Christmas Party Team Builder Event

Just a funny work story. This year for work we decided to try something different and had a full Italian dinner catered in. It was to die for and trust me we took our taste testing lunches very seriously. The only downside to the caterer we chose is that we had to serve it, but no cooking or dishes! With a great team we handled the serving part with no issues.

So the menu... We had penne ala vodka, lasagna, grilled veggies, eggplant rollatini, sausage & peppers, awesome salad and tons of desserts! We decorated with really cool paper tablecloths (note to self DO NOT USE PAPER!), lights, bows, the works. The tablecloths were not my idea and I would not have bought them for the food serving table - just the eating table, but that is another topic for another day. They delivered the food and we had it set up on the warming trays with sterno to keep it hot. (note to self sterno is HOT). See a trend here... paper and hot? Now I had tons of helpers - at least 12. No one thought that the sterno would get so hot as to catch the paper on fire. The paper was backed with plastic. (note to self plastic is smoky when on fire!)

15 minutes to chow time we are all getting suited up with aprons and Santa hats and my boss comes out of the room with all the food and says very calmly that we have a problem and he needs help. No mention of fire and no panic on his part. So we all go into the room and he thinks we can put it out with our hands or something. LOL! We start moving the pans and pulling out the burning tablecloths. At this point I yell for someone to grab one of the 120 fire extinguishers that we have in the building - we do training on how to use them every year. Smoke is filling the room and people are freaking out that the food is going to be ruined and we will have 80 hungry people on our hands. Fortunately we didn't uncover the food yet and it is TIGHTLY sealed. And fortunately Bob the fire extinguisher man has great aim and carefully puts it all out while we all cough and gag and try to save stuff. This is where the term Team Builder comes in - we had to work together to save the food! There is white dust everywhere! Smoke is everywhere and people are freaking that the sprinklers will go off. I'm thinking it has to be hot to set them off and am the only person to know this random fact. Turns out I was right - thank God - can you imagine water being added to this mess? ugh.

I am laughing at this point - what can you do? The only thing lost was some bread. I couldn't tell if it had the white dust on it, but assumed it did since it was all over everything so I pitched it. With 10 minutes left the team managed to wash down the floors, get the huge fans going to suck out the smoke, pull the rest of the tablecloth off, re-light the sterno's and start serving food. It was fine - it was tightly sealed. Actually it was very good and I was more than starving at this point. It was killer to have to serve it and wait to eat.

So lessons learned upon the investigation of the fire (we investigate every safety incident at work with a team - no exceptions.... part of my job - LOL! for real!):
Next year no paper tablecloths backed in plastic.
Wait make that NO tablecloths of any kind.
Water would put out the fire and not make a mess.
DO not break up bags of ice over the pop cans in the cooler. They explode.
We need 300 servings of food to feed 80 people. Those men can eat!
DO NOT put the left overs in the office fridge because 3rd shift will come take it all.
Eat the cannoli's the day of the party or they get soggy.
Ok they didn't come up with all these, but a few of them - the others I added to make it better next year.