Office party over-kill
On a slightly off topic note, while staring emptily at my computer screen and dreaming of freedom and green field, I realized that the dreadful office-party season is closing up upon us.
Again.
Some places call them Christmas Parties, more politically correct places call them New Years parties, I call them “it’s a once-a-year party, let’s get it over withâ€.
The yearly office party is usually held in the last 2 weeks before New Years; unfortunately, the trauma it results in can carry on well after NYE. All together, we’ll try to make this experience as painless as possible; just follow my advice and I promise it won’t hurt (too much).
Most importantly, drink, socialize, take-off like the social butterfly that you are (this expression is stolen from my brother, I can’t believe he actually uses it in real-life conversations). Score some points with the boss, the HR ladies, but don’t make a fool of yourself by puking in your co-workers car (you know who you are). I know it’s difficult not to overindulge. But contrarily to a regular new years party, you’ll unfortunately have to see these people again. Unless of course, you go at it too hard, at which point you might be excused from your services permanently.
Make sure you have some backup plans for the night. As soon as you feel
that you’re loosing control of the situation, head over to the backup plan. Hopefully that backup plan is composed of like-minded individual in whose company you can drink and make a fool out of yourself without fear of being left at home alone on Monday morning.
Prepare interesting conversation topics off-hand. Ok, not really. This is exaggerated and stupid. I meant to say that it might be hard to have an interesting conversations with people you see all year long all the time anyways, but preparing in advance is just plain ridiculous; sorry for my incompetence. Instead, for once talk to that assistant that you’ve never spoken with, or just try to be warm-hearted and have fun, the conversation will flow on its own from there.
All right, it’s not really all that bad. Look around yourself (if you are in an office obviously). The quality of your office new years party depends on you and the people that surround you. If you work with a lot of young people, chance are your office party will be worth calling a new years party. If you work with older people, but which are goofing around all the time, again chances are your new years office party will rock. If you work with older people that never bother speaking to you, good luck.
Again, always make the best out of everything.
Last year I was working in a hyper-young and trendy company. Our new years office party was insane, with managers standing on tables and taking five shots in a row. I was ordering 50 shots at a time; obviously it was open bar.
This year I am working in a hyper-old and un-trendy company. I guess I’ll have to be the one on the table taking all the shots. And pay them out of my pocket, cause we sure won’t have an open bar.
Party like it’s 1950
