Work: Party gore

Published on Saturday 28 November 2009 19:12

WHEN Edinburgh factory worker Elaine Ross went along to her works Christmas party in December 2006, she might reasonably have expected to lose an earring, or perhaps even a shoe, during a festive boogie on the pub dancefloor with her colleagues. Instead she lost something rather more important: her nose.

Following an argument that broke out after she allegedly bumped into another woman while dancing, Ross left the Sighthill pub where the event was being held and was followed by her attacker, who promptly sank her teeth into her nose and then spat it on to the ground. So much for seasonal cheer.

What is it about the office Christmas party? Tinsel-edged sales boards, paper cups of warm chardonnay, the awkward ritual of the Secret Santa gift-swap – somehow it all adds up to a hotbed of disaster and intrigue so potent it makes the Calman report look like a Ladybird guide. Whether it's Keith from accounts photocopying his posterior, Claire from HR getting frisky with Colin from IT in the mailroom, or Penny in sales downing one too many Lambrinis, burping loudly in the boss's face and having to be carried to her front door, two things office dos can always be relied upon providing are a monster hangover and the occasional P45.

This year is already shaping up as no exception. If you thought a recession-led lack of bonuses and scaled-down expense accounts might mean an escape from the frivolities, think again. While a number of companies have stated their contribution to the Christmas party fund will be more paltry than usual (Royal Bank of Scotland, for example, is coughing up just 10 a head for the festive bash, having slashed its entertainment budget by 90 per cent in these lean, grey times), employees themselves appear to have other ideas.

"Those who can foresee next month's pay cheque will feel, why not? While those who are under the threat of uncertainty will think, 'Come on, it's once a year. Let's enjoy things now and worry about the lean days of January later'," says chartered clinical psychologist Anita Abrams. "It's about giving each other support during tough times."

Support is all very well, but curiously, the fantasy, no doubt desired by head office, of staff linking arms in the soft glow of winter candlelight while happily belting out a rousing Oh Come All Ye Faithful and clapping each other on the back for this year's fantastic sales figures, is one that rarely makes the transition into reality.

Who knows, for example, what was on the mind of a male colleague of Merrill Lynch solicitor Elizabeth Weston when he spilt red wine down her top at a 2003 Christmas party held by the investment bank in London. He went on to make lewd comments about her sex life (the words "great waps" were apparently used), which upset her so much she took the matter to a disciplinary hearing. Unhappy with the way the hearing was handled she then sued the firm, eventually settling out of court for a reported 1 million – with which, presumably, she was able to pay off her dry cleaning bill.

Such accusations can work both ways, however. Following a staff Christmas party in 2006, a Russian property tycoon based in London, Michail Watford, sued two female members of staff for 300,000 after they accused him in emails to other colleagues of sexually harassing them at the office do. Both women later left the company.

Of course, there was a time when office parties were coy, puritan affairs, scheduled to take place between 5pm and 5.30pm. Nowadays, it's all about booking the local gastro-pub for a slap-up turkey dinner with lashings of house white, and members of management mixing with the call-centre pool. This somewhat more relaxed attitude to business can, say experts, send mixed messages.

"We've moved away from the authoritarian atmosphere of pen-pushers on high stools, to a quasi-egalitarian atmosphere, and that makes it quite hard for people to know what the boundaries are," says Abrams. "They're still there, and if you have to restrict yourself with certain members of staff during office hours, the chances are you should probably be doing the same even in a more relaxed atmosphere like the Christmas do. The problem is that doesn't happen. People get confused and things start to come out. The office party takes the cork out of the bottle."

Which brings us neatly to the next ingredient that is seemingly necessary to make a Christmas party go with a bang: alcohol. Who hasn't heard a story about a colleague who drank too much, swayed over to the boss and told them "exshactly whatsh I shink of you" before being hustled away by more sober colleagues

"Alcohol lends a false sense of security," says Abrams. "It's permitted, everybody else is doing it, you're a party pooper if you sip mineral water and then, of course, it releases all the pent-up frustrations of the past 12 months."

Or, it could just make you do something really stupid. At a Christmas party given by Middlesex firm Crown Leisure in 2001, a worse-for-wear manager promised an employee earning 17,000 per year that within two years he would be on 35,000. When – surprise, surprise – two years later the employee was not receiving the promised salary, he resigned, claming constructive dismissal, and took the company to tribunal. They were finally let off the hook, but not before paying out considerable legal fees.

Not all of the inebriation stories are so funny. In Canada in 2001, a company ended up paying out over C$1 million to a part-time member of staff who was left brain-damaged after attempting to drive herself home in treacherous weather following an office bash in which she had imbibed a good deal of alcohol. Her car slid into the path of oncoming traffic, she suffered severe injuries, and the courts found her employer owed a duty to protect her from harm, a duty that did not end, apparently, when she left the office.

So why on earth do we put ourselves through it? A survey last year showed a third of British office workers actively hate the office Christmas party. The report, carried out, inexplicably, by the British Greyhound Racing Board, concluded that almost 70 per cent of workers don't care about their office Christmas party for the simple reason that they do not want to mix socially with their work colleagues.

And indeed for some, particularly senior managers, it can be a difficult business. Unless your propensities sway towards the David Brent style of management, the chances are that sitting in an overheated branch of All Bar One with a paper hat on trying to make polite conversation about The X Factor with a woman you keep mistakenly calling Brenda is about as appealing as root canal treatment.

Which leads, perhaps, to the other modus operandi seemingly at work among those attending their company's annual bash with more seasonal gusto than necessary: namely, sex. According to Mates, the condom makers, a 2004 survey reckoned a whopping 86 per cent of us have been propositioned by a colleague at the Christmas party, and an eye-poppingly large 64 per cent have responded in the affirmative.

John Prescott MP knows all about that. As deputy prime minister he embarked on an affair with diary secretary Tracey Temple after an office Christmas party in 2002, where they apparently spent the night dancing together.

The affair, which lasted two years, caused deep embarrassment to Prescott when it emerged in 2006, as well as public humiliation for his wife Pauline.

And let's face it, even if the wife (or the husband) doesn't find out, there's always the risk of losing your job, such as in the case of Michael Tucker, a senior manager at the Trustee Savings Bank, who was discovered allegedly canoodling with a female clerk in the training room on Christmas Eve by a cleaner and lost his job as a result. He later won a case for unfair dismissal, but he never got his job back.

But by far the worst part of an office Christmas party is turning up for work next day. Crawling in to the office with a hangover the size of Dundee is not a good look, particularly when one is then greeted with the phrase, "Do you remember when you said/did/asked so-and-so about…?".

"You're talking about a lot of different people when you think about the office. All human life is there," says Abrams. "We might not be talking playschools but fully mature people, but let them out together and who knows where it will end up?"

Which raises the question: why not stay home this year?