Career Limiting Move #1

It would be the Canada City May Two Four Weekend aka Victoria Day Weekend 1997 and the first time I actually got two dates with two different women on the same weekend.

What happens? My boss (and owner of the small firm I worked for) decided to bring in ALL his engineering staff to test a new product that was going to be shipped on Tuesday (I was techsupport/ field apps and had no role in product design (except bitching about it.)) Goodbye two dates. Hello tedium. I was in charge of doing the environmental tests, but we had so many problems with the firmware that I spent most of my time with my thumb up my ass.

Then we were told that the customer on Sat aft (sent Friday but boss didn't read his goddamned email) that they wanted to push the roll out by two weeks.

Great.

I was super pissed about the whole thing. Obviously, being the junior man on the totem pole meant that I have to eat more than my share of shit and smile from time to time, but I was not happy about the concern whoring panic from the boss man.

Any way, the boss decides to pay for beers and dinner because he felt a little guilty. My boss, who is Vietnamese, chose a Viet karaoke bar. Unfortunately, the only beer they had for some reason was Bud. Being annoyed and pissed off, I didn't care and ordered two beers. I polished them off in about a 20 minutes by then the waitress came by and I ordered another.

An hour later, I had six beers in me on a now half empty stomach. The boss had left early and I was there with the remaining staff.

At this point I was pretty damn drunk which was fine. I didn't have a car and took the bus to work. My supervisor lived a couple of klicks away so I bummed a ride off him when I worked late.

Karaoke started. I don't understand why my fellow cousins (asians) insist on singing really sappy love songs for Karaoke. Despite being sloshed, I did not sing but it did make me want to drink some more. A half hour later and three beers more beers in the system, I realized that I was really far gone when I slurred my words.

The table rose up to hit me in the face and apparently, I passed out face down for about a good 40 minutes before everyone decided to go home.

I woke up and then puked a little on the table. In one of the most dickish moves I've ever done, as I was leaving I turned to the waitress and slurred with a grin, "I left a little something on the table for ya." The look on her face told me that I'd better never return to this restaurant.

I puked some more in the parking lot.

My supervisor told me to let him know if I was going to puke when he dropped me into the passenger seat of his BMW. I mumbled something and promptly passed out.

I awoke some 20 minutes later when my stomach finally had enough. I remember DeeLite's "Groove is in the Heart" playing on the radio as I tried to warn my supervisor about my impending upchucking. It was a race between the air and my stomach. The Air lost.

As I projectile vomited, I realized where I was and threw my hands up to, er, catch it. I failed.

When we arrived at my parents house, I fell out of the car and vomited on the driveway as I crawled to my parents door.

My supervisor yelled at me to be at work at 8:30 or I would be fired.

When I opened the door, I stared back at my mom's concerned face.

"What happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it."

I decided to shower with my clothes on that night, changed and passed out in my bed.

The next morning I discovered that there was no Aspirin in the house and that my smart mouth isn't always that smart. My mom decided that she would drive me to work and yelled at me the whole way after she asked me "What the hell was I thinking?" and I replied with my terminal smart ass way, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

My supervisor found me at 1:30pm passed out in front of the company building and had a somewhat good laugh at my expense.

Needless to say, I was not fired but I was the butt of many an office joke for about three months.

What really sucked? Someone showed me the bar bill later. There were 17 beers in total, of which 9 were mine. I literally out drank the table to the point where I put myself under it.

Lessons learned?
1) My limit for drinking on an empty stomach? 8 beers.
2) Karaoke is bad for your health
3) Removing puke from a BMW leather interior is not easy
4) Booze and work don't mix
5) The world does not appreciate smart asses