Earlier this month, I asked you to share your funniest office holiday stories. Here are eight of my favorites … in addition to, obviously, the greatest office holiday party story of all time. (Note: Some of these are mildly NSFW.)
1. The laps
“First proper job, aged 18, in the UK where the drinking age is 18. A few dozen staff live on site, and have a *very* drunken party on the last Saturday night before Christmas, knowing that nobody has to stagger more than a couple of hundred yards home.
I sat with my close coworker whom we’ll call Laurel, sharing a bottle of wine she’d grabbed, sitting on dining chairs at a table, discussing whether or not I should be encouraging the attentions of a department head (not my boss) whom we’ll call Ash, eventually concluding that 30 is generally not a good match for 18.
I was one of the first to leave, at the point where I realised the carpet appeared vertical and one of the walls horizontal. Yes, I had fallen flat and not noticed. I went home, slept long and well, and woke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
So far so harmless, yes? Only:
(1) it wasn’t wine but port (double the alcohol percentage)
(2) it wasn’t a cheap party bottle but a special vintage her boss had been saving
(3) they weren’t dining chairs but laps
(4) the laps belonged to Ash and a comparably senior colleague, both laughing their heads off
I didn’t find out any of 1-4 until a couple of weeks into January, at the first work night out of the new year. You know that shot in a film where the entire background suddenly zooms leaving the protagonist isolated in the centre? It was JUST like that.”
2. The swingers
“In my mid-20s, I worked in a fairly conservative accounting department (think government contractor engineering firm) but we had a couple of strange characters. I’d been warned about one mid-50s accounts payable lady, that she was ‘Very Social.’ She wasn’t popular in the department, but was nice enough at work, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Being the youngest and lowest rank in the department, my husband and I were seated at the ‘accounting outcasts’ table, which included Very Social and her husband. The whole party was super-swanky. Very Social and her husband were good company, complimentary, and didn’t ping ANY of my warning systems…
…right up until she learned that my husband was a welder. Then she let out a delighted squeal and asked him to build her custom steel people-sized cages, with brackets for harness hooks. She also let us know they were VERY interested in having us over try out their other “equipment” for additional Christmas Merriment.
That Christmas I learned ‘Very Social’ = Unabashedly Enthusiastic Swingers into BDSM.”
This follow-up added further details:
“We turned her down, and she was still very nice. She even hand-quilted a baby blanket for my second child.
Data entry, people cages, nipple clamps, hand-embroidered baby quilts. She was very well-rounded for an accountant.”
3. The fist fight
“We had an office fist fight over some particularly smelly cheese.
Not so much a holiday story so much as the aftermath. During my first year as a PhD student, we had a little office party just before we all left for Christmas and someone brought in some very nice cheese and crackers. Unfortunately, it was a pretty ripe cheese to start with and it got left in the office fridge over the break. Come the new year and the day we’re all due back, Bob is the first to arrive in the morning. He opens the fridge to find the festering (and presumably by now sentient) remains of the cheese and takes it out intending to dispose of it. Before he can remove it to a safe location, the phone rings. Bob answers the phone, leaving the cheese on Jim’s desk which is next to the phone. Jim is the next to arrive and is greeted by a horrific smell, and the sight of the cheese from the black lagoon sitting on his desk. Chaos erupts and the accusations start to fly.
By the time I arrived, I could both smell the cheese and hear the shouting from the end of the corridor. I entered just in time to see Jim punch Bob on the arm and then storm out of the office. Bob stormed out not long after and after I finally disposed of the cheese in the park (it was the nearest accessible outdoor bin), I spent the rest of the morning working alone in the office with all of the windows open. I don’t miss academia.”
4. The hard-driving nuns and priests
“I worked for a catholic school some years ago where the teaching and support staff consisted of priests, nuns and laypeople. We decided to do a white elephant exchange at the staff Christmas party. Since most of the group had taken a literal vow of poverty, the gifts had to be below $5 and re-gifting was strongly encouraged, just bring the item to the party fully wrapped. We drew numbers and picked gifts but you could ‘steal’ a gift if you had a higher number. There was one gift that was relatively big and the wrapping was very, very fancy so you know it was the most popular. We had nuns attempting to hide the gift with the skirts of their habits, priests making side deals on taking over the less popular mass times in exchange for the gift, it was hilarious to see how far they were willing to go to get this gift. It was all in good fun and no one devolved into tears over any of it. One of the older nuns ended up winning it and she did a victory lap around us holding it in the air. The gift ended up being a used pair of running shoes from one of the priests that was an avid runner. She did another victory lap wearing the shoes.”
