the office xmas party

following on from an article on the bbc today about the death of the office xmas party or lunch due to the economy falling apart and companies not putting into a xmas fund or paying for the party, I thought it would be good to get an idea to find out if this is true……soooooo…..who's doing what

I'll start, being local goverment we never get any help (money or otherwise) with the xmas party. We orangise it ourselves, so 40 of us all going for lunch and then taking the afternoon off for drinks. Pre booked the bar and food and negotiated a food discount as were filling the place.

Our usual xmas do (meal, booze, hotel stay) has been downgraded this year to a xmas lunch. 🙁

I can't think of anything worse that spending christmas with work folk.

i work for myself

my christmas party will consist of spending christmas day with my wife 🙂

and possibly a night of drunken mayhem with other freelancers in nottingham although this year i may be working 🙁

Yeah, just lunch out on the company tomorrow. Been low key for a few years now after a particularly <cough> 'hilarious' </cough> evening event a few years ago 😉

Nothing here – there was an night out organised by one of my co-workers that we would have to pay for ourselves, but as the mrs was being made redundant at the time then we skipped that.

She has had a large xmas do at her work for 600 people with full three course, transport and alcohol!

We're off out for lunch (all paid for) on Friday then it'll degenerate into a drunken bar crawl from about 5pm onwards.
Discounted drinks for at least the first part of the evening and discounted hotel stay for those too late/drunk to get the train home.

We've got £40 a head behind the bar – a Vodka bar. It's going to get messy

A few drinks from the company director (my wife)

Meal out with some ex colleagues revealed that RBS aren't fronting up or subsidising a thing this year (at least in IT), rather surprisingly. 😕

No office party last year, only a subdued team lunch (we'd just made 25% of my team redundant, it was hardly a time to celebrate).

This year, we had a distinctly average office party at one of Manchester's sh*te bars (Barca), where the only black employee was made to dance for us (yes, really), and one of the partners turned out with his band and played som poor dad-rock covers of wedding songs.

I made a point of arriving late, having been riding at the track first.

I can't think of anything worse that spending christmas with work folk.

I'm not sure anyone is suggesting you have your Christmas works party on Christmas day itself.

We generally go to a flash hotel (with other half) for a 3 course meal, all you can drink (beers, wine, etc) ALL FREE but this year we are going to a scabby little place (Joe Rigs) for 2 hours from 3 til 5pm on Friday, shocking! Even though I work for a £100m turnover company, its a poor effort. Oh & no pay rise, as promised but don't get me started on that…………… 👿 😈 👿

Not been to my company's official xmas party since they did away with the free bar a few years ago (which coincided with me being escorted out and put in a taxi by a director…).

ok so it seems that quite a few companies are still putting towards the xmas party, I feel a bit hard done by now!!

I work for myself so I guess I'll go out for a ride on my bike! 🙂

Ours has gone from lots of little lunch time do's to one gigantic evening do. I can just about tolerate my work colleagues if I'm paid to, but come back and see them out of choice in my own time!?

After some arguing we have ended up having a DIY meal/party in the office – with a brai, food from employees' home cultures and £500 of booze. Oh, and a wii fit.

Your a miserable bunch of gits. I actually like most of the people I work with, have a lot of respect for them and am more than happy to share (or buy) a beer with them.

The company laid on a do, meal, disco, free bar etc saturday night with subsidised rooms at the hotel which was quite good fun, although they took away the chocolate fountain after one of the managers tried coating his head.

My team are going out on Friday night for another meal (self subsidised thsi time) which seems to be expanding numbers all the time as everyone wants to come along, even ex-staff!

We've all worked hard this year, its going to be harder next year, so a chance to have a laugh outside work for a change is more than welcome. At the end of the day, if you dont approach everything with a positive attitude you wont succeed, even if its just a night out.

2 xmas parties so far with work. An office wide one and a team one. Haven't put my hand in my pocket once at either of them. Totally company paid.

Our place takes over a city centre pub for the evening, free bar for all 150 staff, and hotels for those that live too far to get home.

It's all very generous.

And every year I avoid it like the plague in favour of going out with my friends instead.

For the first time since I joined the company 9 years ago, there's an official xmas party.

Not wanting to break with 23years of (my) tradition, I won't be going.

Besides, it's in Barnsley & I live 30 miles away.

Our company Christmas party is tonight.. in the building cafeteria, which as result was closed for decoration during lunch time today ( no great loss )

"party" begins at 5.pm with an address from our Director General and it's for employee's only.. no spouses, etc.

