Brit office Xmas parties going to the dogs

The classic Brit office Xmas party - once an annual drunken orgy of bacchanalian photocopier room rumpy-pumpy and explaining to the boss exactly why he's a tosser - is under serious threat, according to a Chartered Management Institute (CMI) survey. As the Telegraph explains, "fears that workers could sue over other employees …

[Anonymous Coward]

Our Xmas party has been on the weekend and required us to pay for quite a few years now

The idea that the I should be expected to fork out to spend my free time with people who I only spend time with now, because they pay me to so, hard to take.

[James]

What really gets me

is the thin glass those cheapskates at Canon are putting on their photocopiers these days. If I have to spend one more December evening in A&E getting my arse sewn up, I'll sue, I swear I will.

[Lloydie Lloyd]

I hope my Xmas do is still on....

...my boss says he will be putting his credit card behind the bar again this year. I hope he speaks the truth as, last year I did quite well out of it. Not only did I have quite a few pints of stella thanks to his genorosity. I also managed to fondle many female members of staff as well which under normal circumstances, would not let me anywhere near them.

It was also the only time I actually had a semi-decent excuse for telling my boss to his face just how much of a w*nker he is. As I explained later that same evening to him, "It's jussht the [hiccup] drink you shhhheee, sir"

Sod the political correctness, let's get the drinks in and sleep with random colleagues is what I say. After all, that's what Xmas is all about, isn't it?

[Ash]

Our party is the day before term ends...

It's worth going just to mess with the more inebriated staff's heads by moving all their work to a different folder, setting the volume to maximum on their staff laptops, and playing some speed garage or death metal through the crappy tinny speakers.

Life in IT is good.

[Dave Morfee]

Never paid for one

My last company the boss paid for, company had 50 employees, always had a large xmas meal at a posh hotel, free beer and drink on him till 7pm ish when he tend to call it a night, but since we started at 1pm, its not too bad.

With my current company we have been to London 2 years running, seen a west end show, medivial banquet etc.

Cheers

Dave

[Anonymous Coward]

its usually a good opportunity...

...to attempt to shag the fit women you work with.

I'm posting annon cause i'm going to 4 individual christmas get togethers with current and previous employers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why go?

My solution to an employer who wants their employees to fork out for a Christmas party? I simply don't go to it. I can't stand my work colleagues or my employer so it's pretty easy. Haven't been to one for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah Humbug ?

I think its our employers that are the scrooges here, if you pay for drinks, they will come.

If instead its a poxy meal that you pay for with the same damn people you see in the office day in day out, and out of office hours at that ... you can stuff it quite frankly.

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmm...

...did we ever find out if the Carphone Wharehouse xmas party did indeed get cancleed to make budget for the iPhone marketing? or was that humbug?

[Anonymous Coward]

should be a good'un this year

My company is picking up the entire tab til 2am or so at a decent london venue. Going to be hundreds of shitfaced employees there all destroying their careers for that one chance with that bird from accounting.

[Hedley Phillips]

Good boss

We have a posh meal at a posh restaurant all paid for by the boss and his wife. This includes our partners as well or a friend if your partner can't come.

And his CC is behind the bar as well.

The amazing thing is though that everyone is well behaved, respectful and nobody takes the piss.

Merry Christmas!

[Andy ORourke]

This year will be better than last

I work in the UK for a HUGE US comms company (Talking multi billion dollar turn over) and last year they didnt stump up for anything for us employees in the regions (OOP North) this year our boss has told us he has a budget of £100 for christmas drinks / meals etc. Once we can arrange a date all 20 of us are going to get together and have a pint, in fact since we are oop north we can actually have 2 pints each!

[Paul]

What I realy miss

Is the company I used to work for (An Oz company) used to alow us a long lunch on a Friday, to go to the pub, and pay for beer on a Friday afternoon. We also had LOTS of kids toys in the office to play with (Not paid for by the company) So Fridays were always fun, if not very productive. I do rememebr once getting so drunk on a Friday that I had difficuly accualy getting up from my desk.

[Jamie Kitson]

Never Been A Problem...

As ours isn't even at Christmas, to save money ours is in April. Bah Humbug? Quite.

[matt]

I cant complain

Company christmas party on Thursday evening, then department party the week before starting at lunch time :)

Both free as well

[Anonymous Coward]

We are expected to pay

So I don't bother. Would rather spend the cash on a few beers with the guys in my team tbh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah

"Those among you who are intending to throw a Xmas bash this year are reminded that employers "can now be held liable if they fail to protect staff from harassment or discrimination, including on the grounds of religious belief" and "could be held liable if an employee who is drunk at the firm's expense has a car accident"."

Remind me to find an Asian girl at this year's party so I can say "Lift up your burqa lass and let's have a fondle", then fall in front of a car when she hits me. That ought to use up next year's enforced jollity budget for legal fees at the very least.

[peter]

FREE Beer

Last Xmas party had the great idea of a 15 minute unrestricted v.well staffed free bar at the start, meaning everyone downed triples and the counter was awash with JD and coke.

Shortly afterwards, the short timespan and intake raise the BAC to levels unseen before by even the hardest drinkers present. Time/distance does matter in alcohol intake , a fact not understood by the management.

Free bar is bad enough, free bar with a 15 minute window is a suicide.

