Shitty, fucking, fuckity-fucking fuck.
Oh, by the way, I'd better warn you there'll be some swearing in this post.
Yesterday witnessed that copious vom-fest of abhorrence; that suppurating hæmorrhoid on Satan's festering arse; the Office Christmas Party.
I had managed to avoid the Departmental Christmas Party by the simple and time-honoured method of telling my boss "Bollocks to that! Fuck Christmas and all who sail in it." and not going.
But the biggie - the company party - is unavoidable.
For weeks now I've been sitting like a rabbit in the road at night, staring fixedly into the oncoming headlights that spell "party roadkill".
I hate Christmas.
I hate parties.
I especially hate Christmas parties.
They are a whole new circle of Hell from which Dante would have run screaming.
Whilst I like working with the people I work with I would prefer to gnaw off my own leg than to socialise with them.
They talk of happy families and babies, babies, babies.
I hate their simpering, cretinous partners and their ugly, shrieking, puking, shitty little brats.
They talk of football.
I hate football.
They talk of television soaps and "reality shows".
I hate dumb-fuck television.
They talk of fuck-all else.
I hate bores.
You can see where this is going, can't you?
The office Christmas Party is never the happiest day of Old Dive's year.
It started early …
Nine o'clock sees Old Dive merrily going through my emails while munching on what for once turns out to be a normal croissant and not a stupid suicide croissant, and slurping up my latte.
The ominous sound of squealing and giggling from the girls prompts me to stick my head up above the parapet, only to witness the arrival of a case of champagne and a trolley heavily laden with mince pies, chocolates and "party food" (those bizarre little lumps of congealed grease, ground-up gristle/gut/hoof/fur/feathers, and flavoured soya, coated in a disguise of breadcrumbs and left on a plate to tempt the unwary into three days of arse-gravy mayhem and projectile vomiting).
By nine-fifteen the girls are onto their second bottle of champagne.
By noon the case is finished.
As are several bottles of red and white wine.
There are twelve girls and three other guys in my office. They have drunk at least a bottle each before lunch.
Being the life and soul of the party/a miserable bastard (delete where applicable), I stick to coffee.
If I drank like the rest of them I would be puking my guts up all afternoon.
They have kept it all down by emptying the huge boxes of chocolates into their gaping maws and stuffing their distended gizzards with disgusting "party food".
Some of us have work to do …
Work is not made any easier by having a drunken Polish girl draped around my neck trying to force Christmas kisses on "Old Scrooge" and attempting to decorate me with tinsel and fucking paper hats.
Aga, you are SO going to regret that in the new year.
So you can guess that by lunchtime, when I eventually manage to get my work finished and sent out, I am not the happiest of bunnies.
And so, poor Old Dive, languishing in a slimy pit of anguish and despair is dragged down the the "branch office" (The Jugged Hare in Olde Westminster), where the upper floor is already heaving with the entire workforce, their families and friends and hangers-on; each and every one either falling-down drunk or heading straight for it, guzzling wine, beer, champagne, spirits and those neon-coloured, sugar, rotting fruit and alcohol concoctions that young people drink because it makes for amusingly coloured, fizzy vomit, and all of them shrieking at the tops of their voices.
It is dark.
It is incredibly noisy.
It is sauna-hot after the frost outside.
As I walk in, the wall of stale fag-breath, booze and disgusting perfume almost knocks me back down the stairs.
I am immediately grabbed by my disgrace of a boss, who announces to the mob that Scrooge has arrived and forces a quart pot of London Pride into one of my hands and a glass of champagne into the other and slurs at me that I must be happy because it's Christmas.
This is happy?
I ditch the booze at the nearest table and grit my teeth before plunging into the fray to carry out the sickening duty that I must perform if I am to escape this festering, fucking shit-hole.
Fixing my face into the rictus grin of a faked smile, I head for Aga - who is official photographer - and drag her around to photograph me chatting gaily to the CEO, to various management creeps and to Donna from HR.
That's all I need to do.
Nobody ever remembers what happened at these bilious orgies of binge-drinking, inappropriate sexual behaviour and mind-buggering hypocrisy, so as long as the photos show I was there I can sneak out.
