share your funniest office holiday stories

by Alison Green on December 2, 2021

We have once again entered the season of forced workplace merriment, holiday party disasters, and other seasonal delights! Thus it is time to hear about your office holiday debacles, past or current.

Did you pass out naked in the break room? Did your manager provide you with a three-page document of “party procedures”? Did a drunk Santa stumble into your party off the street? These are all real stories that we’ve heard here in the past. Now you must top them.

Share your weirdest or funniest story related to holidays at the office in the comments.

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  2. Ebarr*

    There was the time our place booked us into a restaurant that flat out could not cope with the single group of about a hundred. My table got its main course THREE HOURS after the first table got theirs.

    I was sat beside the Chair of the Institute, she’d had to leave by the time the meal finally turned up and I ate hers as well as my own. I my defence, I was really hungry.

    2. Dwight Schrute*

      Oh my god that’s awful! I get really hangry and three hours to wait for my food? No way. I would’ve left

      1. Free Meerkats*

        Something I learned about my now spouse on our first road trip, when she says, “I’m hungry.” I have about half an hour to get food into her. As a friend who was with us when I discovered this said, “It’s like she was a completely different person; a real glasshole.”

        1. Anhaga*

          Pretty sure you’re not my spouse, but that was a lesson he learned pretty quickly too. And our children now know. “Mommy, you seem crabby, do you need a snack?”

            1. UKDancer*

              Me too. I went on holiday with a friend and we discovered that she didn’t feel the need to eat during the day but I turn into a ragebeast if I don’t eat something for lunch. I don’t need a massive banquet but I need something between breakfast and dinner. So we now stop for lunch every day. She has a very large coffee and a cigarette and I have a sandwich. This has led to significantly better holidays.

              1. quill*

                Ah, the siren song of “It’s 2PM, if I don’t eat something IMMEDIATELY I will either die or start crying.”

              2. Maglev to Crazytown*

                I totally misread “sandwich” as “sandfish.” And was puzzled yet intrigued by your lunch choices.

              3. Late For the Party*

                Nearly 40 years ago I had a complete breakdown on the National Mall in Washington DC because my husband would not stop and eat lunch because he wasn’t hungry. Every time I mentioned stopping to eat (which included our then two year old) he said let’s just keep on moving. He finally bought us hot dogs from the food vendor on the mall. I hate hot dogs but I would have eaten almost anything at that point.

                1. allathian*

                  Ugh, that’s gross. I turn into a hangry monster, and my husband has learned that if we’re traveling, we’ll go by my hunger schedule, not his. I’m not a nice person when I’m hangry. He’d certainly get a foul-mouthed earful if nothing else. If my husband had treated me as poorly as yours treated you, I might’ve started seriously considering divorce, toddler or no toddler. At the very least, I would have refused to travel with him again. Honestly, he sounds like a selfish SOB from here, I really hope he has lots of other redeeming qualities, and that he learned his lesson…

                2. VegetarianRaccoon*

                  ex-husband, or did he get better? That’s a pretty basic thing for him to screw up that badly if you don’t mind me saying.

            2. Filosofickle*

              I need a word that’s more like “huncry”. I don’t get irritable or angry, I get fuzzy-headed and frustrated, and want to cry.

          3. Caroline Bowman*

            The hangry thing for me started when I was pregnant with my first child. My spouse would get home from work and find me, furious (about literally nothing), like an angry, crouching, enormously fat tiger, ready to scream at him. One day he gently told me that he’d put a snack bar in my bag and please could I eat it on the way home from work (I had a fairly long commute at that time) because he finds it hard to get home and be berated before he’s had a chance to take off his jacket or go to the bathroom?

            Since then, the hangry beast is real and I take steps to avoid!

            1. allathian*

              Interesting. When we were kids, I was pretty even-keeled, but my sister often got hangry. We react to stress differently, when she’s stressed, she can go without eating for days, but when I’m stressed, I tend to overeat. She just doesn’t seem to get hungry if she has more interesting things to do, and literally has to schedule meals to make sure she eats reasonably regularly, whereas I don’t skip meals unless I’m sick. When we were kids, I’d just get an apple or something if I felt hungry between meals. Sometimes my sister would have one as well, but rarely on her own initiative.

              It’s only when I got pregnant with my son that I noticed that I really needed feeding at regular intervals or I’d get hangry. Unfortunately this didn’t go away when my son was born…

        2. Maya*

          The same thing happened the first time I stayed overnight at my grandparents’ house. They tend to eat dinner very late, around eight or nine. When my grandma called my mom to ask why I had turned into a screaming brat, the first thing she said was, “When’s the last time you fed her?”

          My family and I learned the hard way that I can be the very embodiment of the word “hangry.”

          1. Where’s the Orchestra?*

            That is my youngest. Mini Orchestra is now old enough to tell us they are hungry – unfortunately it’s still not a ton of lead time. When they say “I’m hungry” you have five minutes to get food in them before they become the hangry beast.

        3. Richard Hershberger*

          My best friend and I dated for a while. It was a disaster. We were a terrible couple for many, many reasons. We turned out to be great friends, however. Many years later she was Best Person at my wedding. My contribution to her marital felicity was advising, early on in their relationship, the man who would become her husband of the warning signs for when he had to get food into her fast.

        4. Distracted Librarian*

          My son and I are both like this. If our blood sugar gets low, we turn into werewolves. My husband/son’s dad is used to it and understands that, “I need to eat,” is not a suggestion.

        5. Rachel in NYC*

          That’s me!

          All my friends know that when I say “I’m hungry”- that’s code for “feed Rachel now” or you get to B* Rachel, she’s both not nice and not interested in food anymore.

          It’s not pretty.

          1. Where’s the Orchestra?*

            Ding ding ding.
            Mini Orchestra and I both have what the R has labeled “hypoglycemic tendencies” meaning the labs say we aren’t hypoglycemic- but we have every single symptom of it. For us, we just slightly alter meals so that there is more protein than the average meal – we burn it slower.

            2. Cat shepherd in training*

              So useful to hear someone say that! Had my oldest tested and she was negative but I had to live with her and she needs frequent!! snacks between full meals. Her SO understands the importance of feeding her often and carries snacks with him. He might be a keeper.

            3. The Magpie*

              I must have something along these lines. It’s not even so much that I get “hangry”, though I can get really irritable; it’s more the problem that I will start to feel very sick and faint if I’m hungry and don’t eat. If I wait too long, I get *really* nauseated, overheated, and flushed after eating, because I’ve waited too long. I often end up in a public bathroom somewhere, and it’s ruined more than one day out.

              It’s incredibly uncomfortable and it’s absolutely led to me sitting on the floor of public toilets sobbing before. When I tell my husband “I *need* to eat”, he completely gets it and helps me find some kind of GI-approved food. We both often carry snack bars for this reason, as well.

        7. GreenDoor*

          I get hangry within a half-hour or so of feeling hungry too. Turns out I’m diabetic. Not that this is the case with everyone. But when I tell my family I need to eat NOW they listen. If I was invited to an event and had to wait three hours for the food (!!) you bet you’d see me tossing back my emergency trail mix or munching on my purse cheese. No shame.

          1. KoiFeeder*

            I have purse jerky, you have purse cheese, my mom has purse (dried) fruit, now we just need purse bread and we’ve got a charcuterie board!

            (My mom and I are like Orchestra and MiniOrchestra above- not legally hypoglycemic, but with all the symptoms and coping mechanisms.)

            1. Bibliothecarial*

              I have purse bread! Homemade bagels, crackers, focaccia, etc. and boy howdy do those come in handy because I am a hobbit.

              1. allathian*

                Yup. I’m a tall hobbit, but I’m a hobbit. My blood sugar’s always been fine, although I’m fat and fairly sedentary, so a prime candidate for pre-diabetes at the very least. More than once, a doctor’s had a visibly hard time believing my blood work results, especially glucose. But still, it’s something to keep an eye on. I do want something to eat at frequent intervals, if I go for more than 4 hours between meals, the results aren’t pretty.

            2. IndustriousLabRat*

              Today I have Purse Taralli and Purse Dried Mango. The Purse Cheese (today, a chunk of Manchego) got devoured before 8am.

              I would enjoy a Purse Charceuterie picnic with this bunch of well prepared AAM snackers! Or as someone once put it, “Lunchables for Grown-Ups”!

          2. Reluctant Manager*

            Not a holiday, but in my twenties I got tipsy at a work-related party. It was late, and a couple of other people from the party wound up waiting for the same subway as me. I realized I hadn’t eaten my breakfast, so I pulled out my snack-sized ziplock of Cheerios. Not wanting to be rude, I took a few and then offered some to another girl from the office.

            This still doesn’t seem that weird to me, but a friend of mine still laughs at trying to share my Cheerios on the L train platform.

          3. L'étrangere*

            I’m not diabetic but my father is, and I’m pretty sure it’s related. One reason my sister is such a good travel companion is that she understands the imperative of eating NOW. I do owe a lot to the roomate who told someone in front of me that I wasn’t a problem at all, if I got snarly you just had to toss some food my way and poof! purry kittycat. It helped me first make sure I had something to feed my own self when needed, and eventually to learn enough to feed myself better in general, so that I’m still not diabetic. Or hardly ever hangry.

        8. library-adjacent*

          I have some issues with blood sugar and insulin, and people close to me know when I start getting really quiet and inattentive that I have to be fed asap before the meltdown starts. It’s better controlled now than it used to be, but it was the kind of thing where if I was in a new relationship or friendship I would need to make a point of saying that if I start getting weirdly quiet and terse it’s not that I’m angry, it’s that I need a snack. I had a job (at a non-profit, surprise!) where we ran a lot of workshops/events and none of my coworkers seemed all that pressed about making sure we had meal breaks– it was definitely a contributing factor in my starting a job search within 6 months of being hired. I definitely would have bailed on this kind of thing.

        9. Catherine*

          I had to explain this to my spouse. I would say I’m hungry and he would right by places with food and I was baffled. He apparently interpreted I’m hungry as I could eat sometime later. I set him straight and told him if he was driving and I said I was hungry he had an hour max to feed me.

        10. Lady Danbury*

          Hangry definitely runs in my family, including the next generation. My 2yo nephew will start melting down like clockwork at 6:30pm if he hasn’t had dinner or a snack.

      2. Jack Russell Terrier*

        Oh yes – I’m so glad that now they’re agreeing being hangry is physiological. There comes a point when snacks won’t do and like Free Meerkat’s spouse, when I say ‘I need to eat’ there’s about half an hour before I cannot be accountable for what comes out of my mouth.

        1. The Magpie*

          Ohh, I’m so glad to hear someone else mention “snacks won’t do”. My husband understands “I need to eat” as being “no, I literally NEED to eat, or I’m going to start feeling really sick very soon”, but I’m still working to get him to understand that that *also* usually means some kind of “real food”. He’ll still try to be like, “Oh, want my candy bar?” or “Would you like to stop for ice cream?”, and I have to try to hide my impatience and reiterate that I need an actual meal of some kind – preferably with protein – not a sugar rush.

    3. Siege*

      Something like this happened to us in 2029, but it was a group of 11, we had a reservation, and they still couldn’t work efficiently. My boss and I ordered the same drink (a Thai iced tea) and they came out so widely apart in time I’m certain they just went through the list of drinks and made them in that order rather than checking to see if there were any duplicates. Same for the entrees. We were getting food and drinks for close to an hour from when the first thing was set down, and the dumb part was that we had multiple of the same entree and we could see the kitchen – this wasn’t “heat it up in the microwave” cooking. The food was good, but it was a ludicrous service process. At least we had the secret Santa to distract us.

        2. Richard Hershberger*

          Letter from Future Siege. The good news is that in eight years we will be able to meet in restaurants.

      2. Jay*

        My group of eight went to a local restaurant for a holiday lunch years ago. We had a reservation. They were not crowded. They kept us waiting 10-15 minutes before we sat down and they didn’t give us menus. After another ten minutes (I’m not exaggerating) my boss caught a server’s attention and asked about menus. She said they didn’t have enough and were waiting for other tables to finish with them.

        This was a well-established local restaurant with a good reputation and prices to match.

        We were finally served over an hour after we were seated.

        1. Liz*

          Similar to a dept. holiday lunch a few years back. We went to this one restaurant my director seems to favor. I don’t know why; its not bad, but its pricy and certainly not worth the price. But whatever. It was maybe a week before Christmas, and it was packed! its also the kind of place where they have “tag team” servers. one comes to say I’m Moe, I’ll be helping Joe and Zoe today. so you have like 3 people throughout.

          first we were crammed into a too small table for the five or six of us, the place is packed, and our first server came over to introduce herself and say who she’d be assisting. welp. she was it. poor woman, along with all the other servers, was run ragged. we even saw the managers bringing stuff out. everything was slow; and it was just meh on top of all that! my feeling was they were overbooked and understaffed, and couldn’t handle it.

      3. SomebodyElse*

        I had a similar experience. I think there were 10-15 of us. We know this is how they were making the drinks because we watched the bartender. I hope it wasn’t her regular job, because it was get glass, fill with ice, pour liquor, walk to table, serve, go back to bar, get glass, fill with ice, rinse and repeat. (regardless of duplicate drink orders) I think it took in the 1 1/2 hour range for everyone to get their drink.

        We know this because the same group went out the next night to a different restaurant and my boss challenged us (in a lighthearted way) to see how many drinks we could all have in the same time. Let’s just say it had been a long week and we averaged about a 3 to 1 ratio from the night before!

      4. Late For the Party*

        Memorial Day weekend about 20 years ago, we decided to take a short road trip. We visited a local restaurant in the town we landed in. They were not too busy. We were seated and we waited and waited. It took about 30 minutes for someone to take our orders. We waited another 30 minutes (which was a lifetime to my teenage son) so I got up and walked back to the kitchen prep area where all of the makings of a salad were clearly visible and started making the salads we ordered. I was almost finished and the manager walked through and asked me what I was doing. I said that he looked understaffed so I was helping him out. He sent me back to the table and promptly brought out the salads I had prepared. Our entrees soon followed. Everyone in the restaurant applauded even though they had been seated before us and had spent time visiting our table to find out how we managed to get food. The manager offered us a free dessert on our next visit, which we declined.

    4. ceiswyn*

      That happened to me about ten years ago, and to make it even better there were only about fifty of us and we were the only people there.
      Also, the food was terrible. The vegetarian option was some kind of risotto; I have no recollection of what kind, because it tasted like wallpaper paste. After I’d nicked a lot of the cheap horseradish sauce laid on for the meat-eaters’ beef, it at least tasted like slightly horseradishy wallpaper paste.

    5. WantonSeedStitch*

      I remember being at a wedding where by the time my table got called to go up to the buffet, there were people who’d been finished eating for about an hour.

      1. Where’s the Orchestra?*

        The number two priority when I picked my wedding reception venue was food and food service. I knew people were coming from a ways away – and I wanted to make sure I have them as good a meal as I could afford to.

        (Priority one was that my guests would be able to bring their whole families- I paid for babysitting at the reception, as soon they finished eating they could turn their kids over. It was a huge hit.)

        1. Ook*

          My sister did that (paid childcare) at her reception; there was a room of the main reception area with a mini cinema set up, and childcarers- it was a great idea and ppl loved it.

      2. Phony Genius*

        I was at a wedding where an entire table walked out because of what they felt was bad service. I was at the next table. They were being extremely difficult with the server, who I think was actually happy to see them go.

    6. Grace Poole*

      Similarly, at our last holiday party pre-pandemic, the university switched caterers and there was a disconnect between what the party planners thought was happening and what the caterers did. So instead of the buffet of appetizers and small bites being replenished throughout the 4 hour party, what was put out at the beginning was it. So the people who showed up an hour in got the dregs. Luckily (?) the open bar was still open the entire time, even though people were hangry.

    7. Kippy*

      Something similar happened at my very first office holiday party. We were a large firm – about 200 – so the party was always in the banquet room of a hotel. The party started at noon and there was always a cocktail hour before the seated portion. But, for some reason, the passed appetizers were almost non existent that year. I had heard all these stories of bacon wrapped shrimp, crab cakes, and little meat pies from years past but just got a sad spinach and artichoke popper during the cocktail portion. I looked for more but couldn’t find any. I had only had a light breakfast and was starting to get hungry but figured it’d be fine once the main meal started.

      Except it didn’t start. Our firm always did a little year end slide show at these parties and the hotel’s IT folks were having some problem getting the projector and computer to work. Our IT folks tried to help but were told that only the hotel’s staff could work on the hotel’s equipment. So instead of sitting down to lunch around 1:00 we didn’t get seated until after two.

      Salad and bread were served. At my table there was only two small/medium sized loaves of bread for the eight of us but we figured it wasn’t a huge deal since the main course should be coming out soon. We all finished our salads and they cleared our salad and bread plates as we ordered our main courses. Main courses were ordered from the waiter but the side dishes – potatoes and roasted veggies – were served communally. Our table was the first to order and about 10 minutes later the platters of sides came out. We expected to get our mains (with the plates!) soon after. But no. After this all the waiters disappeared for over an hour. Fortunately there were bottles of wine on the tables and one bartender from the earlier cocktail hour was still in the hall so drinks were flowing. And technically we had food – those sides! – but none of us had plates. Only some of us had forks since some had been cleared with the salad plates. One bold associate kept joking about grabbing some paper towels from the bathroom and we could just dump the food onto a towel and eat that way. Except this was a nice hotel and they didn’t have paper towels in the bathrooms and instead had rolled up washcloths. No one was quite brave enough to just start digging into the large – clearly meant to be shared – platters of vegetables.

      Eventually the waiters reappeared and started serving the main course. They’d serve two tables and then there would be a 10 to 20 minute delay before two or three more tables were served. Despite being the first table to order we were the last table to get any food. It was almost 5:00 before I got my lunch. My steak was perfect but the vegetables, which had been sitting out for over two hours at that point, were cold. I didn’t care and started to eat. I’d taken maybe two bites when the waiters came to take our dessert order. I figured this was because the other tables that had been served first had already finished with the dinner and they wanted to get the desserts rolling to them. Which was true. But they also wanted us out of the room because they had another group coming in for 6:00 and they needed to clean the room for them. Anyone who was still eating (and there were about 40 folks still working on the main courses at that point) got their dessert brought out already boxed up. As soon as it looked like you had finished with your main course, they grabbed your plate to clear the table. One notoriously slow eater had her plate cleared while she was still bringing the last forkful of food to her mouth!

      Needless to say we went to a different hotel next year.

      3. I take tea*

        I get so frustratated just reading about it! I would have ordered a pizza (probably not, but would have thought about it at least!)

      4. They Don’t Make Sunday*

        OMG. I’d have said, “Well, you didn’t have any problem keeping us waiting. What’s the rush?”

      5. KoiFeeder*

        If someone was taking my plate while I was still eating, they would need to hope that the hanger had worn off because I have menaced (and on one memorable occasion stabbed) my siblings with a fork for that exact crime. You do not touch my food. Especially if I haven’t eaten for several hours!

    9. allathian*

      I once went with my husband to a restaurant that made most of its money from buffet lunches, but they also served sit-down meals in the evenings. This was when we were living together but not yet married. We were fairly early, so it was still quite empty, but the restaurant was open, and waitstaff were setting up tables, etc. We had to wait for 5 minutes before getting a table, in an almost empty restaurant. The waitstaff walked around and straightened tablecloths, etc. but it took ages before they brought us any menus. When we did, it took another age before they took our order. But the cherry on the cake was when they let our food sit for about 15 minutes before bringing it to us. It wasn’t as if they’d been busy, either. When we finally got the food, it was cold. We ate quickly, paid, and left. Clearly the waitstaff preferred working lunch, when customers select their own food, to providing any kind of service. We never went to that restaurant again, and we were quite vocal about how bad the service there had been to all our friends (neither my husband nor I post on social media), and a year or so later it went bust. The same owners opened another restaurant, but this time they served buffet lunches only.

