canyonwalker | (Reply)

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That's a good way to describe it, structured vs. unstructured. I prefer the more unstructured gatherings. At one for former (small) company the CEO had this thing about, "There must be something to dooooo!" at holiday parties. He couldn't conceptualize that adults who know each other from work might enjoy dressing up, having a nice meal, and socializing with each other and their +1s outside of the office. So we had things like murder mystery dinners where half the attendees ignored the paid actors and just did their own thing.

That's why I like the casino nights that my spouse's company has done in past years. It's structure, but it's light structure. We can play the games, we can play them socially (dealers don't shoot us dirty looks if we talk while they're dealing), or we can skip the games and hang out.

The ping pong club last weekend was kinda like that. There was structure in that there was a ping pong tournament, though it wasn't mandatory. Maybe half the people entered. Others just volleyed balls back and forth on casual tables. And people spent a lot of time just lounging on sofas chatting with each other. The one minus to it being a casual event was that it was LOUD.