Christmas office parties

[nushu2]

I found a feeble excuse to skip the company party this year. I like parties but these are just awkward. Have fun but not too much. "Have another drink." "How much has he been drinking?" There's always someone counting. I really don't want to be one of those stories for the next day or for years later. Been there, done that and there are pictures to prove it.

Is everybody's office Christmas party like that?

 

[shereads]

A-freaking-men. If I never have another rum punch with another jerk that I'm paid to pretend to enjoy socially, it'll be too soon. Thank you, though, for reminding me that tomorrow I have to show up at the office with a gift to exchange with a random person who is paid, in turn, to pretend that we're friends.

You made the right choice. Bosses may note your absence and scratch you off the list of "team players" but statistically you're more likely to get fired for something that happens at your office Christmas party than for skipping it.

Drinking and getting chummy with bosses and subordinates, in the attempt to create a social circle that wouldn't otherwise exist, has ended more careers than the failure to show up with a festively wrapped Chia Pet.

Oh god. I guess I'd better miss the morning meeting and hit the Cheap Gifts aisle at the drug store...I'll contribute a gift, but they can't make me drink with them or stay longer than it will take to sneak out the door.

Been there, done that, spilled cheese dip on the T-shirt, for too many wasted evenings.

 

[nushu2]

Ah, come on. It can't be that bad. Surely you can spend a little more precious time with those who have wasted it all year. Poison your bladder with the people who piss you off and have a warm, jovial smile for the bain of your weekday existence.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Yeah. I was at a party where a girl got drunk and actually started dancing on a table, just like in those teenagers-gone-wild movies of the fifties. Everyone was just speechless. She'd only been there like three months too.

She didn't get fired. Of course she never got promoted either.

---dr.M.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Perhaps I am mad, or perhaps I am insanely fortunate. I lovfe my colleagues and quite enjoy Christmas parties. We all drag in the most God-awful gifts anyone has ever given us and while away a happy hour eating, drinking, exchanging the dreck and laughing gleefully over it.

But then we often socialize all by ourselves, unprompted by our superiors, just to have dinner together or enjoy the mutual good company.

Mad, I suppose. But I love it.

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

Yeah. I was at a party where a girl got drunk and actually started dancing on a table, just like in those teenagers-gone-wild movies of the fifties. Everyone was just speechless. She'd only been there like three months too.

She didn't get fired. Of course she never got promoted either.

---dr.M.

I was 23, okay? And I did not dance.

 

[carsonshepherd]

I always feel extremely awkward at office parties. And I always need a drink, badly. But we have no alcohol at our *#@#ing parties. I try to catch a buzz before I go.

 

[shereads]

Perhaps I am mad, or perhaps I am insanely fortunate. I lovfe my colleagues and quite enjoy Christmas parties. We all drag in the most God-awful gifts anyone has ever given us and while away a happy hour eating, drinking, exchanging the dreck and laughing gleefully over it.

But then we often socialize all by ourselves, unprompted by our superiors, just to have dinner together or enjoy the mutual good company.

Mad, I suppose. But I love it.

Shanglan

I felt like that at the first job. I've worked at 12 companies now, which is about seven too many to sustain the belief that those people, with some precious exceptions who will be my friends for life, will stand by you when a "consultant," usually called Bob, starts hanging out at the office looking for ways to achieve what will later be called a "barnacle scraping," without too much pain on the part of management. I've seen friends turn on each other like scorpions trapped in a jar, and they had been guests in each others' homes and their children played together. Right up until one of them had to screw the other to save himself.

I spent evenings with those people that I can never get back.

No more.

Edited to add: I survived all of those barnacle scrapings. Not by stabbing anyone in the back, but by avoiding them all socially and staying sober when I couldn't. (Except for the first job, where I got away with everything because I was too young to be a threat. Cute, too.)

 

[cloudy]

Strangely enough, the christmas party I had the most fun with was when I was working at JCPenney.