  3. COBOL Dinosaur*

    We were in the middle of the holiday white elephant gift exchange one year when a pregnant coworker’s water broke. A few coworkers sprung into action and left her sitting in the office chair she was in and wheeled her down to the elevator and into their car and off to the hospital. We ended up taking a collection to have that coworkers car detailed afterwards. I believe the office chair was thrown out. Funny thing is that the coworker who drove her to the hospital actually ended up getting ‘in trouble’ because there was some sort of policy that did not allow an employee to transport anyone except ourselves to a hospital.

    1. Elenna*

      …I really hope that was a “technically we have to write you up because procedures and liability and all that, but in reality we all know you did A Good” kind of ‘in trouble’, not, like, actually in trouble.

      1. COBOL Dinosaur*

        She really didn’t get in trouble. The company just used this as an opportunity to remind people of the policy.

        1. Cathie from Canada*

          Reminds me about the Gimli Glider, 40 years ago. A Boeing 767 flying across Canada ran out of fuel and one of the pilots remembered a military runway in the little town of Gimli, Manitoba, and they were able to glide the jet to a landing thereby saving a hundred passengers. Then the pilots were demoted by Air Canada – because they had taken off without enough fuel due to maintenance worker errors mixing up gallons and liters.
          Canada was absolutely furious at the company for this management stupidity.

          1. Harper the Other One*

            Those pilots were mind-bogglingly lucky/good too. I remember watching a special about the investigation and the expert pilot they brought in said he uses the Gimli Glider scenario for emergency simulator training. None of them have successfully landed the plane, and he admitted he’s tried it multiple times and hasn’t succeeded either.

    3. Lance*

      Wait, then what are people supposed to do if they need to get to a hospital quickly but aren’t in a state to drive (as was the case with this co-worker)?

        1. A Library Person*

          Especially if this is in the US, where ambulances can rack up major fees. I’d hope that would be covered under most insurance policies for, you know, BIRTH, but I’ve learned never to take any medical expense reimbursement for granted.

            1. Anon and on an on*

              I slipped in the lobby on a rainy day. I was already in a cast. My crutches went everywhere. Ambulance called. Company paid all bills.
              I had a medical episode years later. Fainted. Ambulance called. That one was on me.
              Also true for coworker who had heart palpitations. It was on her.

            3. Me*

              Yeah that’s really not how that works. The responsibility is typically in the patient UNLESS the company is responsible for the injury such as a trip and fall over ragged carpet or slip on a wet floor.

              1. WFH is all I Want*

                Yup. It’s why they ask for your SSN in the ambulance. Then it’s on you to try and get a company to pay. The cost is astronomical too. My last ambulance ride was $1600 AFTER insurance. On the itemized bill, they charged $150 per mile driven to our location and then to the hospital. And the oxygen they put my son on for ten minutes was billed at $5000 before insurance “stepped in.”

              2. Charlotte Lucas*

                If you injure yourself at work the company is liable unless it can be proven that you were doing something wrong. I slipped on some stairs (while holding the handrail), & my injury was covered.

                The stairs were just… Kind of crappy in terms of the height & size of the risers but not in any way a code violation.

              3. Unicorn Parade*

                I collapsed at work one day because I had a kidney infection. My first one, one minute my side hurt a little, the next I was writhing on the floor in agony and briefly passed out. I remember yelling as they loaded me into the ambulance, trying to find out if they had called to get pre-auth for the ambulance. Ended up with a $500 bill (20 years ago) that I never paid and technically still owe (I was a broke college student at the time). My work absolutely did not have to pay it and several HR employees made that very clear to me.

          2. bratschegirl*

            I fell and broke an arm this year. I’m a professional musician so while this wouldn’t be true for most people, it was a potentially career-ending injury for me (I’m all healed and back to work, thankfully) and I didn’t feel safe even trying to get myself off the floor lest I make something irretrievably worse, let alone try to get into a car and get seat belted. My share of the ambulance bill was $2500 (nobody claimed it wasn’t medically necessary, I just had an unsatisfied deductible). Literally insult to injury!

          3. Kyrielle*

            As I have had cause to learn this year (everyone is fine now!), ambulance rides from both local services are out of network for my insurance. They’ll pay their customary allowed fees, and the ambulance company having not agreed to limit to those then charges us the difference. Not fun.

        2. TootsNYC*

          At my job, someone bonked their head on the stairways to the Highline Park* and opened up a cut. It needed stitches. HR heard about it and was insisting that they had to go to the hospital by ambulance.

          The employee became hysterical. She was a freelancer and had no health insurance, and she also lived in NYC on a freelancer’s earnings so couldn’t pay for it. HR, keps bearing down. All the rest of us were SO angry. I don’t remember how it ended, but I know that she didn’t go in an ambulance.

          *you can’t bonk your head on those stairs anymore, because I sent them an email and told them aboout this (it was about 4 days after the park had opened and they’d taken off the wooden cages around the steps), and on my walk home I saw there were pylons on the sidewalk to block the area, and then a couple of days later they’d welded bars to make it impossible to walk under those steps.

        1. Artemesia*

          And it will cost the co-worker who doesn’t need an ambulance as much as a thousand bucks for that ‘policy’. She would be better off calling a cab and sitting on something. Labor is rarely an ’emergency’.

          1. Snow Globe*

            No, but a coworker who is in a hurry because this is not a normal thing for them could easily get into a car accident

      6. Rachel in NYC*

        That’s okay. I’m laughing cuz I worked someplace where they decided I needed to go to the hospital and not by myself so the HR admin was handed taxi vouchers and told to take me.

        There was no blood involved obviously.

    4. Artemesia*

      I never understand this rush to the hospital thing; labor is almost always very long and doctors don’t suggest you head to the hospital to late in the process.

      1. a heather*

        But you never know. My friend’s first baby took forever; she waited and ate dinner and stuff before heading to the hospital, but she was still waiting until late afternoon the next day. Her second was almost born before her husband came in from parking the car right after they got there.

          1. Zephy*

            There was a semi-viral video clip a while back of a lady giving birth while walking through the parking lot at a birthing center – the nurse who rushed outside to help after her water broke can be heard in the clip explaining to the cop who was apparently also outside that “we’re fine, she’s here to have a baby, we just didn’t make it inside!” It’s wild, the lady just stops walking, nurse runs out, and suddenly bloop there’s a baby in the nurse’s arms.

            1. TK*

              In 2015, a woman in Utah started giving birth while driving herself to the hospital. The baby literally started coming before she even had time to pull over. The audio recording of her 911 call is pretty intense. “I’m driving, I’m having a baby, I’m trying to change lanes!” and then the 911 dispatcher is like, “Did you get pulled over?” repeatedly. (She eventually did, gave birth, and then the police arrived to help get her to the hospital and everything was fine.)

          2. TiffIf*

            My younger sister was born in the Labor room of the hospital (80s separate labor and delivery rooms, not sure if they do that anymore?) because she was born too quickly to get to the delivery room.

          3. Enough*

            My sister’s first was text book time. Her second was barely time to take off her clothes and put on a gown.

            1. Berkeleyfarm*

              My younger sibling arrived speedily enough that my mom’s doctor said “if you have another one, don’t doubt your signs, and stand your ground to be admitted. They can call me.” (small town)

              (Mom had been pooh-poohed when she first arrived and turned right back when they got home.)

        2. michelenyc*

          These stories always make me think of Seth Meyers wife giving birth to their 2nd son in their building lobby. They thought they had time to get to the hospital but surprise, surprise!

          2. TK*

            And that was after their 1st son was nearly born in an Uber after they just barely made it into the hospital. He just announced on his show last week that they’d had their 3rd child a few weeks ago, and she decided to give birth at home this time, to avoid something similar happening yet again!

          5. Marillenbaum*

            One of my sister’s in-laws ended up giving birth on her bedroom rug for the same reason–she woke up her husband to go to the hospital, he was in the middle of calling his parents to have them take charge of Oldest Child so they could go to the hospital, when suddenly she was like “This is NOT FINE” and she rang emergency services, who arrived in a couple of minutes and helped her safely deliver on the bedside carpet. She said she was so glad to move house about a year later because it meant her neighbors hadn’t heard her in labor.

        4. zebra*

          At one job there was a married couple (“Joe” and “Jane”) who both worked there and Jane was very pregnant. I was at the reception desk at the end of an afternoon and one of my other colleagues poked her head out from the hallway to the bathrooms and said “hey zebra, can you call Joe and have him come over here to the bathroom? Jane’s water broke and it’s time to go to the hospital.” I was like 22 and immediately started panicking, thinking she was going to have to deliver the baby in the work bathroom, asking if I should go grab the coworker who used to be an EMT, etc. The woman looked at me like I was crazy and was like “Uh, calm down, this isn’t a movie. They have plenty of time. Just please tell Joe and go back to work.” I felt very chagrined when they left for the hospital quickly but calmly a few minutes later. (I can’t remember many details but everything went fine with the baby and they got to the hospital.)

        5. Retired Prof*

          I was in Day 2 of labor when some woman came through the ER doors crowning and took my doc, my nurse and my anesthetist.

        6. KoiFeeder*

          I wasn’t quite as dramatic as some of these stories, but I showed up before the doctor did! Supposedly he came charging in with the hospital hats over his feet because he couldn’t find the shoe covers in time.

          1. PhyllisB*

            When I had my third, when we left the house, I was having contractions every 10-15 minutes. My husband said being the third, things might go quicker. He was right. We drove one block to my mother’s to bring her the other two, and as soon as we left the driveway they started coming two minutes apart.
            Got to the hospital and they called the doctor (he had been playing tennis) and he took a phone call at the nurse’s station because he figured there was enough time. Well, things started HAPPENING and nurse yelled out “DOCTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” He calmy said, “Gotta go!!” Got quickly suited up and got there just in time to catch her.

        7. Tamarack with a phone*

          Yeah… My brother’s kid – mom’s first, 26 y.o. healthy young woman… Water broke, so my brother drives it to the hospital, parks in a hurry in the drop-off zone and gets her into the maternity ward. Once she’s in the hand of the midwife & nurses, they tell him to go and park the car, and not to hurry. By the time he was back 20 min later, the baby was all done getting born.

        8. Harper the Other One*

          My first labour I assumed we’d have AGES of time. My water broke as I woke my husband up, and I took a quick shower to clean up because it’ll be 10 to 12 hours, right?

          By the time I got in the car I was having contractions every minute and a half and the hospital was 40 minutes away. Total time in labour was 2 hours and they didn’t even bother to call my doctor because they knew she wouldn’t make it in time! Another OB who had just done a delivery kindly stayed to assist me.

          For my second child people joked we should rent and RV and live in the hospital parking lot.

      2. MsClaw*

        Typically if your water breaks, you need to get to the hospital right away. For many women, their water doesn’t break until they are well into labor. In fact, it’s not uncommon for the medical staff to have to break the waters for women. Or you could be like me and have your water break but not be going into labor — which is okay for a while but becomes dangerous for the baby if you let that situation go on.

        TLDR; generally speaking you don’t need to ‘rush’ to the hospital at your first contraction. But if your water breaks? It’s hospital time.

        1. Rusty Shackelford*

          I don’t think it’s accurate to say this is “typical.” It’s always portrayed that way in movies/TV, but really, water breaking is rarely an emergency situation. Yes, you do need to go to the hospital, but it’s a “put a towel on the seat and drive” situation, not a “call an ambulance” situation.

          1. MsClaw*

            I think you are misinterpreting my comment.

            You are right that it’s pretty atypical to have a ‘massive water breaks in the grocery store’ moment. And yeah, you don’t need an ambulance. But you do need to generally get moving to where you intend to give birth (hospital, birth center, home) if you are one of that small percentage of women (like me) who do have a sitcom water break moment.

            1. Rusty Shackelford*

              Ah, thanks for pointing out my error.

              (I’d be furious if someone called an ambulance – which I would have to pay for – because my water broke!)

            2. Forty Years In the Hole*

              Putting me in mind of the scene in “The Coneheads” movie, when Prymatt’s (Jane Curtain) water broke…took out an entire apt’s staircase.

            3. KaciHall*

              Funny related story – I worked at a bank inside a Walmart. We had a pregnant customer come up on Christmas eve looking slightly stressed and asked if she could cash a friend’s check. (We couldn’t.) She walked away, but came back a few minutes later and asked if she could sit down on one of our chairs, because her water had just broken. And she had locked her keys in the car.

              Apparently her doctor told her to walk to trigger labor, so on CHRISTMAS EVE she decided to go to Walmart and shop with a friend instead of walking literally anywhere else. It was snowy and gross, the roads were terrible, and they ended up calling an ambulance because she needed to get to the other side of the city ASAP.

              We had a towel in the back, so we got that for her and let her sit until she could leave. My (very flamboyantly gay) manager was panicking, because ‘I don’t deal with women for fun, how do I deal with them in an emergency?’ as though we were expecting him to deliver the baby.

              1. dawbs*

                honestly, stores were where I walked when I was ordered to walk to trigger labor. It seems like a reasonable choice.

                It was going to be warm, relatively clean, and there would be people there–so at least someone who could call 911. Walking in my neighborhood, I could find myself on a deserted (and icy) sidewalk and in a heckuvalota worse situation. (and I could accomplish errands).
                Trying to pace back and forth in a 1000 sq ft house made me ready to climb walls pretty literally.

            4. Elizabeth West*

              That happened to a coworker from an old job. She was in the grocery store and *SPLOOOSH!* She said she felt really bad for the poor teenaged grocery employee who had to clean it up.

              1. Rainy*

                Some years back my now husband and I had driven to the next town to see a movie in the theatre that makes you drinks and I went to the washroom and found a puddle of blood and fluid, so I went and found a theatre employee (two actually) and said “hey, so there’s a puddle of blood and other liquids in the washroom, thought you might want to know” and they looked at each other and chorused “OH THAT’S WHERE”.

                Turns out the person’s water had broken and they’d rushed out of the washroom, gotten their husband, and then they’d both rushed out of the theatre, calling to the cashiers that they needed to get to the hospital as the baby was coming–but without saying WHERE their water had broken.

            5. Rock Prof*

              I was so convinced that sitcom water breaking wasn’t a real thing, until my own happened! Like others, I did need to get to the hospital really quick too. My son was breach (I found that out on Monday, water broke on Friday), and I was definitely in labor when the floods came, so there was definitely an urgent but not yet emergency-level need to get to the hospital quickly. Since this all happened a good couple weeks before the due date, my partner was out of town, so I was calling friends of friends to take me (which worked out) as he drove hours very quickly to the hospital.

        2. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          My first child was born about 54 hours after the waters broke.

          My second child was born about three minutes after the waters broke.

          You go to hospital when your waters break because you don’t know which of those extremes it could be.

        3. Aquawoman*

          It is hospital time, but that doesn’t mean it’s call an ambulance time. My water broke, my (now ex) husband drove us to the hospital.

          1. HBJ*

            And even this is not universally true. I had that dramatic, sitcom water breaking moment with my first. Absolutely no signs of labor and then pants-soaking, puddle-on-the-floor whoosh. I called my midwives, and they told me to stay home and try to get some rest until I went into labor. And if it got toward the 12-hour mark without labor starting, then I should call them and come in, and they’d try to start getting things moving. (I did start getting real contractions about six hours later.)

        4. Odd Duck*

          My water broke way before I had any contractions. I called the hospital and was advised to come in right away as they were afraid of the risk of infection. I didn’t start any contractions until pitocin was started hours later. It was the strangest thing.

          1. Eeyore's Missing Tail*

            Same thing with me. I had been to the OB a couple of days before and they were telling me I would probably need to be induced because my daughter was in no hurry to leave. 2 days later, my water broke and they started me on the pitocin drip.

          2. PhyllisB*

            That happened with my second. With my first I was in labor for hours. Already told tale of #3. You just never know.

        5. TootsNYC*

          “right away” means “go to the hospital, go directly to the hospital, do not pass Go, do not collect $200,” or it means “without running any errands or wasting time,” but it doesn’t have to mean “drive as fast as you can” or “call an ambulance.”

      4. Other Sherri*

        Except when it’s not. When your water breaks it can be very fast. Second births are also very fast. With my second, I gave birth with an hour of getting to the hospital. Good thing I did not want an epidural as there wouldn’t have been time.

        You really can’t tell ahead of time whether the labor is going to be fast or not, so unless you want a home birth, it makes sense to get to the hospital when either your water breaks or the contractions are close enough.

        Cheers!

      5. Mockingjay*

        Umm, I almost didn’t make it to the hospital with my second. She was born 20 minutes after I got there. It would have been sooner but the nurses encouraged me not to push until my OB got there. (Thankfully he was close.)

        1. Rainy*

          My first husband once delivered a baby in the hospital, in an elevator between the 2nd and 3rd floors (L&D was on the 5th floor).

      6. Might Be Spam*

        Fortunately, I was already at the hospital for an ultrasound test because I was already 10 days overdue. I thought I was in labor but they insisted that I was not. Whereupon my water broke and my son was born 15 minutes later.

        1. nonegiven*

          My aunt went to the hospital to stay overnight, the doctor was going to induce her in the morning so he could be there in time. He also stayed over in the on call room. She woke up during the night and told the nurse she had a funny feeling it’s time to call the doctor, he barely made it.

      7. LPUK*

        My mum took 24 hours to deliver me. For my little sister , Dad was driving her to hospital and turned back to pick up his wristwatch (why?) and she was crowning as they pulled up outside the hospital. The nurse came out to put her in a wheelchair, my Mum said ‘ too late’ and hey presto, little sister!

      8. quill*

        It can happen pretty fast as well… and complications can happen very quickly at any point during the birth.

      9. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

        I never understand this rush to the hospital thing; labor is almost always very long and doctors don’t suggest you head to the hospital to late in the process.

        That’s what I understand for the first delivery, but subsquent ones become faster. The lay explanation I’ve heard is “the first time, the body is figuring out what to do, but after that, it already knows.”

      10. AngelicGamer, the Visually Impared Peep*

        As someone who was nearly born in Chicago traffic because I had to come out RIGHT NOW, you have no idea how long or short labor will be unless it’s your own. Also, you have no idea how traffic will be either. So good on that co-worker and shame on the company for that unless they’re willing to pay for ALL ambulance rides from that company. Or a cab or Uber (what I would be using).

        1. Figgie*

          One of my friends had just seen her obstetrician and been checked, told she wasn’t even close to giving birth and to go home. She didn’t even make it out to the car before she gave birth in the parking lot.

          A friend of my mother who was married to a pediatrician was in the hospital and (this was back in the day when spouses were not allowed in the delivery room) she was waiting for the obstetrician. Her spouse (because he was a pediatrician) was allowed to be with her.

          She yelled “Curtis the baby is coming!” He asked: “What am I supposed to do about that?” She swore a blue streak and told him to basically get down there and catch the damn baby before it hit the floor. He did and that is the story of their youngest sons birth. :-)

      12. L'étrangere*

        In general yes, but it’s only because my mother screamed at the top of her lungs that the doctor turned around and caught my sister before she took a plunge to the floor, soapy hands and all. Your mileage is guaranteed to vary, with birth

      13. Snuck*

        Friend of mine – first baby, out for dinner … says to her partner “Hrm… I think I have some back ache” and the decide to walk the two blocks to the hospital. Has baby in the corridor literally minutes later.

        It happens!

      14. CoveredinBees*

        Especially if it is just water breaking. That’s not always labor. It would be a “get to a hospital ASAP” situation if the water breaks early (usually before 37 weeks) because of issues around premature birth and given the baby a drug to help their lungs develop before birth. But water breaking is rarely the big splash or call to frantic action that movies and TV make it out to be.

    5. Up and Away*

      When I was pregnant, I lived in fear of that happening!! Part of my job involved walking around the factory floor, and I just KNEW my water would break out there. It did not, to my great relief.

    6. YA Author*

      My water also broke while I was at work and seated in an office chair. I cleaned myself up, changed my pants (close to due date, pregnant folks are advised to carry a go-bag), and drove myself home. My firstborn arrived about 12 hours later. Here’s the fun part of the story.

      An offsite employee in my department who was slightly senior to me decided to move in-house during my maternity leave. He took over my office, including my chair. Yes, the one into which my water broke. I presume he thought I wasn’t coming back from maternity leave, but I’m still salty he got away with this heist. Anyway, he was a nightmare to work with. I never told him about the chair, and he sat in it at least as long as I worked there (two more years).

