Kirkland and Ellis

Wedding? Nope, a law firm. Associate lawyer casino party at the River East Art Center. Fig team: Andrew and myself.

Learns: be part of the planning process sooner when they are deciding where to place everything. The casino tables were on the other end of the room from where we were. It was hard for the sound to reach the tables and the party was basically where the tables were. I felt like we weren't part of the party and stopped having fun once the guests started gambling. The room we were in wasn't very full, there were less people there than they had expected. The guests in our room very accurately reflected what I was feeling. Why? Because the party is a reflection of myself. Don't get it? My vibe and energy gets transmitted through the music I play and gets absorbed by the people hearing it. Wild, huh? Anyway, Andrew was helping me figure out the dynamic in the room so I could have better direction in where to go. This is something that Andrew does really well. The best piece of information he gave me was that the people who were at the casino tables were doing what they were supposed to do. It's a casino party, so they are gambling. The people who didn't want to be part of the party were in our room and it was like trying to wake the dead. Broad generalization that accurately reflected my feelings of wanting to belong to the group who was playing and having fun and feelings of rejection because that's not what was happening. After Andrew gave me that piece of info (the first part, not the latter), I made a decision that I was going to have fun regardless of the people in the room. Once I made that decision, people started dancing. Still don't believe that the party is a reflection of myself? Overall, people had fun, but it's hard to gauge because there wasn't that many people there and everyone was spread out.

--Jonathan