I think I might give it a miss.

None for us this year – instead we've been given an extra half day holiday

suits me

I have three parties. One for the branch, and two team parties. Sadly as a civil servant it's all in my time and on my dollar.

Great fun, if a little expensive!

I work for myself so no xmas party for me 😥 have to start group on Facebook or something for all us lonley bu&&ers working alone to meet for our own xmas party, in out local areas.

going out on friday with good customers and the staff from the shop…just a curry but its better than nowt!

We have two Parties an official drink and dancing based one in the evening and an unoficial dinner and conversation based one at lunch time organised by those with families or an aversion to office party type discos. Usually they are on or around the same day.

Officially you are supposed to choose one or the other, but as we have to foot the bill ourselves you can do both.

I opt for the day time as
A, Being in the presence of inebriated and lecherous senior officers doesn't appeal ( see TV's Gene Hunt for example)
B, I tend to keep my perosnality in check at work and hide behind a shirt and tie, I have little desire to try and perpetuate this in my own time after work.

Usual deal, dire meal in clubhouse of a godforsaken golf club in the middle of nowhere. Why on earth we can't use one of the many vibrant city centre venues on our doorstep and find something to do after the meal instead of standing around bored at a shitty 'disco' and clock watching I do not know. It'd also be easier for 90% of the staff to get home again.

I nearly didn't go this year, but that'd leave the other chaps in the shite.

Worst one I had was a three line whip deal with no notice in Oxford when I was working for an investment co' in Notts. So I had to upsticks and get to Oxford there and then for a tray of party rings and to hear an MD open his speech with a quote from Hitler 😆
You couldn't make it up!

i dont go to ours anymore, infact hardly any of the staff do.

in the words of my old manager

"just because i work with the w*nkers, doesn't mean i have to socialise with em!"

well said!

Nothing this year and never anything paid for by work, although I have been known to chuck in a nice lump of cash for my staff to get some rounds in.

As a 'boss' I have to organise the thing….people moan if they don't get a party and then say there's no teamwork or time to get to know one another then moan when there is an organised function. If you had to organise it within a budget what would you do? Probably the same thing!

We have a decent do every other year, with lower-key departmental dinners in between. The decent do was cancelled last year as we'd just made about 3000 people redundant 😯 and there has been no mention of anything for this year either 🙄

I predict we'll never have another one 🙁

Cheers, Rich

only three this year!!

did one last friday night (payed for by us but my boss stuck £100 behind the bar)- don't remember a lot but i'm never allowed in my brothers car after the lift home (and i bought him a tank of petrol for a 5 min trip) and today my boss bought some tyres and said 'here're the tyres you asked for' I know what there for but don't recall telling him that i needed them!!

£40 quid for a meal that looked like a school dinner – and £22 house red that was only £12 on the pre-order list and supposed to be the same price!

one more thursday whole day thing paid for by the school profits (uni school that is)- much bigger group and one more monday for the techs(again paid for by us).

not bad. really – expensive though!

Last year we cancelled ours because of a bereavement of one of the team and this year nopbody fancies it. There's a lot of stress in our team just now and I think people'd rather spend time away from their workmates. Suits me as I never have enjoyed socialising with people I work with.

We're off out for a department night out tonight, then everyone goes to a dinner on Friday lunchtime (we close at 1 on Friday for *ahem* sound educational reasons) followed by hitting a few pubs.

Usually the governors pay for a drink on arrival and some wine on the tables (there's always wine left, so we gather it up and drink it) at the main one, but we pay for the rest ourselves.

Don't see the point in works dos – I spend enough time with people at work when I'm working. Many of them I wouldn't choose to spend time with, so I'm blowed if I'm going to xmas do (which just happens to be on my birthday as well) and sit around at a back-slapping awards ceremony when we've just let several people go, with their last day being about three days before xmas. "Yeah, seasons' greetings, and here's your P45."S#d that for a game of soldiers…
Rant over, and breathe…

Just back from my second Xmas lunch of the week, three more this week then two next – thanks to those whose taxes are paying for it :hic:

Wow – what unhappy work places some of you inhabit! We have had cut backs over the past couple of years and ths year we had a team meal – food paid for but we had to pay for drinks. Many of the people in the team I work in are very rarely together and these events are a great way to catch up. There's a good number of them that are great company and a few of them are very good friends. We don't get enough chances in the year to meet up but we have a blast when we do.

Ours was due for last week but got cancelled 🙁

Too many people with exams apparently, so it's rescheduled for January… by which point I'll have left!