  4. J!*

    Nothing will beat the sad piano man work Christmas party date story, which I think about sometimes out of the blue and it makes me laugh every time.

    1. Ali G*

      I feel bad for all the people in the world that do not know this exists. It is truly a Holiday gift to us all!

        1. Hlao-roo*

          I posted a comment with a link, but while it goes through moderation, you can find it by searching:

          “the best office holiday party date story of all time”

          posted on December 5, 2019.

    2. not a doctor*

      Mine is “I will confront you by Wednesday of this week.” I have so, so many unanswered questions. They haunt me to this day.

      1. AnonEMoose*

        Thank you. I needed that laugh today. I’m also cringing on her behalf, but mostly laughing. And kudos to the nice ladies who contributed drink tickets and bad date stories, and the nice couple who drove her home because I wouldn’t have trusted that guy not to take advantage, either.

    4. Reminder*

      For anyone who has missed it so far, that one got made into a hilarious Marvel fanfic over at Archive of Our Own!

      Search for “You’re Where You Should Be All the Time” by Laura Kaye.

      So. Good.

      1. Beth*

        There are multiple fanfics of that story!

        And I just found out that you get over a hundred hits if you search Ao3 for “Ask a Manager”. Alison, take a bow!

          1. Nobby Nobbs*

            The first couple are in the “character writes to a real-life advice columnist about their problems” genre, which is disappointingly not popular enough to have any sort of agreed-upon tagging convention and therefore unsearchable. That makes me sad.

            1. Calamity Janine*

              clearly, we need to make it a thing. perhaps an official thing.

              alison should steal this concept for april fool’s day, is what i’m saying.

              i will even write the letters. hand on heart, i will. sure, the only thing my brain is coming up with now is “worried stormtrooper from star wars writes alison an email with title of My Boss Just Strangled Another Manager – This Isn’t Normal, Right?”, but i’ll do it,

              2. Mr. Shark*

                i will even write the letters. hand on heart, i will. sure, the only thing my brain is coming up with now is “worried stormtrooper from star wars writes alison an email with title of My Boss Just Strangled Another Manager – This Isn’t Normal, Right?”, but i’ll do it,

                haha, that would be hilarious!!

            2. my dear Madame President*

              Gosh, there are SO many advice column letters to be extracted from the Doctor Who spinoff Gallifrey, which is basically a political drama with time travel, but unfortunately I think the overlap between AAM and Gally fandom is basically just me.

                1. SarahKay*

                  It’s an audio series by a company called Big Finish. Romana as president of Gallifrey, Leela and K9 are also in it; can highly recommend.

              3. Marco Diaz's Red Hoodie*

                *waves* Hi! It’s not just you! Unfortunately I haven’t listened to Gallifrey in years, but I did listen to… at least 4 or 5 seasons? My friend is trying to get me back into BF audios — I love them, it’s just that I got sucked into DnD fandom and have had a lot going on in my life this year… But anyway, at the very least the Venn diagram of AAM readers and Big Finish listeners does include both of us! I’d be very interested to see if anyone else appears out of the woodwork haha.

          2. SarahKay*

            This is true, but scrolling through them I’ve found two more based on this story. (Star Wars – “Christmas Magic” by LittleLostStar and Once Upon a Time – “hashtag holiday party” by Shireness, for anyone interested.)

            1. shireness*

              Cheers – I’m (irrationally) stuck between embarrassment that my story has circled back to the source and delighted that people have read it, but I’m choosing to commit to the latter. Always something interesting for the ol’ discord chat. Thanks for the mention!

      2. KaciHall*

        I do not know how I missed this. Haven’t looked at her author page and just waiting for another story to update, I guess.

        And now I have a whole other search term for ao3. Oops.

    6. Kvothe*

      The part that killed me in this story is when OP heard the story about herself years later! Imagine being that kind of living legend lol

      1. Mr. Shark*

        Yes, to me that was the best part of the story. It became such a legend that she hears about it from some random person years later! haha!

  5. Crystal Stair*

    This is copied and pasted from one of my comments in an open thread, but my awful last job made us do 12 Days of Holiday Cheer.

    I started my last job in November of 2020. Unbeknownst to me, sometime in October of 2020, the government agency we’d been working for had sent out some employee engagement surveys to every office. My office had scored pretty poorly on that front, due to having been overworked and understaffed for quite some time.

    In response to employee concerns about workload and staffing, the Director and the Deputy Director decided an effective way of improving employee morale would be to institute “12 Days of Holiday Cheer” in December of 2020. “12 Days of Holiday Cheer” was 12 CONSECUTIVE WORK DAYS of mandatory hours-long (yes, multiple hours-long) holiday-themed teambuilding events, conducted over video call. We were repeatedly told that participation was mandatory, that everyone had to have their cameras on, and that if we did not volunteer, we would be “voluntold.” During the holidays. While everyone was stressed about their crushing workloads.

    I can’t remember all of the teambuilders we did, but here are the particularly bad ones:

    – Making paper snowflakes. We spent more than an hour on a video call making paper snowflakes, and then INDIVIDUALLY holding them up to our webcams to try to get them to focus on the paper snowflakes. We then went around the call and voted on blatantly made-up categories of snowflakes (i.e. “most realistic snowflake,” “most elaborate snowflake,” “most creative snowflake,” “best non-traditional snowflake”). This took more than an hour.

    – Holiday-themed “Never Have I Ever.” Never Have I Ever is just not a game that can be both work-appropriate and interesting at the same time. We all had to put our fingers up in our video call squares and put them down one at a time for categories like, “Never Have I Ever…” “opened a holiday present early,” “told a child Santa wasn’t real,” “fallen asleep before midnight on New Year’s Eve.”

    – New Year’s-themed “Two Truths and a Lie.” I don’t know why this had to be New Year’s-themed. I have a hard enough time coming up with two truths and a lie regularly. This teambuilder did come with a story from the Director of the office, where she said that one New Year’s when she was a teenager, a guy she was seeing said that he was busy, so she snuck out of her house and climbed into his bedroom window to make sure that he wasn’t cheating on her. That was one of her two truths. She just dropped this into the teambuilder and nobody said anything about how maybe that was a weird story to tell the whole office.

    – Favorite holiday songs. A way to do this teambuilder which would have been fine and reasonable would have been for everyone to email a song to one person to put together a Spotify/YouTube playlist and then email out the playlist link. The way that my office actually did this teambuilder was to gather everyone in a video call on their work laptops, and then have everyone pull up their favorite holiday song on their cell phones, hold their cell phones up to the mic on their work laptops, and play 30-second snippets of each song from their cell phone speakers through their mics to everyone else listening on the call. After each snippet of a song, people would then comment on the song/artist, which added even more time. There was no queue order either, so people would have to do the awkward “You go,” “No, you can go,” over video call. This took more than an hour.

    – Elf Yourself. Do you remember those Elf Yourself videos that your Facebook friends were posting in 2008-2011? Where they put their own faces onto dancing animated elves while some cheesy music played? Good news, they’re still around! https://www.elfyourself.com
    The entirety of the teambuilder was all 20-something people in the office sitting around watching one person screenshare them streaming Elf Yourself videos from the website, with our faces pasted in. But because each Elf Yourself video only fits 4-5 elves at most (a tragedy), we had to watch at least five different Elf Yourself videos. In their entirety. And occasionally put supportive messages into the chat to show that we, the employees, were feeling Very Engaged. “Oh haha this is so funny!” “Nice dance moves, @Coworker!”

    – Guess the movie from emojis. This one wasn’t even holiday-themed, but it was a teambuilder anyway. I guess it’s hard to come up with 12 holiday-themed teambuilders. The only reason I remember this one is because the Deputy Director (who was known for being petty and mean and generally a bully) made some snippy comment about how this teambuilder was originally going to be something different, but the management team changed it at the last minute, because “some of the MILLENNIALS ‘didn’t look engaged enough’ at the last teambuilder, so we thought we’d do something that speaks more to your interests.” At the time, there were only 4 people in the office who were millennials (including my elder millennial direct supervisor), so I’m pretty sure this was targeted at me. In my defense, it’s hard to look interested after the third consecutive Elf Yourself video.

    The 12 Days of Holiday Cheer ultimately culminated in holiday presents. The Director (and/or the Deputy Director and other managers) purchased individually-picked presents for each employee in the office, which is very out of the norm for the government. They mailed the presents to our homes that December without telling us that we’d be receiving presents or asking if we wanted to opt in or out. They didn’t see fit to mention this until like the 6th or 7th Day of Holiday Cheer either, after many presents had already been ordered and delivered to the recipients.

    A few people accidentally opened theirs early and got admonished by the Director for opening a present that they didn’t know they were getting, which showed up in regular Amazon packaging. Okay, cool. Mine came early, so I accidentally opened it because I thought it was something I’d actually ordered and had a WTF moment before learning about the presents. I ended up just taping the package shut again because I didn’t want to get yelled at for opening my own damn mail. We then had to open all of our presents on camera over video call, and act appropriately surprised and grateful.

    1. LKW*

      The logic astounds me… “How can I improve morale when my team is overworked and under-resourced? I know! I’ll make them spend 12 hours doing absolutely pointless crap that requires them to work an additional 12 hours to make up the lost time! That’ll work great! I’m so smart!”

      2. quill*

        In the middle of a pandemic, no less… you would think that the morale hit would be chalked up to that!

    2. mcfizzle*

      I… uh.. just… can’t.

      Umm what the actual F?!

      I would’ve been fired for flatly proclaiming I have a crushing workload that is far more pressing than any of those activities, then promptly disconnecting completely from whatever Zoom or Google session. The worst is that these people probably *still* think that was a “really great way to improve morale!”

    6. Anon for this*

      Ooooo. As someone whose department just collectively took advantage of an employee engagement survey, this response to our plight would be hilariously satisfying. “I’m sorry your fifty requests can’t be done because we’re being forced to spend hours cutting out snowflakes because we’re overworked” would be so incredibly funny.

      1. Nerfmobile*

        I am very curious – how did you “collectively take advantage” of an employee engagement survey? We are about to embark on another such survey (3 times a year, and managers get tracked on improving their team’s scores!), and I’d love to know how to get some actually useful outcome from it.

        1. Anon for this*

          Took it at the same time and discussed each question at length among the group to ensure we were all answering “excellent, could not be better” to every question that might possibly affect our boss, and giving our own (choice, angry) feedback on everything that referred to the exec level. Our boss is amazing for sheltering us as best they can from the debacle that is our upper management doing a “market rate analysis” on our salary but setting the parameters so that they’re the only employer that fits. For a job that can be done in multiple industries, not just this industry, and every other industry pays, at bare minimum, 20-30k more than they’re paying. Frankly the only reason I haven’t left yet is I don’t want to have to drive a moving van on icy roads so I’m waiting until spring.

          1. Anon for this*

            Note that we haven’t gotten any response to the survey yet, the data is still being crunched, but we think we did the best job we could to express our collective opinion that morale is hovering somewhere in the Earth’s core, and our boss is blameless in this.

      2. I could never get the hang of Thursdays*

        OMG this response to an employee engagement survey is impressively awful!

        We had one two months ago, and the first “official” response was…..a pizza party! With the idea thrown out from one of the exec’s at 5pm the day before so no one knew it was going to happen and everyone still brought their lunches, and no one announced that it was supposed to be explicitly a thank you related to the survey, except to a very limited group of managers.
        Thankfully, more substantial response seems to still be in the works and expected imminently.

    8. Duke Flapjack*

      This would be absolute hell for me. I hate “cutesy” and I detest forced team building. I would be falling asleep at my desk and would NOT be able to even come close to feigning interest.

      1. AnonEMoose*

        I’d be tempted to be drinking hot chocolate, and just not mention the “laced with Bailey’s” part. Hey, I’d be smiling, and that’s the important part, right?

      2. Where’s the Orchestra?*

        Agreed – Makes me love my manager’s approach to team building – hey all, if you’re interested we’re doing half an hour of heads up in the conference room.
        It’s totally optional, and we only play work appropriate decks. And there is never any criticism for not joining in, never ever.

    9. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Oh my God. Do you have nightmares about this, Crystal? Because I definitely would. I might even have one tonight. HOW AWFUL.

    12. Kesnit*

      Although my work laptop has a camera, I do not have one on my desktop. My mother-in-law’s work-provided desktop does not have a Web cam. I doubt I am the only person in the world who does not like having a Web cam. What were the people who don’t have a Web cam supposed to do since you were all supposed to be on video?

      1. OhNo*

        Probably pull out their phones and use the mobile version. One of my colleagues who just joined us had horror stories of her previous workplace over the last year and a half, and “use your smartphone if your personal laptop doesn’t have a webcam” featured in several of the worst ones.

      2. Midwest Teacher*

        Our work laptops are agency provided and all have cameras on them, so everyone has one. We work in education and I could easily see my bosses doing something horrific like this. We have full-day meetings once a month and are required to keep our cameras on and be engaged at all times.

        1. Might Be Spam*

          Not that “I” would have done it, but there is a setting that turns your video sideways. Just saying. It’s just a coincidence that it happened to me and I couldn’t fix it.

    13. Beebs*

      I have so many questions. Most of them are “Wait, what?” And “where did you find the strength not to just start screaming in annoyance during the Elf Yourself torture day?” And “why is a government office forcing everyone to participate in holiday cheer for a religious holiday that maybe not everyone celebrates?” And also, “wait, what?!?!?”

    17. CiaraNeko*

      I have no words. What if someone didn’t celebrate Christmas? So many things wrong with this. I’m a huge Christmas lover; seriously I truly enjoy most of the holiday/Christmas overload this time of year that many others hate, and even I know this is over the top nuts and kinda problematic too…

    18. Dark Macadamia*

      So much secondhand embarrassment from a single post!

      Your gift was a milk frother, right? Buzzfeed keeps including one in their gift guides this year and I laugh every time

    19. JSPA*

      First thought: this must have been intentional punishment for giving honest responses on the survey.

      Second thought: your chain of command were so clueless, that no conclusion can be drawn.

      Third thought: except that several of the activities were explicitly Christmas-themed. In a government office.

      Fourth thought: i do like the snowflake one, all the same (but not in the context of overwork and understaffing).

      1. Elenna*

        I do feel like the snowflake one might be fun on its own, as a quick 1-hour optional, repeat OPTIONAL, activity outside the context of overwork and minus the weird voting parts.

    20. Niniel*

      Just….AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! All of this is horrifying.

      Want to improve morale?? How about you give us all 12 days of vacation for holiday cheer!!!

    21. Empress Matilda*

      Oh my gosh this is amazing. Each of those would be bad enough on its own, but the fact that they all happened as part of the same “celebration!”

      I feel like it needs to be made into a movie or something, with our hapless heroine falling in love with her cute co-worker as they snark behind the scenes about how terrible it all is.

      2. GammaGirl1908*

        And then, plot twist, one of them gets fired for opening their own mail, and their relationship can now be out in the open instead of hidden, as workplace dating often must be.

    26. Seconds*

      And blaming you for not liking it because you’re a milennial? As a Gen X-er who just missed being a Boomer, I can assure him that this is not a generational issue! Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure my parents (members of the Silent Generation, a term I’ve just now learned) would have hated this much, much worse than I would have.

      1. Berkeleyfarm*

        I was born during the Kennedy administrator and call myself “Gen Jones” (and explain that to people who don’t know the term). I will *fight* anyone who calls me a boomer.

    27. Usagi*

      I just want to say I laughed at “elder millennial.” Like I know exactly what you meant (I am an elder millennial) but it just made me imagine a tribe of millennials, with a village elder (who is just in the mid-high 30’s), imparting their wisdom learned from Ninja Turtles and Sonic cartoons, wearing a multitude of slap bracelets, and singing and dancing to ABBA.

      … or maybe that’s just I would do as the Elder.

      1. Marco Diaz's Red Hoodie*

        I’ll join you as an Elder Millennial bedecked with power bead bracelets as well as slap bracelets, imparting all the wisdom I’ve learned from cartoons — because that sounds amazing XD

      2. Brave Little Roaster*

        As an elder millenial (please don’t call us geriatric millennials!!), this is 100% accurate except instead of ABBA, I vote for Backstreet Boys, because I want it that way.

      3. SeluciaMD*

        I love every one of these comments and this Gen Xer would gladly switch tribes to have you as my Elders.

    28. Lucy Skywalker*

      That would have been bad enough in person (and actually may have been fun for some people) but over Zoom it sounds like it would be torture.

    29. Enter_the_Dragonfly*

      I have nothing useful to add, this just sounds awful. And such a weird and pointless response? Why would ANYONE thing thus would help overworked and understaffed people?

    30. AVP*

      My father in law still LOVES Elf Yourself and sends us regular screen grabs of his creations (it’s just a screen grab so we can’t see the motion graphics). After ten years it’s gone back around to funny again for me but just barely.

    31. GammaGirl1908*

      Literal LOL and gasp at “I ended up just taping the package shut again because I didn’t want to get yelled at for opening my own damn mail.”

      Resigned compliance, that.

    32. Brave Little Roaster*

      I’m so sorry this happened to you but holy wow OMFG this is the kind of comment I came here to read. Very glad to hear this isn’t your job anymore! As someone who is not a big Christmas fan, I would have no choice but to pick Marley & Marley from the Muppet Christmas Carol as my favorite song and deal with the consequences.

  6. It'sABonesDay*

    There are certainly more wild stories than this, but I used to work for a non-profit that every year would turn the staff appreciation holiday party into a donor event that we had to work. This included edicts that we weren’t allowed to partake of any of the food until the donors were able to fix plates. Some employee appreciation, huh?

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      As someone who works for a non-profit (and on the fundraising side of things!) that is some major BS. Here our board members usually donate to the staff holiday party (not all of them, but a handful).

      2. It'sABonesDay*

        Oh, there was a whole lot more BS going on and most of it was because the big boss is the kind of person who likes to say “do you have any idea who I am” at the slightest inconvenience. It was a weird and toxic place that I’m very glad I eventually got out of.

      1. EPLawyer*

        Sure they appreciate they cna make the staff work their own party. Not letting them eat either is just the icing on the cake so to speak. Apparently it WAS their turn to bring the cake.

        1. Elizabeth West*

          This is why I never went to the OldExjob Family Fun night at a pizza place with go-karts and terrible food. It was easy to beg off since I didn’t have any kids, but I was warned privately by my supervisor that the bosses would make me work. Thank you, supervisor, for helping me avoid that potential labor violation nightmare!

          1. Chantel*

            “Family Fun Night.” For work.

            Please let tarantulas lay eggs in my ears before I’d have to participate. Just…no.

    3. Lalaith*

      This reminds me of a holiday party at my last job. We were all supposed to invite our clients and it was more of a business networking event than anything else. Also there was VERY little food (a few passed appetizers), though there was an open bar. I don’t think anyone got trashed and misbehaved, although I left pretty early.

    4. Anon for this*

      I worked for a nonprofit that did something like this for their summer staff barbecue. They would throw a summer staff barbecue at the offsite pool we operated during the summer. Everyone got to go to the barbecue, go swimming…except the pool staff, who now had to schedule extra lifeguards and plan for a special event! (The lifeguards who worked that shift did get paid for their time, at least, but their salaried manager did not.)

      The piece de resistance was the year they left all the barbecue food supplies in the unairconditioned pool house for the entire summer, and then someone from maintenance unplugged the fridge and yada yada the Costco pack of hamburger rotted into a vile stinking goo. (I was in charge of the offsite that year, I said that neither I nor any of my staff would be cleaning that up on account of the fact that we did not make that mess and that I had already thrown out all the stale buns and smores supplies and hauled back a carload of bags of charcoal and plates. However the person who did also refused to come clean it up so some poor, long-suffering manager ended up having to do it for her. Of course.)

      1. Artemesia*

        that refrigerator should have been hauled to the dump. Once you unplug a refrigerator closed with food in it — it is done. I just spent a whole day cleaning my entire refrigerator with bleach foam cleanser because a small container of sushi got pushed to the back a couple of weeks ago and went full yuch and its smell could not be eliminated without a major deep clean — and this was a running refrigerator and only a couple of weeks. Every rubber gasket and crevice will hang onto the smell forever — they could never get that thing actually clean.

