I got called a miserable ba$tard by a manager today when I told him I wouldn’t be going to the work Christmas party. Been to every one up to now. I thought these things were optional?

Are you sure it wasn’t meant as a compliment?

I don’t go. Usually draws a comment or two but the format is not really my type of thing. That and I reckon my colleagues will have more fun without me 😉

I never go to ours, It’s basically a piss up in the nearby town where screws get plastered & talk about work, then try & bend each other up & get into bother.

Always the best thread of the year!

I’ve got three this year 😀

Didn’t go at my old job but I like the people I work with now.

I used to get really irked by Christmas/summer work events, but you spend all day with these people, surely a couple of hours down the pub is bearable?

If you go and make a tit of yourself, they’ll remember. If you don’t go at all, they’ll remember.

I reckon the happy middle ground is “go for a few beers, go home pre-carnage”.

I feel I sort of have to go. But as a profound introvert, you can rest assured I will be looking for the quietest corner.

I never go to ours, It’s basically a piss up in the nearby town where screws get plastered & talk about work, then try & bend each other up & get into bother.

Sounds crap. Many years ago in a health authority far far away I remember our local locked mental health facility’s ‘A-team’ requiring police ‘assistance’ when a very similar party took place. Oh how we (I suppose I would have been the ‘c team’) hung out heads in shame at them . Amazed it didn’t make the local rag. 😕

The joy of being a signaller is that there’s never a point where everyone is off work at the same time!

If you don’t go at all, they’ll remember.

Hardly. No-one seems to be able to remember anything the day after. I think Men in Black get involved.

You’d get that from me too if you were one of my staff. Of course it would be meant in jest.

Christmas party’s are brilliant, if for nothing more than to watch the carnage from not so afar. Have a few, don’t get too ruined and laugh well into the new year at your colleagues.

Go, have a few drinks, be polite then piss off to a hotel room and get absolutely wankered on the mini bar or bottle of X delivered to your room and charge it via expenses.

Works for lil’ introverted me.

It’s a chinese restaurant and a right hassle to get to.

Chinese lovely.

A hassle really? I bet it’s not.

We have a lab Xmas meal, which is good as everyone quite nice and the boss pays, be home by 11

An institute party, which is a bit of a school disco affair, I’ll give it a miss thanks, leave it to all the students

The department meal and party is good, hire out a restaurant and bar , food beer secret Santa etc, its made good by the slightly bonkers long termer that organises it, a rubenesque mature Canadian who insists on fancy dress for all,, she makes her own costume (really good ones)that invariably involves some sort of corsett to amplify her dramatic cleavage, this years theme is ancient Greece, I’m predicting a curvy Xena Warrior Princes outfit

Now I’m based back over here, I hate them, being in a confined space with people I can’t stand. But back in the Australian office they were a blast – all night Northern Soul sessions (in costume) with breakfast cocktails, great company and a blazing sunrise on the beach. Good times.

I pay for 1/4 of my office’s Christmas meal, I just really don’t enjoy going to it. Apparently that makes me a double shit.

One of mine is on a wednesday this year. Who the **** puts christmas night out on a wednesday? I’ve taken the thursday off for recovery. And also the friday.

But ours is kind of legendary in our corner of the industry, we get people turning up from competitors to join in 😆

There’s also a bigger one for all staff, not been to that one, it sounds pretty messy though. Drunkest, fightiest, shaggiest and vomitiest night of the year and considering it’s held in a student union, that’s saying something.

Didn’t go at my old job but I like the people I work with now.

This is my position currently. Doing the christmas party thing at the NEC this year,not particularly looking forward to it but I’m sure it’ll be grand when we’re there.

Our Christmas party is held at a Italian restaurant which can’t seem to handle the 40 of us for dinner. My colleagues then perform some shit, apparently comical, 12 days of Christmas rendition with events which have occurred this year then it’s done. I have to fly in for it because it’s the same week as a big meeting, and that way I can’t get out of it. They give us a whopping 2 free drinks and some pasta. Last year about 15 of us went back to the VPs house and drank his spirits, which briefly lifted the evening from pointless to slightly interesting because one of my colleagues lost his glasses while puking in the VPs back garden.

Can’t say I’m a huge fan of them but then I find spaffing £500 or so in one evening on bottles of fizz and some poor lobster with basil shuved up its are a bit crass.
The lot I work with do this kinda thing once a month so it’s nothing to them but really for me it’s more a network/keep your eye out for another role/job/opportunity search and for that reason alone I go along.
When I get over the first bottle of fizz I normally settle down, some folks just get all wankery and puff thier chests out and start the bragging, it’s at this time I know I’m going to be fine and quite enjoy it. The roosters take over and observing them alone provides a huge amount of entertainment.
Also, well some pretty girls get to come along and there’s nothing better than entertaining and being entertained by a hugely intelligent good looking women over a bottle of fizz when both are just a little tipsy. 8)

So it’s basically a downtime to get to know first hand what’s happening next year whilst eating and quaffing and ogling.

