A Super Bowl Story, Not about Taylor Swift but Managers and Employees

This story is true. It happened several years ago. I’m still mad, mostly at myself.

Several months after taking a new job, just a few weeks prior to the game, I learned that my immediate supervisor threw an annual Super Bowl Party. Attendance was mandatory. Showing up to say hi and leaving early was not an option. My manager was big on making department employees attend events and stay to the bitter end.

I’m not a football fan. It’s my least favorite sport, and I don’t like team sports all that much. My boss lived at the other end of a large metropolitan area from where I lived. It snowed hard and deep on the day of the Super Bowl and continued to come down all afternoon and evening. I didn’t want to drive all that way in the snow to watch a game on television that I would not have watched at home, but attendance was mandatory. One of my work friends got out of it because this manager was not her immediate manager, but I was not so lucky.

I should add that my city’s team was in the game that year, so there was some local hoopla, and it was likely that there would be some drunk drivers on the snowy roads. Okay, that’s some epic-level worry, but it was on my mind along with the snow.

In retrospect, I should have politely declined and stayed home. Now, I’d do that, but I was trying to get along and fit into a new role at a new company.