As I reach the top of the stairs, the tragically mis-named "catering staff" are carrying trays of steaming crap upstairs to help soak up some of the booze and to give form to the inevitable vomit to come.
I described the food last year as "microwaved catering packs of amusingly shaped fat with salmonella, delicately encased in grease and garnished with burnt bits".
To which they have added this year a tray of what looks for all the world like the type of cat food that comes in "meaty chunks with gravy", decorated with pieces of gristle on sticks. Even the hardened drinkers shudder and flinch as it passes. Anyone putting that shit in their mouths is going to be racked up for days, moaning their miserable way through their hangovers, sitting on the toilet for hour after hour as their bottoms continually dribble stinging gravy …
And suddenly there is light. There is fresh air – well, as close as London air gets to fresh - and Old Dive, having escaped with only a flesh wound, is jogging across the city to get a train out of there.
In the new year I will hear such tales as can be remembered.
Who got taken to hospital unconscious in their own vomit.
Who had sex with who and how horrified they were when they woke up.
Who will "not be returning to work" having disgraced themselves even more than the binge-drinkers. It happened last year, and the year before; it will happen this year.
And Old Dive will lie and say cheerfully "Yes, I was there. Look! That's me in the photos".
Though not in this one. These are some festive drunks. Pauline, T.T. and Aga, working on some vomiting and hangovers.I hate Christmas parties.
14 comments:
Wow, this is an amazing review, Dive. I hardly know what to say. I do wish you had posted a picture of yourself in this social swirl, though, just as proof.
Those are on Aga's camera, Robyn.
I'm sure I am the only one of the whole sorry crowd to be conscious today.
I will content myself with grinning smugly at the thought of their sufferings.
C'mon Dive, get into the spirit of things! Even I've given up being grumpy and have knocked back a dozen Bacardi Breezers! It's Christmas!!
C'mere Divey babe, I've got some mistletoe, give us a kiss! Mwah!
...
...
...
... it's alright. I'm just joking.
That's why Aussies keep their mouths shut, but Crikey, Dive, when we laugh, mate, you'll hear it. It's taken me half an hour to shut the **** up; I'm laughing so much.
That was simply priceless. Sorry about the dunnies, though. SHHHHHUdddder !
Yep, we're cosmic twins, except that when invited back to my old jobs christmas party I laughed down the phone and said "Hey I couldn't stand working with you guys so why the hell would i want to party with you?"
I really don't understand the thinking process behind the 9am festive drink. At any other time of the year these people would be making snide remarks about alcoholics and all of that. Give them a hallmark excuse and they turn into the very same thing.
The ocunt down has begun, and i sit here wondering about whether to take the christmas tree down now so I don't come home to the depressing thing in january, or should I leave it up to greet Vic when she arrives?
Priceless !!!!!
Hee hee, Betty. You tease!
Monsieur B: I can giggle about it now, but actually being there yesterday was truly dreadful.
Brrr …
Kate: I wish I could have used that excuse.
And take the tree down now; the last thing you'll want to do when you get home is clear all of that up.
Dive, when you say things like, "suppurating hemorrhoid on Satan's festering arse," I think I have a crush on you.
See, you should have gotten yourself rip-roaring drunk and then you wouldn't remember any of it.
I avoided mine.
So, it's the medical terms that attract you, eh, T?
Sassy: You didn't avoid it; you were just too drunk to remember it.
I don't get office parties. I was not meant to party with these people and even more so, not to "partay" with them.
If I am going to get drunk and act stupid, I need to do it with my friends, not my co-workers.
Being only part time staff at the college, I can easily back out of any and all parties and no one even misses me.
For this, I am eternally grateful.
That's a great get-out, Maria.
And anybody who says "Par-tay" needs a slap.
There was a girl who I worked with once, who never went to parties, even one which was organised for her (can't remember whether it was birthday or leaving do). Anyway, her technique was to make all the right noises beforehand, but to simply not turn up. When people noticed the pattern, it was simply regarded with amusement as an affectation. I've used the technique myself with success.
Me too, Pea.
Post a Comment