Mandatory fun.

[Nishu]

So my husband and I were eating out with the kids a few days ago when he asks, "I don't suppose you have any desire to go to the sub ball, do you?"

Um... No. That's an emphatic no. I can think of, off the top of my head, approximately 13,244,792 things that I would rather do than go to a ball.

"Ok, well I have to. Mandatory fun. And I have to buy a ticket."

I'm a little bit upset about this. I tell him so. I ask him how much the tickets are. He isn't sure I want to know.

"Sixty-five dollars. And it was due today."

Freaking awesome. I wish he had told me this before we decided to take the kids out to eat.

I'm grumpy today. The $65 and other associated costs could easily eat up our entertainment budget for all 5 of us. I don't mind setbacks, but dropping that kind of money on something that neither one of us would wants to go to is a little irritating. As you might have guessed, he's going alone.

99% of the time I'm fine with my husband's job. I can deal with the long hours and the separation and the duty days. It's stuff like this that really gets under my skin.

[Greebo]

Soldier you WILL report to the ball and you WILL have fun when you do it, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME???

[Missy]

i remember those days...they had mnditory BBQ's too, lol. Those were...interesting.

[nancycg56]

Ive been to many, many "YES YOU WILL ATTEND" events ~ sheesh, I used to hate those.

[The Muse]

Um, how is it "fun" if it's mandatory? I'm sorry.

[rainbowgc]

Um, how is it "fun" if it's mandatory? I'm sorry.

I totally agree. Nothing like forced, expensive fun grrrrr I'm right there with you

[Missy]

When the military issues you fun, you take it.


LOL< my Father used to say if the Army had wanted him to have a family the'd have issued it to him in boot camp. (He wasn't saying it to be mean to us, he was making a joke about how the military schedules and issues and XYZ forms everything to death.)

[wanderlusting]

Ugh...whenever DH has those, I just send him- I'M not in the military, they can't make me go

Unfortunately there isn't a way out for the service member- if they say they can't afford to go, it turns into mandatory fun AND mandatory budgeting class!

[guest002]

BTDT. Not like a lot of advanced warning on the outflow of funds.

I've never sent him alone to one of those things. I go to support him and so he won't get bored.

[Nishu]

If I were to buy two tickets, pay a sitter for 3 kids, a dress, transportation to Seattle and likely a hotel room, it could cost us 500 easy. There is no way I'm going. We're paying for rent for both places this month because of the move not to mention recovering from that move in the first place.

I've heard of people getting the mando budgeting class for saying they can't afford it... But I won't say that. It's not in my budget. They try to break my budget with this bullcrap and then try to send someone to budgeting class and I'll throw a fit to rival all else.

Not really. But I can dream.

However... he's known for 3 weeks that he's going to have to go. He said he figured it would be 10-15 and that's why he didn't bring it up. If anyone gets in trouble- he is so getting thrown under the bus.

[Siebrie]

My company's fun is mandatory too, I'm really thankful that it's free! They will order 'gala', but they cannot make me buy a new dress, AND I will attend in the same dress every time (which is against gala-protocol).

(On discussing the invitation with colleagues, the reply was: 'but it's actually the CEO's wife who invited all 500 of us, you can't really say 'no'!') It'll all be on the company's budget, so I'm not sure what the CEO's wife has to do with it.

[YankeeMom]

Technically they can't make it mandatory and make them pay too. But they have ways of "disciplining" those who buck the system.

I always enjoyed going to balls. Getting dressed up, having adult conversations. BUT our ball tickets were never more than $50/couple (including dinner) and I always paid less than that for my dress

[NewLeaf]

I don't blame you for not going. It is alot of money. But if you decide to go and find a way to get a baby sitter then you could always get a dress from Goodwill or Salvation Army.....

[jamie79]

I have said to commanding officers when pressed on things like this especially with the cost of hotels and babysitters, if they were willing to pay we were willing to go, otherwise we couldnt make it. You would be surprised after saying it how often we did not have to go to "mandatory" things.