They have a very, very strict no-alcohol policy - however even the store manager was in on this one. It was in a large store, with over 300 employees, so almost out of necessity, it was only for the office staff and the management. It was during store hours, and we just had munchie stuff and punch in the big office. Well, when I tasted the punch, I mentioned that it tasted like someone had spiked it, and one of the folks there shushed me real quick, and then everyone grinned. I had just transferred in from another store, and was really surprised.

Needless to say, the management staff spent a very pleasant, very buzzed evening at work, making constant trips back to the office for refills.

 

[shereads]

I always feel extremely awkward at office parties. And I always need a drink, badly. But we have no alcohol at our *#@#ing parties. I try to catch a buzz before I go.

The less buzzed and the more awkward, the less likely it is that you'll become convinced that your boss is your pal and you can tell him how you really feel, and he'll appreciate you all the more for your honesty.

When they change the policy to an open bar, run away screaming and don't look back.

 

[Kiss Me]

Worst one I've ever been to was a few years ago. Fancy dress Christmas party in the middle of summer was a bad idea to start with, but we went just to be social. There was a brand new guy who'd only been there 5 days, he came fully decked out in a rented Phantom costume, eager to fit in and make a good impression. Unfortunately he proceeded to drink himself blind, while booking drinks to everyone elses bar tabs, groped everyone he could lay his hands on and then passed out in the corner. We all breathed a sigh of relief until a few of us noticed a slow moving trickle across the floor coming from his direction. Nobody knew what to do, so they gingerly carried his dripping self out to the garden and moved the party to a clean room. Poor guy didn't even make it into his office Monday morning, the boss met him in the carpark with his belongings!

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have gotten his deposit back on that costume either....

 

[BlackShanglan]

Worst one I've ever been to was a few years ago. Fancy dress Christmas party in the middle of summer was a bad idea to start with, but we went just to be social. There was a brand new guy who'd only been there 5 days, he came fully decked out in a rented Phantom costume, eager to fit in and make a good impression. Unfortunately he proceeded to drink himself blind, while booking drinks to everyone elses bar tabs, groped everyone he could lay his hands on and then passed out in the corner. We all breathed a sigh of relief until a few of us noticed a slow moving trickle across the floor coming from his direction. Nobody knew what to do, so they gingerly carried his dripping self out to the garden and moved the party to a clean room. Poor guy didn't even make it into his office Monday morning, the boss met him in the carpark with his belongings!

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have gotten his deposit back on that costume either....

Dear God, that's brilliant. Sometimes life is infinitely more funny than anything one could make up.

Shereads, your point is taken. But in the end, I can't really work up much animosity for someone who is clinging desperately to a job. I lay more of the blame on the management for creating that situation. When people are frightened out of their senses, they can do regrettable things. It's a pity when they do, but there's no point crucifying them for it.

On the plus side ... I do actually know someone who, when layoffs cut a swathe through his company, met with his boss and offered to take a 50% pay cut if they would keep his respected fellow co-worker on. He was rejected in his offer, but he made it quite seriously. Such people do exist.

Shanglan

 

[Kiss Me]

The less buzzed and the more awkward, the less likely it is that you'll become convinced that your boss is your pal and you can tell him how you really feel, and he'll appreciate you all the more for your honesty.

When they change the policy to an open bar, run away screaming and don't look back.

My husbands work parties always have an open bar and karaoke, it's not a great combination. Though by the usual 3am close, the bosses are normally the most embarrassing.

 

[BlackShanglan]

One Christmas near break time, I was at the pub at Warwick University enjoying the spectacle of their chief sysop. He was passed out stone cold on the floor, face up and arms out, deaf even to the calls of the barmaid ("Wake up! Your wife and children are here!") and immune even to determined slaps on his face. We were just gathering the initiative to go over and try to coax the root password out of him when they wheeled him out (quite literally).

Shanglan

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

We don't have Christmas Parties at Joe's Bar & Grill & Bar, but some woman getting drunk and taking off all her clothes would seem far too much like overtime, in any case.