penfield | Restau-Rant

"By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day"
- Robert Frost

This week is Board Week at my place of employment. Thrice annually, the corporate bigwigs (or, perhaps more accurately, corporate comb-overs) from our individual member companies gather together to fret about oppressive regulation, incipient legislation, ongoing litigation and the generally dire state of things, while eating overseasoned salmon.

The meeting itself is achingly depressing, interspersed with stretches of soul-crushing boredom (unless you are a lawyer, in which case you consider it not only mildly interesting but immensely profitable). The week preceding the actual meeting, however, is electric with activity here in the office. There are PowerPoint presentations to craft and decorate, background materials to locate and post to the Web site, agendas to tweak and re-tweak and un-tweak and tweak again.

As the communications director, I have a key role in the organization and distribution of these materials. I am essentially the hub of this activity. And like most hubs, I find myself spun around at twice the speed of the perimeter while being pulled inside out via centrifugal force.

Despite this stress and suffering, neither the preparation for the board meeting nor the meeting itself are the most insufferable aspect of the week. I can live with dullness and drama -- I excelled at it for four years in high school -- but I cannot abide the artificial, superficial pointlessness of the Board Dinner.

The night before the meeting, we always sponsor a dinner for board members to fatten themselves up on starch and schmooze. The meal is always some prix fixe combo straight off of the corporate menu, salty and lukewarm, just like my attitude. And at any given table, the conversation inevitably boils down to three things:
- The economy
- The flight into Washington and the subsequent taxi ride from the airport
- These kids today

I try my best to appear interested in these topics, and may even give my opinion when it is requested, but usually I just try to stay inconspicuous and avoid the weird cream sauce that is touching my vegetables. Sometimes I think that I should try harder, not just because it is ostensibly my responsibility as communications director to be at least somewhat communicative, but also because these are also the people who decide my salary and employment status.

This year, the board dinner is at Zaytinya, a wildly popular mediterranean restaurant in the heart of downtown Washington. It is the professed "favorite restaurant" of my office's president and senior vice president and is regularly listed among the best venues in the city.

And I can't stand the place. You probably already know about my aversion to the "small plates" trend, no matter how much I like the food. But since cost isn't an issue for me and the menu will be preordained, I suppose this isn't a huge issue. And I could complain that the place is so noisy -- with its loudmouthed clientele and its postmodern glass-and-steel architecture -- that it sounds like the inside of an airplane engine, but I must admit that it would only help me out by drowning out the aforementioned conversation. My fear is this: with those two enormous complaints neutralized, what if I actually enjoy the food? I would never be able to go back there.

So I have a feeling that I'm going to come down with a pounding headache on Thursday evening, the kind of headache that can only be cured by a slice of pizza and The Office.