        1. Shorts shorts shorts*

          You have to clean them with vanilla essence. My parents once had a fridge incident after a week-long family holiday in summer and it worked a treat. The stench was so bad we could smell it outside the house when we got home.

    5. MansplainerHater*

      I worked at a non-profit that turned the staff party into a donor event… and they asked each of us to donate! The stated ask was like 10% of your salary. It was heinous.

      2. Elizabeth West*

        OldNonProfitJob required you to donate at least $20 to the organization after you were hired. You’re paying me to perform labor for you and you want it BACK?

        I will never not ask about this if interviewing for a non-profit job, and if they say “Yes we require a donation from staff,” I would hop on the Nope train to I Don’t Think This Would Be A Good Fit Town.

        1. SeluciaMD*

          I’ve taken the train there before! It smells of freedom and exactly zero toxic bullshit. It was lovely.

      4. Venti vanilla latte breve*

        I had something similar happen in my first professional job. My company invited a national non-profit to fundraise during a big employee meeting.

        I was making so little at the time that I almost qualified for public assistance. They really pressured every employee to donate a portion of their weekly paycheck and that every employee had to participate. Oh, and this was shortly after our company had layoffs and the remaining employees all had to take significant paycuts.

        I was so pissed. I gave $1. By the time the next holiday season rolled around, i had left for a better job.

        Im in a much better financial situation now and will never, ever give any money to this particular organization.

    6. Berkeleyfarm*

      Ugh, that qualifies as a “Worst Holiday Party” thing.

      Reminds me of the horrific story in the recent potluck thread of the library “employee potluck” that the director used to feed the board/community bigwigs, without providing extra food for all the extra guests that got put first in line, so between that and the sermonette delivered by one of the bigwigs, most of the staff got nothin’ while the director schmoozed away.

  7. Archie Goodwin*

    I don’t really have a funny story, but this seems as good a place as any to break out my traditional season greeting, honed over many years in the federal (well, contract) workforce. Whenever I see the decorations go up in the building lobby, I know it’s time to say:

    “Happy federally-mandated season of cheer.”

    2. Thursdaysgeek*

      And I will often sing my favorite Christmas carol (not when children are present):

      Better not shout, better not cry,
      Better not pout, I’m telling you why,
      Santa Claus is dead.

      (I love the reaction at the sudden ending of the song.)

      2. fun with math*

        Love it! I have a favorite Christmas carol, and it goes a little something like this: (A-one, a-two, a-one two three four)

        Deck the workplace with gasoline!
        Fa la la la la la la la la
        Light a match and run and scream!
        Fa la la la la la la la la
        See the workplace burn down to ashes!
        Fa la la la la la la la la
        No, actually just kidding, I would never do that!
        Fa la la la la la la la la

    3. Oakenfield*

      +1000
      It offends me so greatly that our supposedly secular government places christmas trees and decorations in the White House!

      2. JSPA*

        It’s supposedly for the first family, who do live there, right? Though I bet that if Bernie had been elected, there would have been people losing their fricking minds, if there had been a non-christmas-themed display. Or, y’know, a collection for food banks and toys for tots, instead.

        1. JSPA*

          (Hoping this does not constitute a political post, as it does not reference the relative policies of the people in question.)

        2. Anonymous Luddite*

          Related: the day (night, really) I see a menorah in the window of the Oval Office is the day I blubber like a child. Yes, a lot of small minded people will lose their minds. And I will go through a box of Kleenex.

          1. fueled by coffee*

            Kamala and Doug have a mezuzah on the door of the VP mansion :)

            It’s the kind of thing I literally never thought I would care about until I saw the photos and got all verklempt.

            (But yes, I agree with the above – Christmas trees are fine in the White House because it’s also the President’s family’s home, and so far they have all been Christian, plus whatever Jefferson’s deist deal was).

            1. Ally McBeal*

              Well, they’ve been NOMINALLY Christian, largely because they have to be. I don’t believe for one single second that our most recent president attended church more than once a year, if that, until he had to for political reasons. (cough “Two Corinthians” cough)

            2. Rachel in NYC*

              I hadn’t seen that…and I’m a little jealous of their mezuzah. (not that I don’t like mine.)

    4. Magenta Sky*

      A friend of mine (who makes movie props for a living) actually made me a Santa Claus crucifix. I have never *quite* had the nerve to put it up on my office door with a caption of “Santa Claus didn’t die for your sins.”

      1. Aarti*

        The fact that the President and the First Lady recognized Diwali this year made me tear up a little.

      2. SeluciaMD*

        I love Christmas and would be filled with absolute joy and mirth if we worked together and you put that up. I think I’m just going to tuck “Santa Claus didn’t die for your sins” away somewhere safe and hope I can find an appropriate moment to break it out this holiday season. So thank you for that!

        Also: your friend is a genius.

  8. Someone*

    My supervisor and his wife threw a Christmas party at his house for employees and their spouses. About halfway through the party, his cute next door neighbor joined us and sat on his lap the rest of the night.

    2. Web Crawler*

      Was his cute next door neighbor a man, a woman, both, or neither? It doesn’t actually make a difference, I just want to know what to picture.

      1. Someone*

        A woman.

        In case you’re wondering, yes, my old supervisor and his cute neighbor do have a baby together now.

        1. Aarti*

          The only way this would be ok is if the cute neighbor was, like, a golden retriever. Which admittedly are pretty cute.

          2. Jennifer Strange*

            Yes, but that would also make the part about them having a baby together MUCH more concerning…

        2. Alex the Alchemist*

          And here I was hoping that the cute next door neighbor was a neighborhood cat who dropped by to say hi.

  9. Stephanie*

    My mom told me this story – it’s from the late 80s or early 90s:

    her office was doing a Secret Santa and when you wrote your name down, you were also supposed to write an idea or two. One coworker wanted the new Meatloaf CD that had just come out so he wrote down Meatloaf. Cut to the day of the holiday party and it’s time to give the present. The giver runs to the refrigerator as he had bought frozen meatloaf dinners for the present!

    When my mom first told me this story, I cried from laughing so hard.

    1. Pikachu*

      How long did it take before “But I won’t do that!” jokes were permanently banned from the premises?

    2. A Library Person*

      Something similar happened to me when I was in middle school. We were doing a friend gift exchange, and I thought we were supposed to be writing down the name of the person we wanted…which is how I ended up with a copy of the book “Christy”. I never did read it, which in retrospect is probably a good thing (for me at least) given the Wikipedia summary.

      1. YesItIs*

        Oh my. I still have the school library copy of “Christy” from high school. I did read it several times back then.
        I’m 66 now.

      2. No Name Today*

        Had a friend in library school tell me a story. She wasn’t paying attention in second grade when the teacher called on her:
        “your color?”
        Black.
        “oh, that’s an interesting choice.”
        (friend thinking, I didn’t really choose to be black, but whatever.)
        Teacher to next student: “And what is YOUR favorite color?”
        My friend owned it. Committed to having black as her favorite color for the rest of grade school. :)

        1. Wendy*

          My husband’s professed favorite color, from age 3 onwards, was “off-white.” Never failed to get oohs and aahs from little old ladies :-P

          (He claims that’s because it’s the first color he ever learned that wasn’t one of the basic rainbow shades and he was excited there was this whole world of possibilities out there, but a tow-headed 3yo saying “off-white” would have me coo over him too!)

          1. Nanani*

            A toddler in my extended family is at the stage where asking everyone their favourite colour is very important, but there’s a struggle to understand that multiple people can have the same favourite colour.

            The conversation goes like this:
            (Adult), what’s your favourite colour??
            – Blue
            NO my mom likes blue! :(

            Run to another adult, repeat.

        2. Might Be Spam*

          My mother assigned us favorite colors in the order that they were in the disposable Dixie Cups box. Red, yellow, blue, green. As the oldest, my assigned favorite color is red. When my youngest sister was born there weren’t enough colors, so mom assigned her the color orange. At least 2 of my sisters actually hate their assigned colors, the rest of us are just “meh”.

    5. LKW*

      You know, the CD would have only kept your mom entertained for a short time. But this story will entertain for years!

    9. Duke of Mildew*

      My old office used to do a secret santa as well, where people would write down what they wanted. More than half the people would say things like “Gift card” to whatever store they wanted. I just shook my head and wondered what the point was. Needless to say, I never participated.

      1. FreakInTheExcelSheets*

        Eh I would love this. Office Secret Santa is always awful for me unless I actually know the person, so knowing they’d prefer a Dunkin vs Starbucks gift card would make everything easier.

        1. Al*

          Commenting late:
          My office used a site called DrawNames this year. It allows whoever is administering the exchange to note the budget guidelines and add everyone’s name, and then you “draw a name” and are randomly assigned one of the other participants. Each person can leave notes about what kind of things they like. There’s even a wishlist that integrates with Amazon and Etsy (for people who feel okay using those) to tag specific items.

    10. Elevator Bystander*

      Reminds me of the year my brother asked for a Korn CD for Christmas (oh, the ’90s) and the whole family gathered around the tree and watched him unwrap a bag of frozen corn (well, room temperature at this point) in which the CD was hidden.

      1. Lady H*

        Aww this is great! I love this visual of like, a surly teenager dealing with their family delighted by the pun :) only because I myself was surly when I briefly listened to Korn sometime in my teens.

      2. VegetarianRaccoon*

        They did the pun AND he got what he really wanted, I see no downside! I bet it’s the same CD I asked for, but my parents never got me :(

    13. Jam on Toast*

      A similar Christmas mistake happened when my mother ventured into a music store and told the clerk she wanted to buy the latest Squashed Melon CD for my brother’s stocking.
      In my mother’s mind, Squashed Melons = Smashing Pumpkins!

      1. SeluciaMD*

        I think that’s kind of adorable. And henceforth, I shall only refer to Smashing Pumpkins as Squashed Melons.

        1. SeluciaMD*

          Hit submit too fast! My dad and your mom would have gotten along famously. One day he was trying to ask my brother about a song he’d heard that he liked from a band called “They May Be Mountains.” He meant They Might Be Giants. My brother and I are still pretty tickled by that one.

      2. Tierrainney*

        I know some one who referred to the group “Bang” (Wham) and no one could find any album from that group!

        1. saf*

          Once I was on the bus. The older gentleman across the aisle was on the phone with his daughter? Grandaughter? And he asked, “Why did you put that Half Dollar on my ipod? You know I don’t like that music!”

      3. Srah*

        My Dad tried to buy my mum CDs by Sixpence None the Wiser (Sixpence None the Richer) and Unnatural Acts (Human Nature). His sister tried to buy her son a CD from Rage in the Cage (Rage Against the Machine).

  10. Lynca*

    I’ve never had a really funny Christmas work story. The one I would share is more heartwarming than funny though it is about giving a kid a rock as a gift.

    1. A Library Person*

      We got the heartwarming noodles story from the Potluck Fiasco prompt, so I think this would be very welcome. :)

      1. ThatGirl*

        spring rolls, actually (if we’re thinking of the same story) but yes, heartwarming is always welcome

        1. A Library Person*

          Ack! You’re right, it was definitely spring rolls. It’s almost lunch time here, I think my stomach got ahead of my brain on this one.

      2. Lynca*

        Alright then.

        In the before times we had a large Christmas party the last working day before the holidays. It was a very family friendly party with food, crafts, games, a visit from Santa, etc. so people would bring family members/kids. I would generally work in my office during the party after eating some food/talking to people. I didn’t have kids at the time so I wouldn’t be participating in most of the other activities.

        So one year, I had a co-worker come up and knock on my door. She had brought her niece and wanted to introduce her to me. This co-worker was from a different unit and we didn’t know each other very well, so it was a little strange she wanted me to meet her niece. But then she said “This is Ms. Lynca, she’s the geologist I told you about.”

        Her niece smiled so big and asked me all sorts of questions about how did I become a geologist and how could she become a geologist because she loved rocks. So I talked with her for a while about where I went to school, how I became a geologist, and showed her the rock/fossil collection in my office. We talked about the rocks she had in her collection and I offered to give her one of mine. So I picked one of my nicest samples and gave it to her after explaining the type of rock it was, how it was formed, and what minerals it was made up of.

        After that I made a point to have spare, good hand samples so that if I had another interaction with her or any other kid, I would have something to be able to gift to them.

        If we ever get back to being able to do that kind Christmas Party again, I kind of want to set up a Christmas rock station for doing things like painting rocks or digging for fossils for the kids.

        3. Librarian of SHIELD*

          Might I recommend a rock polisher? Those things are cool to watch and you get a pretty, shiny rock at the end.

          1. Selina Luna*

            On the other hand, those things are so loud, you can hear them in the next county when they’re working… At least, the ones when I was a kid were like that.

            1. WantonSeedStitch*

              When I had one, we set it up in the shed outside, so it could keep running and we wouldn’t have to hear it. It could be helpful before gifting one to find out if someone has a convenient space like that! Cellars might also work.

          2. Lynca*

            The noise would make that a non-starter unfortunately. But most of the rocks I have go through some prep work (they’re cut/have polished faces) anyway so they are shiny on one side at least.

            Plus you want some rough surfaces for teaching mineral identification.

        4. cosmicgorilla*

          This is so wholesome. So often this holiday party stories are shitshows. You made that kid’s Christmas. I bet she’ll remember you when she’s pursuing her dream!

          1. Where’s the Orchestra?*

            Same here – for my girls the highlight of any camping trip is the afternoon we set aside to go rock hunting.

        10. Karen*

          I don’t usually comment but this gave me goosebumps. That is lovely and I would have loved a rock station at a party when I was a kid. The Royal Ontario Museum had a hands on area (I’m assuming it was artifacts that turned out to be unimportant or too broken to be of value) and it was always the highlight of my visit.

          1. Tracey*

            I love the ROM! When I was eight or nine years old I found a rock with a fossil in it in my backyard. My parents arranged a family trip to the ROM where we met an expert who explained what it was and how old it was. I had a fantastic day! I remember being thrilled to find out that they kept a bunch of rocks that they wanted to split on the roof of the ROM. Apparently the constant freezing and melting of Toronto weather did the work for them. I had a fantastic science fair project that year.

        12. Retired Prof*

          Hello fellow geologist. When my kids had their Special Birthday Week in elementary school, I often brought in the dinosaur fossils from the paleontology lab, then helped the kids make plaster copies of little fossils – snails, tiny ammonites, little brachiopods. One day I was wheeling my cart back to the car with the Allosaurus skull cast on the top, and one of the other moms stopped. “Well, that’s just no fair. How is any one else ever going to be the cool mom when you bring dinosaurs to school?” We had a laugh but I did relish being the cool Dino mom.

          1. Bilbo Buggins*

            You’ll be a hit at middle school school career day as well! “Marketing manager” doesn’t stand up to “dinosaur Hunter.”

        13. Best Holiday party*

          My kid would DIE for a fossil digging station at a work party, you will be the best friend of all of the children and beloved by parents.

        14. I take tea*

          Role model! Very important. What a lovely story, thank you for doing this and thank you for sharing!

        16. Caroline Bowman*

          This is adorably wonderful. My beloved dad was a geologist and obsessed with rocks – something that passed me by to a large extent – but my son is completely fascinated by geology and my huge, huge sadness is that my dad isn’t here for it. They’re so similar in so many ways and he’d have been amazing.

          Love this story.

    2. You get a pen and you get a pen*

      Bad day apparently because I read that as “giving Kid Rock as a gift” and I laughed so hard, I cried

    3. Anon for this*

      My first office holiday party, someone persuaded a few higher ups who weren’t in our department to schedule a meeting that one of our directors HAD to attend, no getting around it, and got the person running our gift exchange to delay the beginning of the gift exchange until after the director left. Then when his name was called they “picked for” him. The gift was a santa hat and a t shirt with a picture of the other department director’s face. It was quite funny.

  11. Captain Vegetable (Crunch Crunch Crunch)*

    At our holiday party, one of my coworkers over-imbibed, but thankfully, she was a Happy Drunk. At one point in the evening she pulled me aside to tell me that my boyfriend was a “stud” and to let her know if we ever broke up. I found it amusing, my boyfriend, fully informed of the encounter after the party was over, found it amusing, and I called him “Stud” exclusively for a couple of days. I did not, however, give her a heads up when we stopped seeing each other.

    1. WhiskeyTango*

      My version of this was not a Christmas party, but a summer work party. My co-worker got drunk and spent the whole evening telling my husband that his wife (me) was “hotttt” (emphasis on the “t”).
      My husband was amused. My co-worker’s husband was not.

  12. Anonsy*

    My work had an office party at a place that had dim lighting I’m sure for atmosphere, because in the daytime it was perfectly lit. Part of their decor were waterpools/waterfalls on black smooth rock of some kind all over. It was all very subtle and classy looking.

    It also just looked like a long black shiny bench against a wall. Guess how many ladies in fancy wear sat down in a puddle of water? Or the people who just stepped near it and stepped into water? And of course the drunks who just fell in, because that’s what drunk people do when there’s water in the vicinity.

    The best part is, we had our parties there for years. And despite people mentioning it, it happened every darn year.

    1. EPLawyer*

      That place is stupid. OF COURSE in the dim light people aren’t going to see the water. I would send them my dry cleaning bill.

      1. Anonsy*

        I mean, to their credit they had little placards stood up all over the darn thing that said “water fountain” that were white. People just don’t read.

        1. fun with math*

          People tend to interact with an object based on its form, regardless of how many signs you attach to it. If something looks like a bench, people will sit on it.

          Same thing happens with badly designed exit doors. Despite the sign reading “Push,” if the handle looks like it’s meant to be pulled, people will pull it.

        2. quill*

          If I was walking around in fancy shoes I wouldn’t have TIME to read before my body decided that my feet had had enough.

    2. Mostly Managing*

      I can’t help thinking someone in charge of the event was as amused by this as I am, and that’s why they kept going back.

      “Ooh, let’s go there again and see how many people get wet. My money’s on five this year.”

    3. Funbud*

      A fancy hotel near Princeton NJ had a huge atrium/lobby with many levels. At the very bottom were shallow ponds full of Koi fish. A friend of mine went to a training there on a Saturday. A wedding was going on; lots of people in fancy clothes milling around. Looking for the right conference room, he walked past a lady in a big hat & frilly dress bending over to look at the fish. He went down the wrong hallway and turned back, hearing a commotion. When he came back into the lobby he saw the lady had fallen over into the Koi pond and several people were trying to fish her out!

      2. KoiFeeder*

        This is where you really hope the koi aren’t friendly. Some of the most placid, friendly koi in my pond will straight-up swim inside your shirt if you fall in. They’re just happy to be included.

    4. Elizabeth West*

      This reminds me of the time my team at Exjob had dinner in an upscale local restaurant where we’d previously gone for lunch. The food at lunch was good and the place was bright and cheery so I expected it to be fun. But at night, they turned the lights so low I needed my phone flashlight to read the menu. When my food arrived, I could not see what I was eating. I could barely see my dining companions. Worst dinner ever.

    5. LPUK*

      I remember being on holiday and going to a nightclub filled with heavy glass coffee tables, which were naturally invisible in the low lighting. People fell over them repeatedly. Next morning at the pool, you could tell who’d been at the nightclub by the matching bruises on their shins

    6. BellaDiva*

      Ok, not a holiday party, but at the annual doggie daycare open house, there would always be someone who sat down on the raised “doggy latrine”, which looked like fake grass (usually followed by shock, then resignation, as they felt the dampness. I don’t know why they didn’t put signs out.

    7. Strict Extension*

      Not quite work, but a committee I serve on hosts an event series at private homes. One of the most spectacular we’ve used had a bunch of unique features, one of which was a hot tub set into the floor of one of the main entertaining spaces, flush with the surrounding tile and painted black. There was word-of-mouth warning folks about it, but that didn’t stop another committee member’s wife from walking straight into it, gown and all. She laughed it off and quite gamely spent the rest of the evening chatting with donors and other VIPs while soaking wet.

  13. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    Seems like every year in the 90s we had some kind of drunken shenanigans.

