from lefty to right on the photo on the following page):
โข Jack Gontarz โ Admin. Mgr., in charge of keeping the lights on
โข John Marshall โ VP of Marketing and our Master of Ceremonies
โข Yours Truly โ looking every bit the weird hippie freak I wasโฆ
โข Big Jim โ smiling in advance of his chance to play it for tat!
โข Bill Bardwell โ a super-smart programming manager
โข Terry Macaleer โ Jimโs younger brother, famous for being his
wise-cracking ways even in supposedly formal settingsโฆ
โข It may not look as posh as Dean Martinโs roast, but we sure had
the audienceโs attention as one after another, we started to dig
into our poor President with some of the nastiest insults
9. Big Jimโs Revenge
โข One after another, we ripped into Jim big-time, assailing his:
โ โConsiderationโ for calling meetings at 6PM on Fridaysโฆ
โ Wide variety of shirts (white), ties (blue) and shoes (wing-tip)
โ Willingness to hear the other side (before saying โHell no!โ)
โข Terry Macaleer was absolutely the nastiest, digging up stories from
their childhood that would have made their mother cringe!
โข Through it all, Jim joined in the laughter as we all shot our wads,
and then he took the rostrum and proceeded to give even better
than he got! Apparently, he got the names of our โroastersโ
beforehand, and did some through homework on our foibles.
โข Surprisingly, he didnโt use any of the insults from the little book I
had given him, but instead hit each one hard with his own digs.
โข Until he got to me: then, he unleashed the very nastiest insults
from the very book that I had given him to use on the others!
10. Baddest of the Bad
โข No one else in the company knew the inside joke, as Jim hit me
with the very โTop 10โ list of insults I had given him to use on
everyone else. Some of the best (or is it worst?):
โ A demitasse would fit your head like a sombrero.
โ A guy with your IQ should have a low voice too!
โ A half-wit gave you a piece of his mind, and you held on to it.
โ A sharp tongue is no indication of a keen mind.
โข He saved this nastiest one for last.
โ (By way of background, I was the Education Manager at the
time, responsible for training new IDs (Installation Directors)
& clients in the minutia of the SHAS system; add that to my
obnoxious know-it-all personality and youโll get the point)
โ โVince Ciotti: there but for the grace of God, goes God!โ
โข The audience roared, while I shrunk very low in my chairโฆ