Not a bad way to spend a few hours really is it.

So I’ll be going along then 😆

Rarely go to ours as it’s just an excuse to drink until you cannot stand whilst slagging off the boss behind his back at the start of the evening and too his face later (some of my more idiotic colleagues). Then there is the depot “social hand grenade” who after 3 pints finds someone to try and pick a fight with whilst we look on working out when best to separate him from the person who’s going to lay him out.

Fun times 😥

My place is going all out this year as they’ve hired a nightclub for the whole entire floor, about 200 people perhaps. We’ve doubled the size of the dept this year with lots of young uns in their first proper job since leaving college so I’m expecting shenanigans. I always go to the Xmas do, I’m 40 so it’s pretty much the only time in the year I go out ‘on the town’… There’s a special sort of happiness that comes after 6 pints being with work colleagues singing ‘so here it is Merry Christmas everybody’s having fun……’

I want to be bikebouy’s +1

Ours hasn’t even been organised yet, we normally have a team christmas do, but the team has gone from about 20 to 5 in the last couple of years, so I can’t help thinking it’s a bit of a waste of time. Used to be great fun but can see it being dull. The whole department one is apparently chaos!

Well having started a new job this year and im now single and work with some VERY good looking ladies who are also single im looking forward to mine! 8)

Just curious, when are the office parties usually held in UK?

My old workplaces had theirs on the last shift/workday before the xmas break/shutdown.

Over here, the xmas are typically held from now until the end of November. It’s terribly logical, although it does make it strange to wear a santa hat on Halloween.

her dramatic cleavage, this years theme is ancient Greece, I’m predicting a curvy Xena Warrior Princes outfit

PIctures please 😉

I dont drink, dont like Xmas and dont much like my colleagues

I dont go and they dont mind

Never been to a works Christmas do in my life, and I’m not about to start now.

Some people have taken offence at the phrase ‘I’d rather remove my own kidneys with a teaspoon….’ But that’s their problem. I tend to avoid going out around Christmas generally. Nowt worse than the amateur drinkers on their annual outing to the pub

Socialising with colleagues isn’t something I would normally get involved in but our company Christmas do is very good.

Private function suite in an historic old building that is superb. Everyone is invited, from the Chairman right through to all the site lads, plus partners.

All paid for by the company including 5 course meal, free bar all night and hotel accommodation or taxis home.

Ah, the joys of working for oneself 😀

Ah, the joys of working for oneself

I dont go and they dont mind

I’m sure they don’t.

Last year’s Christmas do was the first one I’ve been to in a while. It was really good, however that was due to the people who went to it. This year I’m not going as a. A proper one isn’t being organised and b. The “alternative one” is a night at the dogs and that isn’t my bag.

Ho, ho, ho, ho 😀 I’ll probably end up going for a curry with the good lads and lasses from work instead.

Experience has taught me not to attend

I try to avoid them. Have been to some amazing ones but they were companies with the money to spend, and large enough that you can be anonymous and avoid talking to idiots. All others since have been a disappointment plus more focused on trying to get people that hate each other to socialise and then having to put up with everyone acting like complete dicks. And crap ones do a dinner round tables with everyone sat at specific places next to people you’d rather not talk to. I’d rather not do the dinner thing anyway. Christmas dinner on Christmas day, that’s it.

Odd one for me. I tend to judge each on its merits; where it is, how much it’s going to set me back and whether I can eat without DRAMAZ. If it’s in the middle of nowhere, has half a dozen meats and “vegetarian option on request”, costs the GDP of a small African country and has the night’s entertainment of an acid jazz fusion band, then it’s just not worth the hassle.

Ultimately, I get on well with the people I work with and like almost all of them, but they’re not my friends. I wouldn’t randomly ring up Dave in Accounts one quiet Saturday and go “hey, fancy a pint?”, so as an introverted Aspie it’s a big ask for me to spend a load of money I don’t really have on hotels or huge taxi bills before I’ve even started, and on food I probably can’t eat, in order to spend time socialising with a bunch of people most of whom only ever talk to me when they’ve broken something.

So, I’m not going to ours this year. However, there’s an unofficial low key ‘do’ being organised by one of the departments I do actually interact with on a semi-regular basis. Looks to be a pub lunch and a couple of pints which sounds much more my cup of mulled wine, so I might well attend that.

I finish my job on Christmas Eve and have 2 1/2 weeks before starting the new job.

The Christmas party will be in that period, doubling up as my leaving do and technically the boss won’t be there because it’s me.

Going to be messy.