Office parties are wildly different from firm to firm. Parties that are held in the office are becoming rarer, due to (1) the large number of photocopied body parts over the years and (2) rising expectations that the company should pay for you to drink somewhere less shit.
Trendy fashion companies hire cool clubs and give you a free bar. Banks can go one of two ways: they either ask management to make speeches as you cry into your water glass or they just get everyone drunk and pay for strippers. Whilst I am no stranger to the gyrations of Tiffany, Roxanne, Tiffany and Tiffany, my company has yet to foot the bill.
The duller the job, the duller the party. The more senior staff in attendance, the more anodyne the affair (unless you have senior staff with nicknames like ‘Uncle Don’ who buys the bar as if it were company policy). By and large, people are less likely to let loose in the presence of managers that can fire you on a whim (unless you’ll get fired for not getting drunk).
Office parties are career minefields, where rumours are born and fantasies borne out. The golden rule for your party is to not do anything you couldn’t explain away by Monday unless it will make you a legend. Alcohol has a habit of unbuttoning the trousers of restraint to reveal the hairy testicles of honesty. Just because you (and your peers) think it’s hilarious to point out how the light reflects on your boss’ bald spot, I doubt he’ll find it as funny as you do.
Company parties for firms with male-dominated cultures based on competition and bravado are always risky: “Hans? His plans are flawed, his work is shoddy and damn it, I’m going to out-drink him.”
If being drunk is a bad career move, find someone who can hold less alcohol than you and let them provide the amusement, offering to get them a drink as you get your next. If you are the lightweight drinker you’ll need to figure out the minimum amount of time you have to stay before you can skedaddle politely or risk vomit stains on some of your clothes.
How you should act depends on what type of drunk you are. Angry drunks should swap vodka for water, stumbling drunks should stay near the walls, leering drunks should go home to their partners or porn, and charming drunks should lead the way. If you aren’t sure what kind of drunk you are then there will always be someone with a camera floating around to fill you in on Monday.
I ticked every box except charming drunk. Apparently it’s impolite to say “looks like Santa’s emptied his sack” after one of the elfin secretaries sat on the portly manager’s knee as he went through the usual Father Christmas rigmarole.Don’t arrive early thinking you can leave early, it just means you stay longer. Office parties are like sex: the person that comes first is least popular. I have sussed out the solution: the best thing to do is to have kids or grow old. As far as I can tell, aging and breeding are God’s way of letting you leave the office party early.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.
;)
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'..the hairy testicles of honesty'.
Bwhahaha!
I hope you had a very nice Christmas too.
I am a sleepy drunk! Alcohol makes me tired!
A prior engagement is a good letout, too! lol
office parties are evil…no decision is necessarily good…and you can not choose not to go.
merry christmas!
Hi Don,
You are right on the mark! Being the boss, I usually let people know what behavior is unacceptable. For example, a new staff member asked if the Firm would pay for her taxi home, and if drinks were free. I said, no to the first, and yes to the second. Then added, she could bring a designated driver.
I Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
I loved that! Too true. I worked for a bank and our branch manager used to host booze parties at her house during the holidays. Some of the staff were underage, and her husband was the chief of police. I stopped going because the whole idea of underage drinkers, people driving home drunk, and the chief of police not caring made me very uncomfortable!
Glad I don't have to go…we don't have them!! I would probably get in trouble!!
I'd buy the book of workforced. I dread the return. Keep pointing out the funny parts to me?
Man…having kids as an excuse to leave the party early.
GENIUS!!
Add this to 'mowing the lawn' and 'getting me beer' as items on my 'why I had kids' list.
We used to have quite a lot of booze in the mid-nineties, at work, they even gave us vans to take to the bus stop so we wouldn't drive. Then they started to limit the amount you could have to two drinks, then weak beer, then you buy it, and the parties stopped at 7:00 when they started after work at 5:00. Little by little…
Wow, you captured the essence of office parties. Great advice, too.
"As far as I can tell, aging and breeding are God’s way of letting you leave the office party early."
Thank you, God!
lol so true so true
The other good thing I've seen about aging is apparently the girls let you get away with more fondling too if they think you are harmless.
To me it still looks like a dirty old man I don't know.
I agree… it's a never fail excuse "I have to go home, the kids are waiting for me."