5. The duet
“The organization I work for often holds its convention just a couple of weeks before Christmas, and several years ago, as part of the entertainment for the closing banquet, we had a quartet singing mostly Christmas songs. In the banquet room right next door, though, somebody was holding a very large and loud corporate Christmas party that included a very loud D.J. playing very loud music, none of it Christmassy, as far as I could tell.
And I do mean LOUD.
So this, I swear to God, is what it sounded like to those of us sitting closest to the wall that separated our sedate Christmas quartet performance from the very loud D.J. performance of ‘Brick House’ by the Commodores:
Quartet: ‘Oh, hooooooly niiiiight! The stars…’
DJ: ‘Owwww! She’s a brick…HOWWWWse, she’s mighty-mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out’
Quartet: ‘It is the niiiight of our dear savior’s…’
DJ: ‘Owwww! She’s a brick…HOWWWWWse, well put-together, everybody knows.’
Quartet: ‘A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for…’
DJ: ‘She’s a brick…HOWWWse, owwww, that lady stacked and that’s a fact…’
I love ‘Oh Holy Night,’ but come on, that was HILARIOUS.”
6. The sex toy
“A Christmas party I was at had a Secret Santa … and one of the ‘presents’ was a huge dildo which, as most attendees were utterly plastered, was thrown around and, eventually, somehow stuck to the ceiling and wouldn’t budge despite various things being thrown at it.
Most people thought this was OK, but it wasn’t as we had not hired the venue exclusively and families with children were present. So a colleague and I got a ladder and eventually pry the thing off the 13-foot-high ceiling.
All Christmas celebrations were banned for the remainder of the eight years I was on the project.”
In response to a question about why it stuck there:
“We found out when I got to the top of the ladder. The ceiling had evidently been painted recently with gloss paint and was not fully dry. It was just tacky enough to hold the dildo (I cannot believe I am writing sentences like this :)”
7. The doobies
“A few years ago my husband was working for large domain company… to remain nameless. They host large fancy blacktie indoor christmas parties each year with special, secret performers. Big name acts like Ludicris, Pitbull, Fall Out Boy, etc. There’s food and fun and then they invite out the surprise performer who sings an hour set.
A few years ago the surprise performer was Snoop Dog! FUN! We all went to the stage and were having a great time singing along to old hits in our blacktie suits and gowns. Then, well, you know how snoop dog is rather famous for a certain recreation? One that’s illegal in many states still? He obviously lit up on stage which we chuckled at but then he started to pass them out to the crowd. With the CEO right there. What to do?! A few people actually said, ‘Thanks Snoop but my boss is right there!’
Anyway, they now explicitly state in the contract no illegal substances on stage.”
8. The disaster(s)
“I work in a blue collar industry for a company that boasts many couples as well as parent/offspring connections and our Christmas parties are wild.
The first one I attended was on a boat in a town about an hour or two away from the work site and a bus was organised to pick everyone up and bring us home. The party started on the bus with a large group of people passing bottles around and getting that light predrinks buzz. We get onto the boat and as the cruise goes on, everyone is getting super wasted due to the open bar and very, very limited amounts of finger food. It’s also mid December so very very hot and while I mostly stuck to soft drinks, most people were drinking. Because we’re all trapped on this boat in the middle of river, we all get to see a couple of people threaten to fight the bar staff who cut them off and a coworker who was convinced that he could swim to the river bank and wanted to jump off the boat. The most awkward one, though, was between a newly appointed manager and the guy who thought he was a shoo-in for the job. She was emotionally apologising for getting it over him, saying over and over that she’d only interviewed for the experience and hadn’t thought she’d get it. His wife had a firm grip on his arm and was trying to reassure her there were no hard feelings. He is drunk af, bright red and seething but not about to try anything in front of his wife. (Dude did finally get a manager’s role, but was passed over about six more times and only got because they had no other applications, I currently work under him and he totally sucks.)
As if that all wasn’t bad enough, the cruise ends and we all pile back onto the bus home. One former coworker who was very much like a small yippy dog starts stirring up new manager’s husband (who also works at the company) and would have probably got his head punched in if another manager (who’s actually his stepmother) hadn’t sat on his lap(!) to physically restrain him. He and new manager get off the bus at the town before ours, stumbled almost home, and end up falling in a ditch (she had like a week off with a sprained ankle).
Meanwhile on the bus, everyone else is still drinking. The coworker who organised the party is showing everyone ‘two girls, one cup’ on his phone. (Note: If you don’t know it, your life will be better if you don’t google it. Very NSFW.) There’s a fight between another couple and the guy who wanted the managers role is passed out so some one draws a phallic object on his face.
As far as I’m aware no one was punished over the event, but the grand boss who’d attended made it clear that the next one needed to have a proper meal attached to it. We were also asked to not come back by the boat company.”
the swingers, the fist fight, and other stories of holiday chaos was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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