    One year somebody stumbled into the big fountain in the middle of the historic building we rented.

    Another year, when we were in a large hotel, one of the HR people went upstairs to the room that they rented to stage all the stuff in order to grab something, and encountered another HR person knocking boots with a fellow employee. At least they were both single.

    2. SeluciaMD*

      Not a Christmas story at all, but when I was a teenager (before I was old enough to drive) I fell into the big fountain that was in the middle of the mall and then had to walk to the other end of the mall in wet jeans and squishing shoes to the door where we were being picked up by my friend’s mom. (This was the era before cellphones were ubiquitous). I’m 45 now and the two people from that time in my life that I’m still friends with STILL bring it up and taunt me about it to this day. I will never live it down.

  14. They Don’t Make Sunday*

    I haven’t finished my coffee yet and misread the headline as “feminist office holiday stories.” I hope we have some of those, too!

  15. Longtime Lurker*

    I’d been at a paralegal job for a year and a half, had announced my last day was 12/30 since I was moving to start grad school in January. At the holiday party I won the “grand” prize – a ipod (this was a huge deal back then). One of my co-workers (who was drunk then and aggrieved always) made a big fuss about how it wasn’t fair because I was leaving and shouldn’t get anything. It became a scene and one of the partners, who didn’t actually know me, someone got pulled into her drama. Listened to her, told her she was being ridiculous, and sought me ought to tell me to enjoy the ipod with his full blessing.

    1. Elevator Bystander*

      Ugh, that reminds me of when I worked at a company that did a team-elected MVP award with a cash prize every quarter, and my work buddy who had been with the company for at least five years and was very deserving finally won it for the first time, but awkwardly had just accepted a job with a competitor and gave notice the next day. And they rescinded the award, cash prize included (it was like $400 as I recall so no small thing)! I’m still angry on his behalf, but the competitor paid a lot better (I eventually quit to work for them too) so at least he had some financial consolation.

    2. HS Teacher*

      I have a knack for winning things, especially raffles. At my former job, in addition to winning almost every raffle they had, I won the grand prize at our holiday party three years in a row, much to the chagrin of my rather nasty coworker, who would gripe and cry foul every time I won. I was the only POC at this large agency, and I always felt like her dislike for me had more to do with racism, but she never crossed the line. She was just a miserable person. She accused me of rigging the raffles, which were mostly conducted by our vendors, so my rigging them was impossible. She also said my assistant shouldn’t get a Christmas bonus because she doesn’t celebrate Christmas in her religion. She was just a bigoted, unpleasant person.

      Knowing how much it bothered her, I would celebrate enthusiastically every time I won something. The funny thing is that I certainly didn’t need the electronics, tickets, and trips that I won over the years. I usually just gifted them to my assistant. I only celebrated because I knew how upset it was making this woman.

      When I won season tickets to our MLB team at a spring corporate event, she went apoplectic. I kept those for myself, while enjoying her salty, salty tears.

      1. Emma2*

        Because Christmas bonuses are handed out by companies to reward staff for being Christian? Ugh, I don’t know how you put up with her.

        1. Emma2*

          To be clear that was sarcasm – the coworker sounds horrible and bigoted, but also the bonus comment is just so ridiculous

  16. KLMNOP*

    I used to work at a big fancy hotel. I had been there a couple of years and was always happy to cover Christmas and Christmas Eve because my family is Jewish and does not celebrate. One year, manager called me over, super pleased with himself, and told me he was giving me “the holidays” off, since I had to work them in the past and was doing such a great job. I politely declined, saying I didn’t mind working them, and preferred to give my co-workers the opportunity to spend time with their families. We went back and forth for a bit, and he actually got angry I was “rejecting his gratitude”. I reminded him that Christmas and Christmas Eve were just a Tuesday and Wednesday to me, and then he got really confused. This man in his 40’s seriously didn’t realize until that moment that Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas.

    3. Jay*

      I may have told this here before….I’m a doc so of course someone always has to work. I am also Jewish and don’t celebrate Christmas so I always work. Before my daughter was born, I would volunteer to work all the official hospital holidays so I could use the comp time to take off for the Jewish holidays I actually celebrate, since we don’t have local family and I don’t really care about celebrating July 4th, Memorial Day, etc. After I’d been doing this for four or five years my boss called me and said it wasn’t allowed. Why? Because it wasn’t fair that I had to work all those holidays. I explained that it was my choice and I was happy to do it. He said no, he wouldn’t do it, and therefore I wasn’t allowed to. After some back and forth I finally explained that I preferred to do this because I could then get off for the Jewish holidays. He started ranting about Jews and special pleading and said it was just coincidence that we didn’t have full working hours on Christmas and Easter.

      At that point I dropped it. The schedule came out and the week before each holiday I went to whoever was due to work and offered to switch. No one ever said no.

      1. Robin Ellacott*

        God god. I know ignorance about a group and prejudice against them are common bedfellows, but that one takes the cake.

      2. No Name Today*

        when you rejected his offer, he called you greedy and selfish for working a day with fewer hours?!

        1. Jay*

          The “coincidence” thing was in response to my comment that he didn’t have to take vacation time for his holidays but I did for mine. Spoiler: it’s not a coincidence. Also: it’s not just Jews! I used to enjoy making rounds on Christmas with my Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu colleagues. The potlucks were epic.

          1. No Name Today*

            I read that first sentence three times.
            It was a coincidence that his religious holidays are practically federally mandated holidays.
            It’s a coincidence that Jewish holidays never seem to fall on traditional business holidays.
            It’s a coincidence that you happened to think of and type out this story under the heading of holiday disasters.

          2. Charlotte Lucas*

            When I worked retail, I was always willing to work the day after Thanksgiving (“Black Friday” wasn’t a common term back then). What else was I going to do? The truth is that shopping that day is awful, & you don’t really save that much money, if any. I might as well be paid for going to the mall! And someone always brought in treats.

    4. thatjillgirl*

      It’s a little remarkable how many people who are Christian or Christian-adjacent forget that “Christ”mas is also Christian or Christian-adjacent, and that many non-Christians of the world happily live their lives not celebrating it.

  17. Not really a Waitress*

    I was not there that year, but I used to work as a Department Store Manager at a very large department store. The day before Christmas, the store manager invited all the dept managers up to his office for santa shots (special liquor in little Santa Shot Glasses) Then took ALL OF THEM to the other end of the mall to see a matinee at the theater. Leaving the whole store without a manager on Christmas Eve.

    2. Allornone*

      I used to work at book stores (Borders, then B&N). Book stores are not big Black Friday destinations, but they are a good last-minute “Oh god? What can I get them? Maybe there’s something in that book store!” destination, so Christmas Eve is by far the busiest day. This story horrifies me.

      1. Sharpieees*

        I used to work at a B&N (pre-Amazon/Google/internet shopping). My favorite Christmas Eve “I don’t know the name of it….” customer called and said she was looking for a book about a soldier. Couldn’t give a title or an author or the name of the soldier or which war it was. Did she see it on TV or in the newspaper? No. Her husband mentioned a book about a soldier, but she couldn’t remember the title, but she wanted to get it for him for Christmas. Was it new? She didn’t know. I wasn’t aware of any books about a soldier that was widely popular or on the bestseller list, so I was out of options. She got angry when I told her that, no, I couldn’t go out and search for books about soldiers and read the titles to her at 3pm on Christmas Eve when there was easily a line of 100+ people wrapped around the store. Good times.

        To this day I wish I knew what book she was looking for. One of the small mysteries that I will never solve.

          1. a frog*

            I worked in multiple bookstores and, jeez, the people who worked the kid’s section were amazing. “That red book. I think it has a duck on the cover.” was common for them. I would say that every single one I worked with for any extended period of time had a 90+% success rate in finding said book.

        3. Small town Office Manager*

          I worked at a video rental store in college. This is probably the same person who came in and asked for “that movie, you know, the one with that guy in it!”

          1. SeluciaMD*

            My dad about every movie/book/band/song in the history of ever. “It’s the one that has that guy from that thing! You know the thing! That we watched that time? Based on that book by that famous lady. You know the one!”

            Every. Single. Time.

            And does he get pissed off when you can’t parse (or intuit or mind-read) what or who the hell he is talking about? He does, my friends. Indeed he does. Every. Single. Time.

    4. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      CHRISTMAS EVE, NO MANAGERS ON THE FLOOR

      In my limited retail experience, it’s the worst day of the year for difficult customers (black Friday wasn’t a thing here then). The only people shopping on Christmas Eve are the ones who aren’t good at shopping. They’re panicky and indecisive, and they simply cannot believe that you didn’t hold back a few This Year’s Best Thing for people who’d need them at the last minute.

      Deliberately removing every person with the authority to accommodate difficult customers that day is literally incredible.

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        It’s traditionaly the second-biggest shopping day of the year. Big day for jewelers, as many of those shopping are men looking for something for their wives or girlfriends.

      2. SeluciaMD*

        Reading that just made me go cold. I used to work in a toy store and our absolute worst Christmas Eve ever was one where the entire register system went down like an hour after we opened and could not be resuscitated. We had to do every transaction by manually writing down barcode numbers, brief descriptions and prices on old school carbon copy receipts, calculating tax and discounts with calculators, taking carbons of credit cards, and make change manually (something that struck terror in the hearts of some of our younger staff that were so reliant on the register to tell them what the change was supposed to be). The line wrapped around the entire perimeter of the store and was like that until we locked the door at 6pm. I was a key-holder then and I don’t know what I would have done if the manager had bailed on me. We ended up being at the store until nearly 11pm trying to make sense of people’s cash drawers, trying to determine what the drop should be for that night, and trying to organize what we had in terms of a paper trail because we knew that as soon as corporate got our system back up and running, we were going to have to manually enter every single one of these receipts (and then credit cards and what have you) into the system and then figure out how to reconcile where things were off because someone miscounted/miscalculated/didn’t remember something was on sale etc. That was also not fun, but at least you didn’t have anxious, angry, impatient people frothing at the mouth at you while you did it.

        Thank God the manager on duty stayed the whole time. He opened so he was supposed to have left at 3 and I was supposed to essentially be the closing manager. But he stuck with us the whole day and night and did not leave me alone with that disaster, for which I shall be forever grateful.

        If I had been an employee at that department store working Christmas Eve without a single manager on the premises? I think I would have been incandescent with anger. I also think I would have reported them all to our district or regional manager after they left to go to the movies. That’s some seriously egregious BS.

    5. Coder von Frankenstein*

      This feels like an “epic quit” story. Did the store manager move on shortly thereafter?

    6. allathian*

      Ouch! I remember working in a bookstore as a student. It was better than working in a grocery store, but it was also very, very busy during the Christmas season.

  18. Clefairy*

    I used to work in a theme park. It was Christmas Day, and it was a BUSY. I was working at the Greeter position of my ride, enjoying the holiday music playing over the loudspeakers, when my ride broke down. I closed the entrance and allowed no one else in, as was policy. Everyone in the queue, at that point, was welcome to stay BUT we weren’t able to allow folks back in if they chose to leave. Firstly, the number of people who SCREAMED at me because I RUINED THEIR CHRISTMAS over one ride (not even the most popular ride!) in the park being closed was absolutely absurd. Secondly, I had a father and his 12 year old (who were literally the last people who had entered before I closed the entrance- they were at the very back of a 3 hour queue) exit to go to the restroom- they asked if they would be let back in, and I told them no, unless they had someone inside holding their spot, which they didn’t. I recommended the 12 year old go to the restroom on his own, which was only about 20 feet away from where we were standing. They refused, and left together. 10 minutes later, they fought their way through the literal hoards of people standing around the entrance asking questions and hoping for my ride to reopen. They demanded to be let in. I told them no, and reminded them that I had told them no when they exited. If I let them in now, I’d have probably 50 already very angry people who I wans’t letting in get even angrier. The dad screamed in my face. The 12 year old kicked me in the shin hard enough to leave a bruise. I called security, and they were trespassed. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

    If you or your loved ones choose to visit a theme park on a holiday, just know that these are the most brutally busy days of the year, and the employees you interact with would almost CERTAINLY rather be at home with their families, but can’t so that you and your family can come and play. Please be kind!

    1. Student Affairs Sally*

      The thought of going to a theme park on Christmas has literally never occurred to me – it kind of blows my mind that those are the busiest days of the year!

      1. Clefairy*

        Lots of locals buy annual passes for their family for Christmas and then go once they are done opening presents

        Also, because Christmas Break is time off from school that ALL school districts in the country (and around much of the world) observe, everyone is planning their vacations at the same time because they don’t want their kids to miss school.

      2. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Since my local theme parks are all closed on Christmas (hello from New England!) it would not occur to me to go there either. Disney for a vacation, sure, why not, but just for the day? What luxury!

        1. PT*

          I grew up in NYC metro area, and a LOT of grandparents from there retired to Florida. So Disney over Christmas break was part of a family visit, either to celebrate Christmas (if your family celebrated) or just to see grandparents (if your family did not celebrate) for a lot of classmates.

          My grandma chose to stay retired in her Queens apartment so alas, no Disney for me.

        2. quill*

          Yeah, as a lifelong midwesterner until this year, I was like “who shovels the roller coasters?”

      3. Momma Bear*

        It would make sense to go do something on a day a lot of people have off if that day doesn’t matter to you (not your holiday). I’m just surprised the theme park is open.

          1. Vito*

            I worked for a real “Mickey Mouse” organization in Orlando and remember working NYE day in the park, it was really fun when they started handing out hats and noisemakers at like 2 in the afternoon.

      4. On Fire*

        Similarly, I was a married adult before I learned that some people go to movies on holidays. For us, and all my friends, holidays were spent with family.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          Same! I was also an adult when I learned that other people have BBQs on Memorial Day instead of just going to the cemetery then out for lunch.

        2. Filosofickle*

          Me too. But I wish I’d known! We were not moviegoers in general but our family holidays were small and VERY BORING. For Christmas it was only my little nuclear family and visiting grandparents, who stayed with us for two weeks so it’s not like we didn’t get plenty of time together. We didn’t watch sports or tv and didn’t play games, it was mostly sitting around so I’d have loved an excuse to get out of the house for a few hours. I assumed literally everything was closed and it never occurred to me to ask!

          1. allathian*

            When I was a kid, everything was closed on Christmas. The expectation was that people spend the holidays with their families. Movie theaters closed on Christmas Eve, and opened again on Boxing Day at the earliest. Even public transit shut down from midday on Christmas Eve to Boxing Day. I’m in Finland, and the big day is Christmas Eve, when presents are given in the evening, and the main Christmas dinner is eaten.

            This started changing when I was a young adult in the early 90s, and society became more diverse thanks to larger numbers of non-Christian immigrants. This also coincided with the realization that lots of young urban people, even if they do celebrate Christmas with their families, would enjoy going to the movies on their days off.

            When I was a kid, movie theaters were open in the summer, but no premieres were ever scheduled between mid-June and mid-August. The assumption was that most people would be taking their vacations in the country with either rural relatives, or a summer cabin. Summer was meant to be spent outdoors, not shut up in a movie theater. This only changed in the late 90s with the internet making piracy so much easier, and movie studios wanting worldwide premieres around the same time. Needless to say, we’ve learned the value of pleasant air conditioned movie theaters in the summer… For the same reason, summer TV was boring, reruns all the way.

            1. Berkeleyfarm*

              We have “summer blockbusters” but a lot of the Oscar-worthy films do get released in time for “holiday viewing”.

              When I was a girl in a small town back in the stone age, our theater was closed on Christmas Eve and Day. When I got to college my new Jewish friends informed me that “Chinese food and go to the movies” was a common way for Jewish people to spend December 25 (they had grown up in bigger areas). But as you note some bright spark in marketing realized that people might like a “get out of the house”/entertainment break so everywhere is open.

      5. Rachel in NYC*

        I’ve gone skiing on Christmas but I’d never think about going to a theme park at Christmas.

    2. Semi Bored IT Guy*

      Been there, done that. I quickly lost count of how many vacations I “ruined”, either because an attraction was down, or the weather wasn’t nice, or their child wasn’t tall enough (at rides with a height requirement)

    3. Aquawoman*

      I know this is an aside but I’m confused about why people would want to stay in line for a ride that is not operating?

      1. Clefairy*

        It’s a good question! If someone had already waited, say 2.5 hours for a ride, they want to stay in line in hopes that it opens back up soon. An extra 20 minutes when you’ve already sunk 2.5 is going to be a lot quicker than leaving the queue, and then coming back when it is open and having to start a 3 hour queue all over again.

        It’s been 8 years since I’ve worked there so I might have the numbers wrong, but if I’m remembering correctly, the normal policy when a ride shut down for 1-44 minutes, folks would be allowed to remain in the queue, and if they chose to leave, they didn’t get anything. If the ride ended up being closed for 45+ minutes (or if the techs determined early on that it would in fact be a lengthy downtime), then the queue would be dumped and everyone in line would be given a one time pass to skip the line later. They don’t dump the queue/give out passes initially because they don’t want to flood the park (and especially the surrounding attractions) with hundreds of guests with single use skip-the-line passes if the ride is going to be back up shortly

        1. Empress Matilda*

          Oh, that’s really interesting – I love these behind the scenes looks at various jobs. Thanks for sharing!

        2. Elizabeth West*

          The only time we ever waited a long time for a ride was as kids, at Six Flags over Texas on a brutally hot summer day. Everyone wanted to go through Speelunker’s Cave repeatedly since the last bit was an arctic scene, and the ride blasted blessedly cold air all over you. We came out and then got right back in line. I wouldn’t wait like that now.

          1. Clefairy*

            Hahaha. Technically THIS post was sponsored by the letters E & R and the number 11-1 buuuut I also have experience with 101 hahaha

      3. Anyfizz*

        So they’re first in line when the ride starts operating again. Operational issues take varying amounts of time to resolve, and a lot of people (especially those closer to the front of the line) don’t want to wait hours and hours again if it turns out the thing gets fixed in a half hour or so.

  19. Not the only year*

    One year, our contracting company arranged an annual holiday party at new Spanish restaurant. The organizer of the event is known to be mostly incompetent. Unfortunately, the restaurant clearly didn’t know that 90+ people had scheduled a party that day. All the chairs were on the tables and the few waitstaff there were looking at us with confusion and horror when we arrived. Our organizer, who is one of the least capable administrative assistants I have ever encountered, promptly took over the only private room for himself and his family (he was the only one to bring a spouse and kids), and hid out there for the rest of the event. It took over 3 hours to get food out, and to the restaurant’s credit, it was delicious. I actually had to get my meal in a takeout box because the lunch ran so long that I had to leave to pick up my kids from school.

    1. pancakes*

      It’s kind of wild that not one person out of group of 90+ had the decency to say something along the lines of, “they’re clearly not expecting us, why don’t we reschedule this for a time when we can make reservations?” Turning up at a restaurant that appears to be closing (chairs on tables!) with a group that size and demanding food reflects a pretty severe and badly misplaced sense of entitlement.

      1. BitingMyTongue*

        I can’t really comment on the logistics of rescheduling 90+ people for a holiday party, but Not the only year said that it was a lunch. Sounds like the chairs were on the table because the restaurant wasn’t quite open yet, but was presumably getting ready to open for business, since they had some staff.

        1. pancakes*

          Maybe. I suppose it’s possible someone did ask before taking over the private room, etc., too. I don’t think the difficulty of rescheduling makes it ok to demand that a restaurant that isn’t open serve 90 people, though!

      2. FreakInTheExcelSheets*

        It sounds like it was during the day (since Not the only year said they had to do school pickup) so hopefully it was that they were just opening for lunch that chairs were still up, not that the restaurant was closed/closing.

  20. Serin*

    I had a co-worker with a very colorful way of speaking. (“We’ve been doing it this way since Moby Dick was a minnow.”) For a White Elephant gift exchange, another co-worker collected up all of his sayings into a sort of Phrasebook of Co-Worker A.

    I thought there was a risk of hurting his feelings, but she said he’d love it, and he did! He took every chance the rules allowed (and a few they didn’t) to try to get that Phrasebook as his gift. In the end our boss got it and displayed it on her credenza, and he used to take visitors in to see it.

