The Thursday Night Office Party

You’ve recently been promoted and organised an area in a pub, to celebrate. Setting the date for a Thursday night you tell the bartender that you expect a modest amount of 40 friends to show up. Although you hope to see much more on the night, especially seeing as you sent around an internal email in the office so that everyone would know about it.

So what went through your head when only ten people, four of which were members of management, there as a sign of goodwill, showed up?

The sun is splitting the trees outside, there’s a soccer match coming on the TV later, Sex and the City has just been released and the beer/smoke garden is inviting yet all you seem to be able to talk about with the ten attendees is the goings on at the office where you work.

Some of the anxiety lifts from your face when you see two more colleagues arrive, however, it’s more members of management. By now, your thinking that you shouldn’t have ordered so much food for everyone and the barman looks incredibly bored.

“Did you get that email for the ten mile fun run?” becomes the focal point of the conversation of the smiling, polite, congratulatory faces, looking to steer away from the topic of work. Whereas the sarcastic theme among management is: whether or not they’re out for the night, hitting nightclubs until four in the morning.

“I’ll have a pint of Carlsberg please.”

Just over an hour in, ties are loosened, and your popularity appears to have reached its full extent of 23. Yet, there’s no more people sitting at your table.

“Excuse me, do we have a tab going?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Great, then give me a whiskey and soda, can I get you guys anything.”
The most impressive thing about the office party is how everybody offers to buy you a drink because they know it’s on the company tab and they won’t have to pay for it. This is a frivolous attempt to seem generous and is both sickening and annoying.

Everyone involved with an office party can be divided into five groups of people:

• Group 1:You and your closest work friends

• Group 2: Management mainly there so that people don’t bad-mouth them and to keep a close eye on the company credit card.

• Group 3: The Wolves, lying and waiting in corner for the managers to get tipsy. Then, when they begin to open up they pounce they talk shop with the boss and do their best to become their new friend in the office.

• Group 4: The people just there because of the free booze.

• Group 5: The many people, sitting at home or another pub, thinking up tomorrow’s excuse for not coming to your party. Popular excuses include:
• I was too busy,
• I was too stressed from working so much,
• I didn't get the memo,
• I don't really like you and so didn't want to spend my free time outside of work in a social situation with you.
  

“I’ll have a dry white wine, when you’re ready?”

By now, more people are sitting around your table but it’s not you that’s popular. To your left and right two subgroups of ‘group 1’ have developed having separate conversations about members of ‘group 5’ leaving you wondering about which conversation you belong to.

Seeing as you may not remember the night from all the alcohol you consumed here’s a brief synopsis of what happens during an after work party.

• Stage 1: Getting settled in, making sure there’s a tab, don’t forget to offer to buy everyone a drink, on the company’s credit card, it’s very important, for your popularity, to appear generous.

• Stage 2: All that are coming to the party have at this time turned up and the polite members of ‘group 1’ & ‘group 2’ have gone home for various reasons, they may have the car with them (and can’t drink & drive), they need to get home to their family or increasingly they are one of these people who feel more comfortable doing their social networking online in the comfort of their armchair.

• Stage 3: Conversation is free flowing but still, largely, work related. The wolves of ‘group 3’ are, one by one, pouncing on members of ‘group 2’, always with their eye on the job. Managers like this kind of flattering behaviour, of course, but they can see right through what they are doing.

• Stage 4: Time for that food you ordered and sober people up a little bit. More importantly, food is a great conversation starter and alas, there is a soccer match starting on TV, work related conversations are doomed.

• Stage 5: The wolves are happy with their achievements and they no that there’s no need to bite off more than they can chew, after all tomorrow is Friday and another day for an after work party. Management have all left and with them so has the credit card and the bar tab.

• Stage 6: “We all have our monthly target meeting at ten o’clock in the morning”. The sobering thought of work the next morning is frightening and the only way to beat it is to keep drinking. By now, you’re left with just a handful of people from ‘group 1’ and your having such a great time that the idea of going home at the pub’s closing time of 11.30pm is preposterous so you insist on everyone coming with you to a nightclub and as you stumble to the door you scream back:

“Thank you, Mr. Barman!”