Now that the calendar has turned over to December, it's time for the CorporateLand Guide to "Holiday Parties". Some of this will be review from "The Deportment Department" but you delinquents need to sometimes hear things twice, so...

Holiday Parties

These are joyless affairs that fit nicely into Hobbes’ description of life: Nasty, Brutish and Short. Well, except for that last one. They are often interminable. And the plot comes down to, as Chinese Gordon said, “People who don’t like each other standing around uncomfortably, eating food they don’t want to eat, drinking things they don’t want to drink and talking about things they don’t want to talk about.”

Or, as Sartre more succinctly put it: "Hell is other people."^1

So what to do? I treat holiday parties like I treat family reunions: get in, tell a couple of jokes, relive the old times, and then get out before it blows.

Typically these things are structured as dinners. There will generally be a “cocktail hour” first. Fine. Eat, drink (a little) and be merry (but not too merry) and then get out. If it starts by 7 or 8, your goal should be to get out by 9 or 10pm. Your mum was right: Nothing good ever happens after 10pm.

Some Tips.

Arrive within 30 minute of the start. This is one time when “on time” is ok. Observe the dress code. Typically it’s going to be semi-formal for guys (suit/blazer and tie).

If you’re there for some face time with the boss, or HMFIC, get it done within the first half hour or so, before people are starting to wish that they were somewhere else. Get in, exchange some pleasantries and then move on. You’re going for Quality, not Quantity.

And no serious convos about business, or updating your “work list” with your boss. Save that shit for the office.

Keep the boozing under control. One or two to loosen up, after that, drink a soda water with a lime wedge. If you have more, alternate them with ‘spacers’. This doesn’t apply to your enemies. Fuck them. Keep feeding them doubles.

Glass goes in the left hand, so if you run into the chairman, you can offer your right hand to shake, and your right hand will be body temperature and not cold and clammy from holding your G&T.

That was a trick; you should be holding a soda water with a lime wedge.

If you do get a bit out of hand, try not to be drunker than the third drunkest person there. You don’t want to be on the medal stand. When shit is discussed at work, you want to not be a target. Let them hose the medal winners, who will have to spend the next 6 months sober at all office functions to live their shit down.

No picking up women at the function. That’s for later. Except for the CEOs young, hot trophy wie. That’s for NEVER. Rumors will be started regardless. I was photographed—there was an official party photographer— with three women in my dept who choreographed themselves around me in some sort of “James Bond” diorama, with me as Bond, and them hanging off of me. That was enough for rumors to be started that I was fucking the dept. secretary. Or the paralegal. Or both. The third chick was ugly, so nobody gives a shit about her and so no rumors about the two of us. Bear in mind that I had done nothing untoward w.r.t them.

The bar will be open and it’s generally ok to tip the bartenders, even though they will tell you not to. I put down a $20 with the first drink.

Speaking of photos, do I have to tell you not to Instagram (or whatever) anything?

Wake up with a clear head, and get into work on time the next day (holiday parties are typically not on Fridays to keep people in line, plus Friday night presents a problem for observant Jews).

Get out while the getting is good. After dinner there will typically be some sort of entertainment. Stay long enough to be polite and then bail. If you have a date, and someone doesn’t want you to leave, then it’s because she’s not feeling well. Men (older men like bosses) will never question that because what if it’s, um, ‘female troubles’? Exactly, we treat that shit like kryptonite. Or you can just leave.

Drop a thank you note to whomever organized the party. Office manager, Boss’ Admin, whatever. If you can thank her, personally, at the party, do it, but otherwise, shoot her an email.

Bonus Tip: Admins and Assistants fucking know EVERYTHING. And they communicate with each other through jungle drums or female intuition or some other shit. They know who is fucking who, who is on the rise and who getting fired. They know which way the wind is blowing, and how the various chess matches are unfolding. Cultivate them, and pump them…for information. But don’t create resentment.

A couple of cautionary tales.

These bear repeating.

I used to work with a guy we will call Jack MegaDouche, because that’s what his name should have been. Jack was a great guy. He was a great guy even when he was drinking. Until he got to “a drink too far”. Then he became Evil Jack. Seriously, it was like a Jekyll/Hyde thing. He’d go from being your best buddy to getting the evil “Private Pyle” look from “Full Metal Jacket” and taking a swing at you. It was like he’d dropped off a cliff.

So at the office Christmas party, I see him by the bar, and I stop and say hello, just as the Telltale Drink arrives. About the point that shit was going to get bad—like he was going to take a swing at me for no reason, and I was going to have to step out of the way so his follow-through carried him past me—one of our co-workers arrived, and I took that opportunity to beat feet. So anyway, two guys tried to put him into a cab, because he was hammered and he took a swing at them.

Oops.

So the next day at work he had a shot at saving his job, but he came in Still Drunk and started arguing with his boss, who stopped the meeting after 5 minutes and fired him on the spot. That's got to be tough to go home to your wife in the middle of the morning and explain how you got fired from you 6 figure job for being a mean drunk. Don’t Be That Guy.

We also have a guy who brought a couple of escorts last year. He has a $100M book. They were actually discussing firing him.

Let me repeat that: he has a $100M book. That used to make you bulletproof. As in taking a dump on the CEO’s desk would probably be forgiven. No longer. Now, we didn’t fire him, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

Conclusion

Go. Have fun…but not too much fun, then make good your escape. Don’t let a night of indiscrete drinking ruin a hard-built reputation. Remember, nobody ever got promoted at the holiday party, but plenty of people have gotten fired because of them

^1 And really, Sartre should be made an "honorary Anglo Saxon" for that line.