  21. Liz*

    Was invited to my bosses house for an employee holiday party. This small business was owned by a married coupled who were also landlords, so they were pretty wealthy and had a huge house. I was walking around admiring their art when I cam across a statue.
    A nude statue.
    A nude statue of my boss.

      1. Liz*

        It was small but lifelike! I think it was made when she was younger, but it wasn’t hiding anything.

    3. Jennifer Strange*

      This reminds me of going to a (non-holiday, non-work) party hosted by some friends. I had never been to their apartment, but they let us all know that they had some images on the walls that weren’t pornographic, but also weren’t PG-13. My husband immediately guessed male genitalia, but I figured that couldn’t be it since they said it wasn’t pornographic. Turns out my husband was right. My favorite part was watching another person and her boyfriend go around the apartment and count how many…erm…”members” they could see.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          It was mostly photos. There were a couple of stand alone sculptures (including a glass one in the bathroom).

      2. Sparkly Librarian*

        I was similarly surprised (no prior warning issued in this case) by a large print of Lenny Kravitz busting his leather pants on stage. I had been under the impression (still am) that coworker whose place it was did not prefer men, so I was surprised to see a naked one on their wall, but maybe Lenny is an automatic exception.

      3. LPUK*

        It reminds me of the days I worked for a company that ran shops on board of cruise ships. One of the sales managers took me for a tour of this enormous Holland America cruise ship and when he found out I had never been on one before , he insisted on a full tour of the crew quarters as well… which is why I ended up in his own cabin, admiring the wall of photos he had that started on the left with pictures of his super- cute nephews and nieces… and ended on the right with dick pics.

        1. LemonLime*

          LOL! I feel like it was just so much work for him to be a creep. Like was this before cellphones? Because imagine how joyful he must have been when camera phones came out? “Oh good! I can skip the ‘tour-an-entire-cruise-ship-then-crew-quarters-then-family-pics-oops-is-that-a-dicpic- routine and go straight to sending unwanted dic pics! Such a time saver!”

          –Sorry for you LPUK!

    4. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Oh I want to know more!
      Was the statue flattering or warts-and-all, abstract or naturalist?
      Marble, bronze, wood?
      Was there a museum-style plaque nearby?
      Did the artist sign the work?

      1. Liz*

        Warts and all but she had a pretty great figure, so there werent many warts to show.
        I believe it was bronze, and it was small, not life size.
        There was no plaque or artists signature. I remember this because I was staring at the statue, wondering why it looked familiar, when a coworker came up to me and whispered in my ear who it was.

    6. Artemesia*

      I toured what is now an art gallery essentially — the home of a now dead wealthy art collector — and there was lots of artwork by famous artists of the owner and his wife. This included a nude sculpture and also a huge portrait of the wife staring down over her bathtub. I aways wondered what kind of people would want to live with that decor.

    7. Jaune Desprez*

      I had a similar (non-holiday) experience! My manager invited her small-ish team to her apartment for a movie and snacks. She was very gracious and hospitable, but it was rather embarrassing to be confronted with the large nude painting of herself that had pride of place in her living room. It was a full length, realistic portrait of her lounging in an upholstered chair with one leg hooked over the chair arm. I was seated opposite the painting, and it was surprisingly difficult to keep my eyes on the movie and off of her painted breasts and vulva.

      1. Robin Ellacott*

        That’s a hilarious thing to hear about, but so awkward and incomprehensible. How did she not think about even her friends being uncomfortable? let alone her colleagues? And who wants to stare at themselves naked in the LIVING ROOM? (or at all, but especially in the living room)

          1. allathian*

            Or simply an exhibitionist. I mean, how else would she get to parade naked in front of her employees without being instantly accused of harassment?

      2. Narise*

        Every year a college professor invited his class to his house for a Christmas Party in December. He gave them a full tour of the home and everyone tried to avoid staring at the mirror on the ceiling above the bed in the master bedroom. We were like, it’s OK to skip the master bedroom. Other than the mirror it wasn’t like there was a collection or something he was showing off. And we were all in our 20’s and he was in his 60’s.

    8. PT*

      My first apartment that I rented, when I first went to tour it, was still occupied by the previous tenants. They had a king bed in the room, and over the king bed, as large as the bed was wide, was a painting of a nude woman sprawled out a la Rose in Titanic.

      Me, my roommate, and our agent were like, uhhhh?

      I have no idea if it was a random work of art they bought or a portrait of the tenant, we never met them.

        2. SeluciaMD*

          I had no idea this existed, nor how much I needed it in my life. Christmas came early today! :)

        3. VegetarianRaccoon*

          I loved the ‘lovely listing’ blog back in the day. Apparently these people must have too! The white plastic chair was a running in-joke.

    10. Smaller potatoes*

      Holy crap, just realized that I’ve actually been that boss! My ex is an artist and our house (small house, we were not wealthy by any stretch) at one time indeed had two life size pinhole camera photos that lived in the hallway after a stint hanging in a gallery. Thank goodness I only had one employee back then, but he definitely attended a few parties over the years. I never really thought much about it at the time – the photos were art and I loved having them in the house. Whoops!!

    11. ggg*

      Oh no.
      My cousin worked for a super-rich family when I was a kid. For some reason I went to their house, and they had an oil-painted naked family portrait above their fireplace in the grand ballroom. All of the NSFW parts were discreetly concealed, but it was still super weird.
      Their kids were small when the portrait was painted but I’d be curious to know how they felt about it as they grew up.

      1. Teekanne aus Schokolade*

        Wait, like fig leaves and cherubs type thing? I’m picturing the massive family portrait of the Roses from Schitt’s Creek but in the buff hahahaha

        1. ggg*

          The mom had long hair covering her boobs, the kids were strategically positioned and everyone was seated such that you couldn’t really see their genitalia.

          The room was big and this portrait was definitely Rose-level massive size.

          1. Lucy Skywalker*

            “The mom had long hair covering her boobs.”
            Unless you’re Christina Aguilera, that’s something I don’t want to see. Especially with the kids being naked, too!

      2. UKDancer*

        I’d imagine they either loved it or hated it. My grandparents were naturists and used to take my father and then his brother to naturist resorts in France and other places for holidays. My father absolutely hated it and is the sort of man who won’t walk around with no t-shirt on. His brother in contrast loved it and now goes to the same type of resorts. I think it’s a bit like marmite.

        Rather amusingly when we cleared my grandfather’s house to sell it we had to dispose of a number of slide photographs my grandfather had taken of my grandmother who was a stunningly pretty woman. Some of them were rather indecent. Those ones we really destroyed thoroughly.

      3. pugsnbourbon*

        I’ve heard of nude portraits, and I’ve heard of family portraits; I’ve never heard of a nude family portrait. Until today.

  22. Friend*

    I was working for a very cool television production company that was famous for their holiday ragers. They hung Christmas trees upside down from the ceiling, had a 8-ish piece brass band perform for all the drunk people to dance to, and turned one of the edit suites into a hot box room (*before weed was legal*) with a bowl of marijuana and a big bowl of Doritos. It was frankly an awesome party to get crazy at because everyone got a free taxi ride home. The moment I realized it was time to leave was when I saw a woman in one of the edit suites, take her shirt off (no bra underneath) and whip it around her head while dancing. I was like hmmm I do have to come back here Monday…. Let’s go.

    1. holiday survivor*

      As a low-level socialite in grunge-era Seattle, I learned to leave the parties when clothes came off and/or cameras came out.

      1. Detective Amy Santiago*

        I cannot adequately express how grateful I am that camera phones and social media were not a thing when I was in my early 20s.

          1. Sabrena*

            There might be a crude cassette tape recording of something similar to “have you ever” game that I am sure would turn up if I ran for president.

  23. Shells*

    Many many years ago I worked in hotel catering sales for a large hotel and conference center adjacent to a big city. We threw a holiday open house for our corporate clients-basically a holiday party with food, decor, and drinks, all to showcase what we could do for them for their corporate holiday parties. The boss in charge organized a “santa” as a fun extra touch. Santa also was an accomplished balloon animal creator and brought his equipment to do so. Santa promptly got drunk on the free drinks and without being asked to, began making balloon phalluses (phalli?) for our corporate clients. This was, of course, not the professional showcase we were after, and drunk santa was removed from the open house post haste. Nevertheless, I am sure it was as memorable for the corporate clients as it was for me, a young impressionable sales associate in one of her first professional jobs 20 years ago.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      It’s second declension (or o-declension), so phalli is correct linguistically.

  24. YL*

    For the 2020 holidays, my employer decided to get everyone e-gift cards in lieu of physical gifts. All sounds good. They have a list of retailers and each employee selected their preferred retailer. Gift cards were to be emailed the week before Christmas. Dec 24 rolls around and it’s also my last day. I spent some of it messaging HR to make sure it wasn’t “lost.”

    I felt guilty and greedy doing it, but my employer considered this gift card as compensation and would taxes would be taken out of my paycheck for it. I figured it was less of a hassle to ask “where’s my gift card?” now than to email them after I severed ties and ask about the gift and taxes. Also, on an employee’s last day, our email accounts actually get deactivated 2-3 hours before our last working day ends. I didn’t want to risk the gift card being emailed after my account was deactivated.

    It turns out HR had tried to buy the $250 e-gift cards individually. For 75+ people. Over a few days time. Of course, the corporate credit card ending up getting frozen for suspected fraud. I don’t know why they didn’t just contact the retailers for bulk buying options.

  25. Female Presenting Person*

    This is mild. At our (small) company party, we were served alcoholic drinks if we wanted them; generally, people only had one because we all had to drive home after the lunch. Two female employees from faith traditions that discourage alcohol use drank their cocktails and felt very daring. They became very animated. The boss organized a constant flow of drinks for them, only, after the first ones, they contained zero alcohol. We were all very amused to watch these two women with little alcohol experience get very, very, very “drunk” on absolutely nothing but their imaginations. I’m pretty sure neither of them know they were entertaining the far end of the table.

      1. Beth*

        Yeah, I’m cringing at this. It crosses so many lines: don’t pull ugly practical jokes in a work environment, don’t lie to people about what they’re eating or drinking, don’t pull ugly stuff on people because of their religion, don’t set up co-workers for public mockery . . .

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          All of this.

          And isn’t there a film where someone does this, and few weeks later the person thinks “hey I can handle a few drinks” and puts themselves in hospital?

      2. Me*

        It sounds cruel because it is.

        I’m not sure how someone becomes a grown adult and thinks making fun of other people is an amusing past time.

      4. UKDancer*

        Yeah that’s not a nice thing to do. You shouldn’t use your colleagues for your amusement like that.

    2. JB*

      Hm. As a rule, I generally try not to deceive people about what is or is not in their food or drink.

      How did they feel when they found out they’d been treated as public laughingstocks all night due to their unfamiliarity with alcohol? (Someone did tell them, right? You didn’t just let them go out into the world thinking they could actually handle that many drinks, surely.)

      1. Aarti*

        I would be moritfied at this “neither of them know they were entertaining the far end of the table” – thanks for making me the laughingstock of, like, everyone.

    3. Xenia*

      I can’t tell from this if your boss was like “haha, it’ll be funny to watch them to get drunk off nothing” or more along the lines of “they’re ordering a lot of drinks–I’m going to intervene for the sake of their livers”.

    4. Siege*

      I don’t think that’s really mild, honestly. I can sort of see the drinks as a prank, but the entertainment component makes it mean-spirited, at least on the part of the boss.

    6. allathian*

      Nope, not funny. I feel mortified for the young women.

      I had something similar happen to me, but it was with friends whose company I enjoyed rather than at work. When I was in high school, and especially after I hit 18 (legal drinking age), I spent most of my time with two different friend groups that didn’t overlap. One of them consisted of girls who were a year or two younger than I am, and we were the unpopular bookish girls who found each other thanks to our mutual interest in books and in feeling excluded from our school peer groups, and a total lack of interest in consuming alcohol while underage. The other group were my age, or slightly older, who I started to hang out with when I started going to bars. Most of them also went to the same college as I did, so we continued to hang out, although there we also found other friends… Anyway, when I was 19 or 20, I’d probably bored the bookish group to tears with my stories about the parties I’d gone to, so they played a prank on me. At one of our parties, a friend brought a few bottles of wine, which was the first time that happened. So we drank a glass or two, and I got a bit cheerful. Then the friend showed me the label, and it was non-alcoholic wine. I’ve never sobered up so quickly before or since! We had a good laugh about it, because there was nothing malicious in their behavior. But after that I didn’t talk about the parties I went to unless one of my bookish friends asked. It was a really interesting psychological test, I can confirm that the placebo effect is real.

  26. Merry F***ing Christmas*

    A few years ago I was talking to my mom about an AAM post on the topic of partners behaving badly at work parties. She told me about a time that she brought my dad to a work Christmas party when they were living in London in the 80s, and he got into a conversation with a group of her coworkers that ended with him telling them all to f**k off. I, devout 22-year old AAM reader, nodded sagely and was about to launch into an Alison-inspired your-partner-is-your-responsibility speech… when she ended by saying “to be fair, it was only because they were defending Apartheid”. Doesn’t make it appropriate, but definitely justified in my opinion!

        1. Merry F***ing Christmas*

          Oh wow, thanks you guys (and Teekanne aus Schokolade)! I definitely over-thought how to write it out so I feel very validated :)

    2. Teekanne aus Schokolade*

      I wish this website had an award system, this was a damn snappy story that I love from start to finish.

  27. Getting Smashed*

    Years ago my office holiday party was held in one of the company buildings, which had a single person restroom. Everyone had a good time and the drinks were aplenty, but no shenanigans (or so we thought). The next day, one of employees sent out a photo he took at the end of the night of the bathroom sink completely torn off the wall and smashed on the ground. Nobody fessed up, but at the time I had access to the security footage so the IT guy and I checked it out. We saw our HR manager go into the (remember, single person) bathroom with their partner and then both snuck out several minutes later. The next person to go in was the one who sent out the photo. I don’t know what was going on in there, but hopefully it was worth it!

    2. Coffee Bean*

      That happened in a Schitt’s Creek episode. Not HR people. But two of the characters broke the sink while doing the nasty.

    3. Murphy*

      This happened at the company party of my husband’s previous employers. Broken sink resulting from the same adult activities.

  28. Nope nope nope*

    In the before times (pre-covid), my company would have a nice holiday party at a local banquet hall complete with coworkers getting trashed at the open bar. What I wasn’t prepared for when I joined was the holiday sing-along: the 12 Days of Christmas. After the main dinner course, every table would start drawing numbers out of a hat until all 12 days of Christmas were accounted for. Then each table would stand up, act out, and sing their picked number(s) (i.e. for partridge in a pear tree, the people at that table would flap their arms like birds and someone would try to stand like a tree). You could always tell who were the exec that actually enjoyed the sing-along as they would be actively singing and acting while the rest of us mumble and fidget awkwardly.

    1. Anon for this*

      HOLY CRAP YOU TOO??? Our holiday party does not feature an open bar, so I’m reasonably certain we are not coworkers, but my company also sings 12 Days by table (thankfully without the miming, although definitely being made to redo your round if judged to be insufficiently enthusiastic). Nevermind that there are a number of people who do not celebrate Christmas…but they’re all at levels with the least influence, so apparently they just go along. Between our last beforetimes holiday party and now there have been some big changes in the company and I’m deeply hoping this is another thing that goes bye-bye.

    2. Hmm...*

      So… did the partridges have to flap for all 12 while the drummers only had to drum once, or did they only perform on their actual day?

      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        my post crossed with yours – in our cases the partridges would have been on the hook twelve times, gold rings eight times, maids five times, and so on

    3. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      My college did this, but with numbered tables at the Christmas dinner. It was self-seating and every year there was a rush for table five.

      Those who enjoy singing less either didn’t go, or carefully sat at the highest-numbered tables.

      Thanks for the memory – I hadn’t thought about that in ages and now have the college song stuck in my head.

          1. SeluciaMD*

            Truly the only credible response. Muppet solidarity!

            But seriously – my all-time favorite Christmas record is John Denver & The Muppets: A Christmas Together. I have it on LP, cassette, CD and on Spotify. It’s a freaking treasure. It is not Christmas if I can’t hear Rolf & JD sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

          2. Tierrainney*

            oh yes! I have the Muppets Christmas album with John Denver. Miss Piggy really milks that one.

      2. Goo-ooooo-ldy locks*

        I think we went to the same college as that what I thought of instantly. You had to be on the right side of the table though.

    4. Lucy Skywalker*

      My office did the 12 Days of Christmas, too, but the 12 people who sang it had volunteered. It was part of a Christmas talent show where people could show off their ability to sing, write parodies, and in one case, teach us how to make decorations. It was fun, and no one was pressured to perform if they don’t want to. Personally, I love to perform and be in the spotlight (I was a theater kid in high school) so I was grateful for the opportunity to do so. I believe I sang a parody about then-President Bush to the tune of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.” It was the start of a new holiday tradition where I wrote a parody about the events of the year, usually (but not always) to the tune of Christmas carols.
      I don’t work at that office anymore, but to this day, I still write the annual parody and sing it for my family on Christmas.

      1. EvilQueenRegina*

        I may have written one a few years ago about our then prime minister Theresa May, and if someone were to ask me now the lyrics to 12 Days of Christmas, the first thing that would pop into my head would be something like “5 U turns”.

  29. meagain*

    One year our (billion dollar) company had holiday cards printed up – all the departments got an allotted amount and we all signed them to send out out to our clients, constituents, aka all the important people, etc. Well this year the cards had clearly been printed “inside out.” The metallic paper side was the inside of the card and the blank white cardboard paper side was the outside of the card… with an emblem cut out for our logo. It looked absolutely ridiculous. The inside of the card had a printed message that wasn’t centered. We contacted anyone we could think of internally to say that the cards were wrong and they they were too embarrassing to send out like this. But for some reason, anyone with authority doubled down and insisted the cards were supposed to be like this and were correct. NO ONE would admit that these were very obviously printed on the wrong side. So…. that’s what we had to send. If I had been a manager back then, I would have tossed them and just bought our own out of pocket. But, our boss also insisted that he was told they were correct…. so my coworkers signed their names in huge block letters to be obnoxious and I wrote mine as small and indecipherable as possible… and that’s how they went out. To some really “important” industry people! Insane. I kept one for posterity and I still have it!

    1. Aha*

      I actually believe that it was meant to be that way. It sounds like a design that looks minimalist-cool in someone’s head, but ends up looking dopey in reality.

    2. JSPA*

      White-on-outside, foil-on-inside cards with the foil showing through a cut-out were very much a thing, though.

      The message has to be offset from the hole, too–or the hole offset from the message, if you prefer–unless you managed to place the message so artfully that a key word or syllable showed through.

      I don’t have strong opinions on cards, but one of my parents favored this flavor of card as broadly “holiday” friendly.

      You either write on the front, the back, or write on the foil in sharpie.

      1. meagain*

        I don’t know…. I still have this thing from 2006 and just looked at it and it’s REALLY bad! The front of the card has a hole cut out in the outline of the logo… then the inside is the actual logo printed on the metallic inside… except the logo on the inside is about 2 inches below where the cut out hole is… so it’s not like it is showing through… it looks like it was “attempting” to but didn’t quite line up… and then the holiday message is actually printed over the logo… and the message is not centered on the page or on the logo either…

        Multiple people did tell us that it was printed correctly, but I swear if you look at this thing, it looks like a huge mistake/fail. I was so mortified to put my name on it that I wrote it illegibly! The guys I worked with found the whole thing funny and wrote their names in big obnoxious block letters. I’m sure our recipients were delighted by such a classy holiday greeting!

        The other funny thing was that my boss got a holiday card from a “very prominent person” – but it was addressed to something like “Ms. Jen Walsh” when boss’ name was “Mr. Jim Welsh” (not that, but along those lines) and we were all making fun of this and he was trying to insist that the sender “really did know me” and “his secretary must have sent it.” Lol.

        1. Gumby*

          I assume most very prominent people don’t actually hand write their own cards except to their nearest and dearest. VPP don’t enter most of their own contact information into whatever personal-CRM solution they use either. So I think it is entirely plausible that “Jim” does know VPP and was just entered into the system incorrectly. They probably aren’t BFFs, but I’d buy anything up to and including regular golf buddies or old college roommates.

