George Devo’s weekly column on life in the capital, published every Monday morning…
I scan the room and spot free alcohol sitting in metal buckets, dotted across a bright, loud bar. The chattering of three-hundred coworkers fills my head before I can react, bouncing between walls and merging into a solid block of noise before reaching my ears. You have to shout to be heard. I take a moment to process, steady myself and look again: the buckets are already a little emptier than before.
This trend continues throughout the evening, people sharing office gossip whilst clutching complimentary bottles and glasses tightly to their chests, fiercely protective. It’s as if everyone’s concerned this is a trap, a little too good to be true. A ruse dreamt up by our bosses’ bosses to separate the grafters and grifters, the true believers with the self-control to retain their sobriety and the chancers who, given appropriate equipment, would mainline pinot grigio.
Eventually we all acknowledge that this has actually happened, we are all here and our very presence in this venue won’t get us sacked. Wine starts being poured more generously and beer bottles empty quicker. Anecdotes get earthier, laughs become louder, personalities grow larger; memories of computer screens and deadlines fade and life’s more vivid.
Most importantly of all, the conversation moves away from the only subject that unites the whole room, the only reason anyone’s here. Work.
This is the work Christmas party. Views vary about this corporate tradition, but, following my first taste of the event in a stylish City of London bar last week, I’ve come to a personal conclusion: I’m a fan.
However, before I dive into exactly why, let me clarify that I understand the critics. Their main argument is an obvious one: it’s awkward. An evening speaking to many people with whom you only share an office can be daunting, especially for the first time. The discomfort early on in the night when you’re nattering to a half-acquaintance and both trying to hide your mutual tipsiness can be a struggle too. It’s hard finding the right line to walk in casual conversation anyway with some colleagues, nevermind when you’re a few drinks in.
It can also be – although, blissfully, ours wasn’t – an HR nightmare. Offices are often microcosms of the rest of the country, so, as well as housing plenty of kind, warm, funny people, they can just as easily include those who aren’t any of those things. For the latter group, the chance to imbibe litres of alcohol is leapt on, only making their generally poor behaviour worse. There have been a number of compensation payouts to victims of sexual harassment and/or assault at Christmas parties and examples of criminal prosecutions where disagreements between colleagues have devolved from verbal to physical.
Also, for some, it may just not be your thing. The noise, the crowds, the drinking – that’s too high a social barrier to jump for some. That’s fine, and I hope workplaces adapt to organise other social events around their needs.
However, despite all the inherent risks in gathering hundreds of semi-strangers together and supplying them with limitless alcohol, like a larger, white-collar edition of Big Brother, that risk, the chance of chaos, is also core to its beauty.
Having worked in an office for six months, catching predictable corporate jargon creeping into my vocabulary and noticing how certain relationships with others become needlessly formal almost solely due to the job titles you hold, a little bit of spontaneity is more than welcome. In fact, it’s necessary.
Too often we see work as a process. Clocking in and out repeatedly until you do enough to get a higher salary and longer job title.
Surely we spend too long in employment to allow it to be just that, an unfulfilling, permanent cycle of logging on and off for deferred reward. In fact, over a third of our lives are spent working. So we may as well enjoy it.
We’re social animals and sometimes we need to be reminded of that. The Christmas party helps do so, even if just a little bit.
The edifice of office interaction doesn’t take long to crack under the weight of several buckets of booze, and, whilst in some cases it can cause harm, in many more it serves to build a healthier office environment.
Tight-knit bonds are hard enough to craft in post-Covid offices, where many companies mandate only two-to-three days in office per week and most meetings are conducted through the lens of a webcam.
So, Christmas parties may be awkward, hazardous and noisy, but they’re crucial for our places of work.
Because, in those few hours, in that swanky City of London bar, titles disappeared. mid-level-managers, interns and CEOs were stripped of their status and all that remained was the simple truth of the situation.
Three-hundred humans, who occupy the same space two-to-three days a week, chose to spend a little longer getting to know one another.
Why, you ask? Because, well, why not? It’s Christmas.