I've somehow managed to avoid having a job that offered a Christmas party, as of yet, but this post was still hilarious. You have a great writing style!
Hope you had a wonderful holiday.
Thanks for stopping by my blog, gotta love those office parties! Hope you had a great holiday!
Been a long time since I went to any office parties, but the picture you paint is familiar and nicely phrased. Maybe I'm glad it's been a while. Got kids. Not sure how old I've grown.
Office parties can be fun… We just have to know when to stop drinking.
)
Cheers!
Reasons like all of these make it only necessary to have one beverage at a work party
Fantastic post and blog!
xoxox,
CC
Excellent… and so true all of it!
I work for the government. I tend to avoid our Christmas party like the bubonic plague. So far it has served me well. ;o) I always have a "prior engagement." Nobody needs to know that prior engagement involves only NOT going to the office Christmas party. hehe
I'm so happy that I do not have to attend corporate Christmas parties any more! Nothing great ever came from them – ever!
Funny blog. Thanks for pointing me in your direction….cheers!
Great post, and great blog!
I once received a dressing down by The Boss for not drinking enough, this only happened once for I soon earned the right reputation. The same organisation put a Bar in the canteen specifically to keep senior staff on site, rather than have them picked up by the cops in town.
Oh man I'm so glad I work virtual and many states away from office …. LOL I have a feeling this one would be better than some places I've worked in the past. Kids are a great way to leave early
I worked in an office up until August of 2009, and I cannot at all help myself from laughing out loud from this post. Each and every bit is so true about office parties! Love it!!
This was very interestingto read. I have been in HR before being a SAHM.
I am new to your blog, please pop on by and check out my blog and follow if you would like. It is very nice to "meet" you!
Okay…this is the funniest blog post that I have ever seen and it's soooooo true!
http://www.bagpoor.com
So glad I don't work in an office anymore… I have been to quite a few parties that end up in disaster (thankfully not for me…).
I love your blog! thanks for your lovely e-mail, of course I will follow you! thanks for following me
xoxo
this is damn funny
thnks for sharing this
xo
Sup
This is hilarious and I love the photos you've included.
I used to work for a large restaurant headquarters in Dallas. Office parties always had the best food, and the patio margarita parties were legendary until the legal department shut them down.
Hey, thanks for following
Looks like a pretty cool & witty blog here.
xxxxxxxx
Some of the antics you described come straight from the stockbroker parties I used to attend.
Shaun Attwood
LOL! This post made me crack up laughing so much…and made me very, VERY grateful that I work in an office of only three people.
Hope you had a merry gathering with your co-workers!
What an excellent blog. Witty! I can relate to alot of this stuff – but being that I'm an expat working in Ghana now, much of our office issues are quite different!
Anyway, I'm your latest follower and would like to link your site!!!
Cheers
Holli in Ghana
People at work wait all year to grope each other one nite, what's wrong with that?
Secretia
Haha. Very funny. I wouldn't know about any of this, of course, but it sounds an awful lot like the parties some of my friends throw. I guess you really never do leave high school. Damn.
omg. this is sooo freaking true!! i had to go to a holiday office party, (the least popular girl was their first, and yours truly was fashionably late. ;P )
anyways, i came by after you started following my blog, (thank you, btw. and thank you again for the nice email you took the time out to write!) i think im going to follow you, as im sure i can learn many valuable lessons here as well.
-Ellie
We had sort of an office party here at the farm. We split a six pack or so of Dos Equis (lager) whist leaning up against the antique hammer mill in the hay shed. It was bitterly cold (34 degree F in Oregon is bitterly cold) and we made rude jokes about our President. Then we complained about morons who say they are coming after hay and don't show up.
There was no office romance. No real chances for a career ending drunken blunder, unless someone started the hammermill, which we could do as someone misplaced the crank for the 1941 model tractor that powers the aforementioned unsafe contraption.
Pretty much a bust as far as office parties go. Just the same, perhaps there are those who wonder what we do out there on the farm.
Somehow drinking mexican beer when it is snowing makes one feel warmer. Not sure why.
What happens at the party is supposed to stay at the party.
Isn't it?
@ The Jules : but it never does!
so true
I passed this on to everyone I know. Why? Because it’s absolutely positively true on every level. And I laughed at each step of the read. You have an amazing talent for making the obvious so real and enjoyable. Keep it up!
Information nicely presented and useful.
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