          I mean, I have gotten AC repair bills and a job offer in Australia (legit, like, “we enjoyed interviewing you and as discussed in our phone call, here is the offer information” type thing) sent to my email. Presumably the people who entered that info cared a fair amount about accuracy yet they still ended up with a typo. So I don’t think a name being mistyped into some VPP’s personal contact list that big of a stretch.

          1. meagain*

            Oh I don’t think they were personal friends, but for whatever reason through his job he ended up on a spreadsheet for the annual holiday card. I’m sure it was mistyped. It was just really funny to us because he was so proud of getting this card. (If a holiday card had come to anyone else with a name slightly off like that, no one would have blinked… but for this guy it was fitting and funny. Like sure Jen! (Think Mr. Michael Scott on the Office and realizing his big deal holiday card from most impressive person was addressed to Ms. Michele Cott or something) Made the rest of us laugh.

  30. ThatGirl*

    I used to work at a well-known baking and decorating supply company. I spent two years in a hybrid customer service-related role, and had to pitch in to answer the phones and emails, especially around Christmas, which is an insanely busy time of year for them.

    One of their big holiday products is gingerbread houses and cookie decorating kits. I gotta tell you, we got told we ruined SO MANY Christmases because their house broke or a decoration was missing due to a mispacking. “My kid cried!” well probably because you were overdramatic about it?

    But my favorite story was the woman who called because her 3 year old grandson had put a large nonpareil up his nose and she had to take him to the ER to get it out. SHE left him alone with a bunch of small candy, and the kits are not activities children can do on their own, especially not small ones. But she wanted to complain because she thought there should be a warning on the box. OK, lady.

            1. The Smiling Pug*

              Oh good! And I don’t work in a baking and decorating supply place, but I answer phones for the majority of my hours…And it’s mind-boggling the weird assumptions people make simply because something wasn’t spelled out.

              1. SeluciaMD*

                Any time I see a bizarre warning on a toy or even like a box that says something like “Plastic wrapping is not intended for entertainment purposes. Do not give to small children or pets who may suffocate if enclosed in the plastic” I scoff and then remind myself that warning is likely there because more than one person wasn’t smart enough to figure that out on their own and somebody got hurt, somebody got sued or both.

    2. awesome3*

      This really explains a lot of warning labels that make you think, really? There needs to be a warning about this?

      1. Retired Prof*

        We got a plastic canteen for water at a military surplus store. It says DO NOT USE OVER OPEN FLAME on the side. I sincerely hope that soldiers are not inclined to putting a plastic bottle over a fire.

        1. thatjillgirl*

          I mean, considering that some soldiers are literal teenagers, it does sound like a thing that could happen.

    3. Fresh Cut Grass*

      I used to work at the corporate office of a shoe company, and part of my job was responding to reviews. (Thankfully, it was the only part of my job that involved customers in any way.)

      I was pretty stumped on how to reply to the guy who wrote a furious review about how we had ruined Christmas, because a store had closed half an hour early. On Christmas Eve. In a place where it was snowing.

      I’m not sure what I wound up saying, but I really just wanted to write back with a link to watch any adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

      1. The Smiling Pug*

        Crazy shoppers get so entitled around the holidays because they forgot to buy one gift and they expect stores to do some crazy stuff in order to get that one item. Doesn’t work that way folks…

      1. ThatGirl*

        I can understand her panicking; honestly, a squirt bottle of warm water wouldn’t have occurred to me either. It was more that she blamed US even though it was clearly not a toy or something you should leave a small child alone with.

    5. anonymous73*

      Makes me think of the post going around on social media right now from a woman who complained that Marie Callender’s ruined her Thanksgiving because she burned her pumpkin pie beyond recognition. The comments are hilarious.

  31. irene adler*

    When we switched from a real Christmas tree to a fake tree for our company break room, many commented that they missed that “Christmas tree” smell.

    So I went out and purchased those little tree-shaped air fresheners one puts in the car.

    And I proceeded to hang them all over the tree.

    Soon the break room was inaccessible. Damn near gassed everyone out of the building those fresheners were so potent!

    3. Wendy*

      My first year of college, I put up a foot-tall dollar store tree and a tree-shaped air freshener. It was NOT the same.

  32. Cousin Igorina*

    Job before last, my very shy, reserved coworker had a biiiiiiiiit too much to drink and went around the room demanding that people show her pictures of their pets. (This included the CEO, but fortunately he thought it was hilarious.) It culminated with Drunk Coworker bursting into tears when she was told one of our other coworkers didn’t have any pets, and saying, “You’re so nice, you deserve to have a dog.”

    (She was mortified when we came back to work, so we didn’t tease her about it… much.)

    4. Calamity Janine*

      oh god, i think this story is actually divination. i have read this and now know with the grim inevitability of fate that if i get drunk at an office party, this WILL now be what i do. it has been set into my mind. the die is cast. the world has spoken it into existence.

      …well, there are worse sorts of drunks to be, really

    7. WFH with Cat*

      Awwww … telling someone “You’re so nice, you deserve to have a dog” is kinda sweet, especially from a shy, reserved coworker. I hope she has learned to look back fondly on that party and not feel mortified!

    8. Serin*

      It’s adorable when someone’s inhibitions are lowered and you find out that their secret desire was to see everybody’s pet.

  33. fiona the baby hippo*

    I worked at a hip media company in my last job and our holiday party consisted of a so-so dinner with bottomless wine and a one-man show by an employee’s friend that was tenuously tied back to our company mission. The one-man show was AWFUL, we all were getting SO DRUNK, then the founder extended the open bar and bought us all shots. That’s when my memory gets very patchy, but thank GOD a coworker (who later became a very good friend) got me an Uber and sent me home. I was in 2-inch block heels and managed to wipe out on the sidewalk getting out of the Uber at my apartment. I woke up with a horrible scratch all over my face and a truly acidic hangover. I just… didn’t go to work the next day. Which would have been a bad look, except the founder then decided to give everyone a rousing speech at lunchtime that if we didn’t get our numbers up, we’d lay off 10% of the company at some point in the new year. Then he went into his office (which had glass walls we could all see into) and fell asleep for the afternoon. His behavior was so out there that everyone immediately forgot I’d stayed home with a hangover. I’m good enough at makeup that I was able to cover the scrapes over the next few days and quit that job to freelance a few months later.

  34. Shannie Claws*

    The Time the Office Pooper Struck Right Before the Holiday Party

    …was probably the funniest (and grossest, and strangest) tale from my last company.

    In short, we had someone(s) who were clearly aggrieved for some reason and taking it out on the office bathrooms. This was no case of poorly-handled IBS; no, this person was carefully placing logs of feces on the toilet seat and also smearing it on walls, the floor, etc. This went on for weeks until cameras were placed outside the restroom hallways. Right before the cameras arrived, our office holiday party was held on premises. Just as the party was getting underway, a few of the VPs were seen hurriedly looking for buckets and cleaning products, and the news circulated throughout the party that the Pooper had indeed gifted us with another incident. A normally boring event was suddenly filled with stories of Poop Gone Wrong at various workplaces throughout the land. Apparently, this is a…normal occurrence?

    No one ever confessed or was found out to be the Pooper, but I’ll never forget that party.

    1. CarCarJabar*

      I cannot begin to understand how angry one must be to handle their own shit like this… Like, that’s torturing yourself in order to torture others.

      1. Lucy Skywalker*

        Kind of like the people who know that the COVID vaccine is effective, but refuse to get it because they’d rather die of COVID than comply with President Biden.
        I can’t even imagine being so petty and vindictive that you value “sticking it to Biden” over your own freaking life!

    4. anonymous73*

      I was working from home one day and received a text from a co-worker that someone had dropped a turd in the middle of the ladies room floor. This was no accident, it was clearly intentional. Apparently it’s a thing.

  35. Elle*

    For the holidays an old boss would give a single mini candy cane to each employee. That was the sum total of our holiday celebrations. For Easter it was a single jelly bean, left on our desk for us to find in the morning.

    1. Butterfly Counter*

      For some reason, this story is the one that has made me laugh the hardest.

      One jelly bean.

      One. Jelly bean.

      Just one. *crying laughing*

      I have so many questions. My sides hurt.

      1. Elle*

        Yup, an unwrapped single Brachs jelly bean, sitting overnight on our desks. She kept all the black ones for herself. And she was so excited to hear how much we enjoyed the jelly bean the next morning! It was a very odd place to work.

        1. Aarti*

          Oh god. My boss’s husband, who already is way too involved in our lives, brought us each homebaked cookies. I thanked her very profusely and as soon as she went away, threw it in the trash. It’s Covid time bitches! I don’t like to eat food directly from people’s kitchens at the best of times, no way I would eat it right now.
          But an unwrapped jelly bean is kind of hilarious. I might have tried to make a rubber band cannon with it.

        2. Martin Blackwood*

          Somehow, the knowledge that black jelly beans are her favorite adds so much to this story, I’m dying

          1. SeluciaMD*

            Right?!? I read that and thought, “yep, that tracks.”

            That being said, I am completely bumfuzzled that she thought anyone would appreciate ONE JELLY BEAN. Just one. Left out overnight so to ensure it would be so hard as to be inedible.

      1. Enough*

        At Easter time I buy whole bags of just the black ones. They are my husband’s and daughter’s favorite.

        1. Wendy*

          My sister – a middle child and still a natural diplomat – taught herself to like black jellybeans so she could trade 2-for-1 with me and my brother at Easter time. I mean, sure, she’d have only black jellybeans afterward, but she’d get twice as many! :-D

      1. Elle*

        Now I’m remembering all the other odd things she would do. She once brought two Costco size containers of Cetaphil face cleanser and put them in the conference room in case anyone needed it. And the time she needed to order some sandwiches for a lunch meeting. Instead of ordering the sandwiches from a deli she spent the day walking into restaurants asking for sandwich donations for this random meeting.

        2. Usagi*

          Was… was there a sink in the conference room? Or were you supposed to grab it and go to the bathroom? Is your line of work something that would make your face dirty, but also customer facing? Or maybe you live somewhere hot and humid so your faces get oily? I mean since I’m wearing a mask all day every day I guess I wouldn’t mind washing my face during the day?

          SO MANY QUESTIONS.

          1. Elle*

            It was a largely office based job. I don’t have an answer for why, but she had issues purchasing things and understanding quantities. Another example would be ordering two thousand shirts for a fundraiser where only 70 people had signed up. Because you never know. It was a small, family run non profit with all the baggage that comes with that. I learned a lot from all the craziness.

  36. Mayor of Llamatown*

    I worked for a medium-size corporation that had a bit of checkered past: one of the past owners had run a Ponzi scheme that made national news, the company was bought out/re-formed after that. Despite it being decades ago, many people were still very, very sensitive about it and it was still very fresh in local memory. When it came to holiday parties, they felt it was really, really necessary to have entertainment for the holiday party, but were tired of just having a DJ/music and thus tried all sorts of different things, including magicians (which was actually a hit) and comedians. People were provided two drink tickets but there was a cash bar so many, many people got not just tipsy but absolutely wasted.

    One year they hired a comedian, who immediately started his set out with a joke about the Ponzi Scheme. The entire place gasped and went quiet. The comedian clearly knew he had stuck his foot in it and desperately tried to re-adjust but his ten-minute set was just total silence, no response from the audience. At one point, one of the managers drunkenly stage-whispered/laughed to her date, “HE’S TOTALLY BOMBING.” He hadn’t even left the room after his set before people were loudly lambasting him to the rest of their table.

    I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life.

      1. Mayor of Llamatown*

        From what I remember, the guy wasn’t from this area, and so wouldn’t have known that this corporation with a very strong local presence is still very sensitive about this situation that happened a long long time (and several mergers) ago.

        Even being charitable though, I don’t know what he reaction he was expecting when that’s basically his first bit. It made for a lot of water cooler talk, at least!

    2. Soup of the Day*

      Oh my gosh, I ALSO had a cringey comedian-at-the-holiday-party experience! Right out of college I was working at a totally sketchy company that managed a large amount of equally sketchy websites (basically just a way to make as much ad revenue as possible.) The male CEO had hired exclusively young, freshly-graduated women to do the grunt work, while the only other higher-up was his other male buddy. The optics were not good.

      This company was dysfunctional AF and the comedian clearly picked up on it, because he proceeded to roast our CEO for his hiring practices and the quality of our websites. I was DYING trying not to laugh, but everyone was dead silent for fear of provoking the CEO’s ire and clearly many of my fellow co-workers were genuinely unimpressed. (There was also no alcohol at this party! My work bestie and I had chugged bourbon in her car in the parking lot though, so we were having a REALLY hard time holding back our laughter.)

      I quit not long after and never looked back, but some of those women are still there years and years later.

  37. Fabulous*

    I was a temporary worker at an office, filling in for an integral staff member (read: department of one) on an extended medical leave. I had been there about 8 months by the time Christmas had rolled around and established myself in the workplace, led trainings, and basically was the go-to person in charge of everything for that department.

    So that year, instead of having a holiday party, HR had decided to give all staff members a $50+ gift card and take everyone on a field trip downtown for an afternoon office shopping spree! Sounds great, right??

    Less than **2 hours** before said field trip, they sit me down and say because I’m only a temp worker, I can’t join them due to liability issues. Which, I understand, but a little more notice would have been nice so I didn’t get excited about the afternoon off. Oh, and she almost forgot – I also don’t get a gift card either.

    So long story short, I got stuck in the office with no recompense while literally everyone else bolted for the rest of the day… :(

    1. Rey*

      This is total garbage, which any normal person would know! When this happened with my part-time employees (our budget was based on $X per full-time employees, but we have three part-time employees and don’t receive any budget), I just tell the department heads and they chip in to make up the difference for the part-time employees. Saying it’s due to “liability” is complete and utter baloney.

    5. Anna Admin*

      I think my company must have gotten in some hot water in the past about how they were handling contract workers/temps because by the time I was hired as one they were VERY clear about all the perks I would not and could not get! It sucks they gave you no notice, but it’s a real thing at least where I live in the US. Saying it’s a liability issue is weird, it’s more like a labor law – if they treat you like all the other employees they need to offer you all their benefits etc. etc. My first year here I had to plan a Holiday Party that I could not attend because I was a contract worker.

    6. __ID__*

      I feel your pain! I was a temp many moons ago, and I was invited to the Christmas party at a company of less than 10 people. The invitation came from the “head of HR“/office manager. Then a week later I was “uninvited”because I was only a temp.

      I was younger and much more sensitive so I cried actual tears over this! I still think it wouldn’t have killed them to lay out for one more dinner for me.

      Here’s where it gets funny though. The company was a very small engineering firm and they had just hired a new guy. I thought he was a little socially inept, but he sort of fit the culture, if you know what I mean.

      Fast forward to the Christmas party with the unfortunate secret Santa gift exchange. The new guy buys a gag gift for one of the few women in the company and it turns out to be…Nipple Warmers. His explanation after she opened the gift was “ well I don’t know you very well and the only time I met you I noticed that it was cold in the office.”

      This was in 1990, and today he would probably be purple walked out the door. I’m only sorry that I can’t even tell the story in my current office or any office I ever working again!

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Now I’m picturing the perp walk but with the employee, carrying his box of stuff, being led out of the building with a purple drape over his head.

          1. Seeking Second Childhood*

            Hazel I am so glad I decided to have water instead of wine, because when I read your question, I cracked up laughing. And now have some cleanup to do.

    7. Rob aka Mediancat*

      My company did something similar at a company picnic: all attendees were eligible for randomly drawn prizes, and one of our contractors won a Kindle. A few days later, the picnic organizing group (which I was on) was told that the winner, as a contractor, had been ineligible and we were going to have to take the Kindle back. Some of us flatly refused to write the letter, on the grounds that this maybe should have been something they should have handled ahead of time, but unfortunately for the contractor, someone DID write to him because he’d turned it back in by the next meeting.

  38. Elevator Bystander*

    I’ve probably told this story here before but I still get awkward shivers when I think about it now, almost 10 years later.

    One year the office holiday part coincided with a visit from the company’s CEO (we were a satellite office), so the party planning committee had the brilliant idea to bring our ~40 person group to the bar on the top level of the Hancock Building in Chicago. Nice and fancy in theory, but the drinks there are so expensive that we were only budgeted for one each, and it’s really not a very big bar so it was very awkward fitting us all together. Things got worse when the CEO decided to make everybody go around and share what they hoped to see for the future of the company (so festive!). Suffice it to say the vibe was already very weird by the time we were ready to leave. I ended up taking the elevator down 95 floors in the same group as the CEO, who had been chatting with one of my office’s sales reps, and for some reason he pointed his finger at her while talking and, to the horror of the rest of us crammed in with them like sardines, she leaned forward and took his whole finger into her mouth. I have no idea why (not alcohol; we’d all just had the one weak cocktail apiece) but the stunned silence and awkward glances lasted for the rest of the ride.

    1. SarahKay*

      I got to your second-to-last sentence and just did a whole-body cringe away from the screen. That’s just…so awful. I keep re-reading it in horror; at this point my palms are sweating in second-hand embarrassment.

      1. Pikachu*

        I’m scrolling upwards and skimming through comments. Your reply made me stop in my tracks to read this story.

    2. not a doctor*

      Either you have posted this before, or there are TWO stories that include the sentence “she leaned forward and took his whole finger into her mouth” (or probably some variation of it), and I hope to God it’s not the latter. That mental image was absolutely seared into my memory.

      It’s sufficiently messed up that new people should definitely see it, though. It really should be a meme.

    3. Talley Lach*

      I kind of sympathize with her! Why is he pointing his finger in her face in a crowded elevator?? After a terrible party only makes it worse!

    4. Calamity Janine*

      i am filled with equal parts horror and admiration for that move. on one hand, oh my god no. on the other hand… now THAT’S how you ESTABLISH DOMINANCE.

      on the third hand, ew clobbered on finger,

    6. Robin Ellacott*

      My uncle’s (dad’s brother) ex-wife did that when she was dating my uncle and first met his family. My dad was talking and pointing and she leaned forward and sucked his finger. 40 years later and he still tells the story with a horrified expression.

      Doing it at work is a whole other level!

  39. SarahKay*

    Back when I worked in a department store our Christmas party was held in the staff canteen. There was food, there were drinks (including a certain amount of alcohol), there was music and, being a department store in the nineties, there was a high ratio of women to men. It was all fine, and fairly low-key, until the Store Manager and his (fairly young, male) deputy started to do their bit to entertain us, with their version of Right Said Fred’s “I’m too Sexy”. This would have been about 5 years after the original song came out, but it was pretty memorable so we were all familiar with it. They’d been down to the sports department and got themselves white swimsuit caps which they used to simulate the bald (shaved?) heads of Right Said Fred. Music started up, they started singing the song which was pretty funny with the swimming caps they were wearing.
    We got to the “I’m too sexy for my shirt” line, and they both stripped off their shirts; well, okay, they’re good sports; it’s all pretty harmless; lots of clapping from everyone.
    And then the song and the deputy manager kept going, and he pulled down his trousers.
    Most of the staff cheered, and sort of surged forwards towards our now-boxer-shorted deputy site manager. A much younger me was absolutely mortified by the whole thing so I moved backwards as the rest moved forwards, meaning I didn’t see quite how it ended but I understand the Store Manager pulled his deputy off to one side and stopped the music before the deputy could consider also removing his boxer shorts.
    Next year alcoholic drinks were limited to one glass of bubbly per person.

    1. Lucy Skywalker*

      Did anyone press sexual harassment charges? Because if that’s not creating an uncomfortable work environment, I don’t know what is.

      1. SarahKay*

        This was 20+ years ago, so a very different environment meant I don’t think anyone even considered it. And while obviously I can’t be 100% sure, I never saw or heard any sort of rumour about him being a creep usually; I think it was just a little too much booze and getting carried away in the moment.
        Also, while I was embarrassed, I was very much in the minority; the wider sentiment was definitely… raucous.