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxable

Once you get beyond a certain level of largesse, I thought the whole thing becomes a taxable benefit? Or is that just my company's excuse?

Anyway, I prefer to socialise with my friends.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything provided for me

My company provides a full christmas party for me, and I'm also allowed to bring along the wife, and everything is paid for. We get a slap-up meal in a fancy restaraunt, paid drinks in a bar of our own choice, and a taxi home at the end of it - all paid for by the company!

The down side is, I'm a small entrepreneur with my own business and I'm the sole employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in finance and it's free

So all those loans you take out are funding our 400+ employee xmas bash in a very posh hotel (5star) oh and the rooms are free too.

Chin chin :)

[kain preacher]

Xmas party

my company is picking up the booze tab. Dam laws that saw no liquor sales after 2am

[Anonymous Coward]

Free? So what?

Posted anonymously for reasons that will become clear... (I almost never post anonymously).

First of all, the thought of spending a lunchtime with my colleagues, let alone any Christmas jollity fills me with dread. It's not that they're nasty; they're just boring tightwads. Even trying to get them to go for a drink when one feels duty-bound on one's birthday is like pulling teeth - and not many of them either. I should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose. It means that I waste less money.

AND - it's all males! Where's PH when you need her?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate you all!

I work for an engineering firm. Of the hundred or so staff there are 3 females! One of them is less attractive then your average piece of road kill, One is about 60 and weighs more then a family sized sedan and the third one (who is pretty attractive) is 4 months pregnant...

At least the beer is free and i can stumble somewhere else afterwards to try and pick up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Humbug indeed

I haven't been to one since a particularly disastrous - and bloody freezing - Thames boat trip in 1986, when the boat's electrics would go "phut" every time Vlad The Compiler plugged in the fan heater in a vain attempt to warm up his wife's blue knees.

This year's is at an hotel, at an international airport. Exotic, eh? Since there is no possible way to get home afterwards save by spending about a thousand pounds on a taxi, I shall be exercising my democratic right to get rat-arsed at home instead.

Oh, yes, 99% of the females in the place are from Essex. 'nuff said.

[Mad Mike]

@Anonymous Coward

'the third one (who is pretty attractive) is 4 months pregnant...'

Well, the bump shouldn't be too big and impede too much. No chance of accidently getting them pregnant. Sounds like game on to me...................

Is she too stupid to remember your name as well? Perfect!!

[Andy Worth]

P A R T Y?

Our office parties are normally pretty good. There will be somewhere between 600 and a thousand people turn up, lots of gorgeous ladies dressed to the nines, and dodgems. Damn I'm looking forward to it already!

[Anonymous Coward]

The pain...

The educational institute I work for up here in sunny Scotland wastes hundreds of thousands of pounds of your tax money on kit, a lot of which hasn't even been out the box since it was bought, and still wont pay out a couple of grand for a christmas party for any of the staff...

I wouldn't mind so much getting rat-arsed at my employers' expense, but the thought of having to PAY to spend MY time with some of the tossers I work with is really too much.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing new...

Apart from the first company I worked at over 15 years ago which looked after its employees well, pretty much every one of them since then has taken the "Christmas is cancelled" line every year. Maybe it was in part because they were covering themselves against the fallout from any lewd behaviour, but mostly because they were a bunch of tight-arsed miseries. Unless you were a manager or worked in sales, that is.

"Work is its own reward" seems to be the usual philosophy here.

[Paul Vincent]

Partylessness

We've been partyless now for about five years. The days of the on-site party during office hours appear to be dying fast, killed by a joyless mixture of the Litigious Society and a general tightening of purse-strings. Equally insidious is the rise of the "I'm not sending cards this year, but giving the money to charity" ploy, a prime chunk of weasely laziness which sticks its fingers in its ears and goes "La La La" when anyone points out that its perfectly feasible to both send Christmas cards *and* donate to a favourite charity. They actually aren't mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Ze Germans took over...

I am an ex-Fasthosts employee (there are a lot of us!) and I remember going to 2 recent Christmas do's put on by the then boss...

Both were completely free; both were black tie... The first one was a 3 course meal followed by Mystique, the Cheeky girls and Louise. The second was a 3 course meal, being entertained by circus performers and compered by Chris Barrie (of Red Dwarf!!!) with entertainment provided by some weirdo's with powertools, Girls Aloud and the Sugababes!

All in all, it was crap work, but the Christmas parties were legendary!

[Andy Migdal]

Xmas Parties rule

Well this weekend I attended an excellant xmas party at Tower Bridge, all paid for by the company and everyone was buzzing.

[Glenn Amspaugh]

Not just the U.S.

I've been working as a contractor to various mil-ind complex companies (make flying things and stuff that goes BOOM) for the last 20 years. Never saw so much as a cracker or glass of wine put out for us working grunts. I did take a few years off to work at a college and they had a rather tired afternoon nosh. The only place that ever really treated us employees right was a small mom-n-pop place that I worked at for two years. Both holidays, got a $500 bonus and a nice night out on the boss. We only had 7 employees but he sprang for a nice dinner and bar tab for all of us and partners. Pretty sweet. Really wish he hadn't been forced into bankruptcy for warranty fraud with most of the major pc makers.