  40. CatPerson*

    It was my first holiday team lunch hosted by my boss at her executive club’s restaurant, after 6 months in my first professional job. The salad course had a large cherry tomato, which I carefully started to pierce with my fork so that I could slice it into halves before eating it. The tomato skin was very thick, and the tines of the heavy fork were not very sharp. The tomato exploded–all over my boss. On her jacket, white blouse, she even had tomato seeds in her hair.

    I was mortified, but boss was very gracious about it and laughed it off. When the server came to remove the salad plates, I noticed that the plates were all empty except for a tomato gracing each one.

    1. Night Vale Seems Good By Comparison*

      OMG, literally laughed out loud. And such a restaurant thing to do. Why make salads with entire hunks of produce? If I have to cut up my salad I might as well make it myself! Glad your boss was understanding.

    2. They Don’t Make Sunday*

      Actual proof that food industry’s commitment to year-round tomatoes is a hazard! Introduce an out-of-season tomato in the first act, and it’s bound to go off by the third.

    3. Lucy Skywalker*

      A co-worker actually did the very same thing to me once! It wasn’t a holiday party, just a regular lunch.
      Thank goodness my shirt was white so I was able to remove the stain with bleach.

  41. I'll get motivated.... tomorrow*

    So this happened 20 years ago, when things were a bit rougher and Europeans generally thought of themselves as less ‘sensitive’ than Americans.
    I am a motivational speaker and at the time I was exclusively represented by a major UK-based international speaker bureau. I was invited to their Christmas party and decided to go. There were roughly half a dozen speakers there and about a dozen of the speaker bureau sales staff, plus the upper management. It was a sit-down dinner in a private room of a very nice restaurant.
    One of the other speakers got very drunk, very quickly. He embarked on a rambling story about how he had done some work for an American client and had told a joke in the course of his workshop and they has been incredibly offended and had never invited him back. So we settled in to listen to this, assuming we would get a light-hearted story poking gentle fun at prudish Americans.
    He proceeded to tell us the joke, in all its longwinded detail. It involved a proctologist, a dozen long-stemmed roses, the roses in an entirely inappropriate place, and underlying it all some crude anti-gay sentiments. It was received by the rest of us in stunned silence.
    Everyone knew exactly why he had been ‘fired’ by the client. He was too drunk to notice the look of horror on the faces of the speaker bureau staff. They hurriedly changed the subject and moved on.
    But I have no doubt that he went straight onto the bureau’s black list and they never worked with him again. And I definitely know that they never invited speakers to their office Christmas party again!

  42. Burr... it's cold in here*

    A former place of work used to take the entire office (about 40-50 people) out to lunch at the holidays and we would have a giant white elephant gift exchange. The office was pretty dysfunctional on a number of levels, and the boss was friends with a lot of the employees outside of work.
    One of the boss’s friend/employees bought an explicitly anatomically correct man made of chocolate (our boss was a gay man) and arranged with HR who ran the white elephant that she would get to give our boss the white elephant gift. Everyone else was made aware of what it was, so they wouldn’t take the gift (I have no idea why HR did not veto this immediately, except that they too were a friend of the boss).
    It would have all gone fine, except that there was a new person who had started the day of the party and threw the name drawing off. So the new person, a young woman, got the present intended for the boss and opened it. She was shocked and horrified, but in the moment sort of laughed it off.

    She and I both lasted at that place of employment past the boss and became quite good work friends by bonding over the massive amount of disfunction in that workplace. I’m happy to report that now there is a new boss who is NOT friends with any of the staff and has turned the business into a significantly more professional place to work.

    1. Wendy*

      This isn’t quite a “work” party, but my writers’ group always had a “dirty santa” component to our Christmas parties. Unfortunately, “dirty santa” means different things to different people… leading to one year where we had about two dozen {coffee mugs / boxes of chocolate / holiday knick-knacks} and one bright purple phallic adult toy with a suction cup for use in the shower. The poor newbie who brought it was SO EMBARRASSED – our group *was* mostly romance writers, but most were grandparent age and well over half wrote “sweet” or “inspirational” (ie non-explicit) romance. Luckily for the poor gift recipient – a pastor, incidentally! – one of the other writers thought it was hilarious and eagerly took the out-of-place gift home. It may have showed up in one of her later books :-P

  43. Coast East*

    Funny in a sad kind of way? Our workplace held a 1920s themed holiday party in a 4 star hotel with a dance floor. The DJ played lots of 1940s music. The result was that for 2 hours, the ONLY people who danced were my boyfriend and I (bc ballroom lessons). The moment the dj switched to modern music, and others got up to dance, the hosts stopped all dancing for the longest, most boring raffle giveaway.
    Also found out months later that people were taking photos and video of us dancing but never shared them with us (like is that weird? It feels like thats weird)

    1. Irish girl*

      what i dont get is the 1940s music… why would they play swing and big band to go with the theme and then everyone could have danced?

      1. Coast East*

        To be honest, I’m not sure anyone would have danced even if the music DID fit the theme. It was just a really awkward experience where everyone else (like 100 employees) just stared at us for using the dance floor

      2. Charlotte Lucas*

        I’m confused about the music choice. 1920s style jazz isn’t that hard to dance to. Or… Just do a different theme?

        1. Coast East*

          Loving your username, huge Janeite myself (I think people only wanted to club dance, or only knew club dancing because it was a younger crowd, and Sinatra really threw them off.)
          To be fair, despite its awkwardness, I believe we had a better time than anyone else there. So I’m not upset at the music lol

  44. Anon for this one*

    The worst corporate Christmas cards I’ve ever come across:

    – Every year the CEO wrote everyone (100-ish people) a card with a quick message. This is a sweet idea.

    – One year, the Design Director said she would design the cards. Also a fairly sweet idea.

    – What she came up with was the weirdest card I’ve ever seen. No concession to Christmassy themes whatsoever. Dingy grey background with a checkbox list of the company values, so the CEO could tick whichever value he felt you most embodied. Sort of sweetly-intentioned (?) but deeply weird.

    – So she gets the cards printed and drives over to the CEO’s house with them. They crack open a bottle of wine. They work through the cards. Tick, message, sign, tick, message, sign. There are worse ways to spend an evening, I guess.

    – Except. For at least two people, he FAILED TO TICK ANY OF THE BOXES. So those two (at least) employees get a dingy grey card implying that the CEO does not think they embody any of the company values. NOT GOOD.

    – A few days later, the Design Director sends out a very sheepish apology email.

  45. Amber Rose*

    Less funny and more cringe, but one year the party game we played had the following rules:
    – Everyone stands in a circle, Boss in the middle
    – Boss will go around to each person and say something.
    – The person must maintain eye contact and repeat what was said without laughing. If they laugh, they’re out.

    Wanna hazard a guess at the content? It was so awkward and like mortifying that my husband literally grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room so we didn’t have to participate. We hid behind a tree until it was over!

      1. OhNo*

        Clearly my brain has been conditioned by the internet, because my brain immediately started in on one of the many odd verses from that “What does the fox say” song… and now that’s all I can picture in this scenario.

    3. ferrina*

      I would be out so fast at OldJob.
      “Senior leadership values our department’s work- nope, can’t say it with a straight face”

  46. Emi*

    This was in about years ago, when I worked at a small company. It was small enough that all employees and both owners fit into one limo. It wasn’t funny, it was a red flag, but I stayed for another 5 years. Live and learn.

    So, for the Christmas party, the owners picked us up, from our homes, in the limo and everybody started drinking. We went for dinner some place kinda fancy, with more drinks, then went to look at Christmas lights, while continuing to drink. Some drank really heavily. I didn’t drink much because there was no place to pee.

    After several hours and getting increasingly drunk, one employee and the owner started some kind of argument. I didn’t understand what it was about, because they were so stinkin’ drunk. It went on for at least 20 minutes (because the good Christmas lights were pretty far from where we all lived).

    So employee and owner are screaming at each other. Owner’s spouse is egging them on. I am trying to disappear into my seat, along with another couple other no-drama coworkers.

    Miles from anything, the owner has the limo driver stop and put the employee out on the side of the road. With the employee walking home (I guess?) the owner tries to restart the party, like we’re not all sitting there wishing to be literally anywhere else.

    The rest of the ride was very quiet, and on Monday it was like nothing happened. I know, super weird. Nobody spoke of it, but we never had that sort of party again. Christmas parties continued to include booze, but at least we weren’t trapped in a vehicle together. And that went on until I left, which was about 4 months before the final implosion of the whole business.

    1. Seeking Second Childhood*

      Dear lord, I hope this was after common cell phones and that roadside employee had someone to call! And clothes warm enough for the weather! And that it was a safe area.
      Did they quit or keep working?

  47. RandomLawyer*

    In 2008 the firm I was working at took a big hit when the economy collapsed. The first casualty of the subsequent belt tightening was the “Big Fancy Christmas Party” they usually threw for all the offices. Understandable. The NY office decided to pool our own money for holiday drinks at a local bar. We got some space on the top floor and drinks started to flow. Eventually we decided to move down to the second floor, and things started to unravel once it was decided to do shots. One of the junior partners (who had been let go, but then brought back when finances slightly improved) got so drunk he started screaming at the managing partner that he’s running the firm into the ground. Managing partner had to pay for a cab to send him home. Two of the (male) paralegals started stripping to christmas songs. A staffer declared her love to a, married, and clearly uncomfortable (as well as gay) attorney. Of course the response to all this was to go down to the first floor and keep drinking. Then things get hazy

    The next morning I arrive at the elevator with one of my fellow attorneys and I look at him and say “Things really got wild when we started doing shots last night” He looks at me and says “We did shots?” I say back, “Yeah, when we went downstairs.” He looks even more incredulous and says “We went downstairs?!?”

    That party lived in firm lore for a while. More so for me because I ended up hooking up with one of the paralegals. We’ve been married for 10 years now.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      was he stripping when you hooked up with him? because that would be a hell of a meet-cute.

    3. Kvothe*

      I should not have read this story at work….I’m struggling to contain my laughter so my coworkers don’t think I’ve completely lost it

  48. UKgreen*

    Several years ago we planned an office evening out – drinks then dinner at a nearby restaurant – about 40 of us – and we all decided to wear ugly Xmas jumpers, the naffer the better, with prizes for the ‘best ones’. Before dinner, we all gathered in a pub near to the restaurant for some pre-dinner drinks, and everyone was dressed-up. There were some brilliant jumpers, and some terrible handknitted ones, and some that lit up or had baubles on. Some people had added festive headware like Santa hats. Everyone was in very high spirits. So far, so good.
    And then the room suddenly went quiet. The Director’s PA had walked into the pub, 30 minutes late, dressed in what I can only describe as ‘a very skimpy Sexy Santa outfit’. Think stockings, heels, and the tiniest silk nightie imaginable. Definitely NOT a jumper…

    She proceeded to spend the rest of the evening trying to straddle the Director, who was wearing a hideous reindeer jumper AND ANTLERS and when dessert came she tried to feed him. Later, she sang Santa Baby to him. For his part, he did not seem surprised, bothered, embarrassed or in any way affected by her behaviour.

    The following day we were all back at work and she was dressed professionally in black work trousers and plain red jumper with modestly high shoes, and both the Director and his PA acted as though nothing had happened.

  49. Murphy*

    My husband’s company party has mostly been held at a BB place. It always has drinks and a buffet with heavy hoeur d’oeuvres (more than enough for a meal). A few years ago they had the party at a Mexican restaurant and tequila bar. The bar was open and the drinks were free flowing. The food….was not. Probably over 90 minutes into the party they finally started passing out very minimal appetizers, but there was no buffet. I ran into the office manager in the bathroom and she was very angry because there was supposed to be plenty of food.

    Thankfully this was in a shopping center so my husband and I, along with another co-worker and their spouse, walked over to another restaurant and ordered dinner. The party moved back to the BBQ place the next year and hasn’t wavered since.

    1. SMH*

      I used to plan the holiday party for my husband’s sales team and spouses. I called one nice steakhouse and explained we’d have about 30 people. This restaurant could seat 200 or more. They stated that for holiday parties they have a set menu. OK so what’s the menu. Everyone receives 4 large fried shrimp, baked potato, salad, mixed vegetable and non alcoholic drink for I think 18.00 a person. Dessert is extra. So I’m trying to picture taking 30 people to a steak house and telling them they can’t have steak. Um what if people don’t eat shrimp what if people want a steak or a full meal and not just 4 shrimp for dinner. She said it’s plenty of food and people should get full. We went somewhere else that year. Which is a whole other story.

  50. Happy All the Holidays*

    I work customer service, and a few years back one of my colleagues helped a customer with his problem and as he was leaving, wished him Happy Holidays. He got really angry and started shouting at her that she should say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. When he stopped to take a breath, my colleague responded “I guess you don’t have to have a Happy New Year if you don’t want to.” He stood there fuming for a few seconds, but he couldn’t seem to think of a good comeback to that and he stormed out.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      I had a coworker like that customer once. The specifics are hazy, but I remember wishing them a happy something, so I’m going to go with “Happy Holidays” for the purposes of this post, and the response was snark. So I substituted “Well, then, have Miserable Holidays” and the entire room (Programmers & Customer Service Reps) erupted into laughter.

      The whole scene played out again a week or two later, when my “Thank you kindly” was met with snark and I substituted “Damn you kindly.” Only the Almighty knows how I made it out of my 20’s employed and employable.

      1. thatjillgirl*

        Damn you kindly! Lol! I wish I could say this to someone someday, but I suspect I’d have to already be prepared to lose my job.

    2. Coast East*

      Unfortunately that sounds like my parents. So aggressively Christian that it was easier to get them to accept “happy holidays” as “christmas + new year” instead of….just acknowledging that other holidays exist, I guess

    3. Cousin Igorina*

      That happened to me a few times when I worked retail. I always wanted to ask people why they don’t consider Christmas to be a holiday.

  51. yetanotherlibrarian*

    This is not a Christmas party story, but rather an office party story. We were having a celebration for the five-year anniversary of a public facing service in a library. We wanted to have a large piñata as an event and decided we should make a custom one ourselves. We did too good a job. The first stick we had snapped after a dozen people tried getting it open with increasing violence. Next, we tried a metal part of a broom. What we didn’t realize was it was the type that screwed in two parts and after a few enthusiastic whacks, it went flying towards the heads of the onlookers, nearly braining one. At this point, one of the smaller, older librarians comes rushing in eagerly wielding a two by four about as tall as her. We quickly intercepted her and convinced her we should maybe go a safer route than more dangerous. I honestly don’t remember how it eventually cracked, but candy was enjoyed by all.

    1. Wendy*

      When I was in college, my dorm did a Halloween party and decided to do a pumpkin piñata. Making it was fairly easy – hollow out a pumpkin, fill it with candy, draw the logo for campus parking services on the front (to motivate everyone to really smack it hard), and go. Stringing it up was a bit more difficult, but we managed.

      Pumpkins, as anyone with a misspent youth may know, smash rather SPECTACULARLY when struck square-on with a stick. Luckily we did this outdoors, but we covered what was probably a ten foot by ten foot section of the front wall of the dorm in pumpkin guts. The candy was all individually wrapped but had pumpkin goo on the wrappers.

      We did it again the next year, but with the addition of a LOT of plastic on the ground first!

    2. Dangerous piñata*

      Okay, several years ago for Easter our Pastor of Children/Youth ministry decided to have a piñata for children’s message. The idea was supposed to be that God helps us do things that we can’t do on our own (she tied this into Jesus dying and being resurrected for us). As a visual metaphor she got a piñata with Easter candy in it and picked one of the smallest kids to try opening it (he was just barely a preschooler at the time or maybe even still a toddler). He of course wasn’t able to break it open.

      So then she asks his dad to come up and try to break it open. While the dad is trying to break it she’s spinning this whole story about how God can do anything. Lots of pressure on this dad to get the piñata open, but it was too tough and/or he didn’t have the right tool to open it. So finally he decides to “cheat” and pulls out a big hunting knife he has with him. He swings it at the piñata which of course is flying around wildly…. and doesn’t realize, because he’s so in the moment, that when the piñata swung back towards the front pew that he came close to nearly either disemboweling our associate pastor or cutting his face up. Yeah, that part REALLY didn’t go as planned. He managed to cut the piñata open and the kids were super excited, and only those of us sitting in the front couple of rows saw what almost happened.

      (I will note that we’ve never had another piñata as object lesson, however.)

    3. Miss Curmudgeonly*

      Yep, this is the one that has me snorting with laughter, picturing the little old librarian rushing over with a two by four.

  52. Nowwhat465*

    Not as bad as some of the others, but in addition to the company party, and the department party, we had a small team party every year. Our team was a mix of middle managers and assistants who were severely underpaid and made significantly less that the management. It was always a potluck but the menu would be decided in advance, and the managers would sign up for the cheap things such as sparkling cider or cranberry juice. The assistants would then be stuck with the more expensive items such as “local charcuterie board,” “greek yogurt parfaits,” and “gourmet hot chocolate buffet.” The assistants would then be expected to set up and clean up the party.

    We would then also do a Secret Santa. Several of the managers were known to be friends outside of the office, and if they got each other in the draw, would go well over the $10 budget because they wanted to get their friends something nicer and more personal. However, they would strictly adhere to or below budget for the assistants and the gifts were generic at best. The last year we did it I tried to warn people in advance I wouldn’t be able to do as much set up as I had recently taken a bad fall down some stairs and was still pretty bruised up. My Secret Santa that year got me an ice pack, and a bag of *her* favorite candy to replenish the candy dish I kept on my desk—she had not only eaten everything out of my personal candy dish while I was out recovering, she had gone into the stash in my drawer as well. So very glad I left that team after this.

      2. Calamity Janine*

        i feel like that’s the perfect opportunity to maliciously comply so hard that you become an office hero… if you swing by costco and bring a pallet of those yogurt cups that have the m&ms/oreo bits/etc at the top to mix in. you know, the ones most prized in lunchroom swaps? oh yes.

        alternatively a whole bunch of gogurts, carefully labeled with however you translate ‘gogurt’ in greek. arranged into a beautiful bouquet.

        1. Lucien Nova*

          That would be γιαούρτι σε κίνηση – transliterated as “giaoúrti se kínisi”.

          (Okay, so it’s “yogurt on the go”, but close enough, yes?)

  53. Phandora*

    My best office holiday party isn’t so much funny as it is “oy, nonprofits.” I used to work at a popular historic site with a reputation for being (figuratively) very cool–it’s also a partial ruin that gets really, really cold in the winter. Some staff areas had been restored, primarily the admin offices, but frontline staff spent the majority of our day on our feet, wearing three or four layers beneath our coats, with hand-warmers in our gloves and foot-warmers in our boots, in 20-degree Fahrenheit weather.

    Our holiday party included frontline staff, admin staff, and board members, and it was very obvious that it was designed to appeal to people who spent most of their day seated and warm. Instead of using the offices, they set everything up in the more interesting/ruin-like area of the site, which they sealed off and managed to heat up to about 50-55 degrees. There was food, but it was a stand-and-schmooze kind of event with high tables and a total of 8 chairs available for 75+ guests (four of those were outdoors). Several frontline staff ended up secretly unlocking a side room just so we could sit down for a while. I also learned from a coworker that the bartenders, who were our coworkers from the events team, were paid a flat hourly rate and all the money from the tip jar went to the site, not them.

    The only good thing about the party–aside from spending time with my coworkers, who were genuinely fantastic people–were the two complimentary glasses of champagne. I’m usually a “wine over $15 is a scam” type person, but I did enjoy my first taste of “impress the board” champagne.

  54. Disco Janet*

    Some years ago I worked for a tech/marketing company who threw us a Christmas party at a nice restaurant. The CFO hired a local group to come sing Christmas carols during the party. One of the carolers was my husband co-workers, so it was a little awkward for us. But then one of my coworkers got very drunk and decided she would be the lead caroler. She stumbled her way to stand in front of the group and treated them like they were her backup singers. It was not pretty.

  55. Lady Meyneth*

    I was a new intern at the company I’d work at for my first 3 post college years. I worked out of a smaller office with only 3 other coworkers, all women. I’d been interviewed by 2 other women from HR, and hadn’t met anyone else yet. Somehow in my brain that turned into it being a company of only women. An engineering company at that. Yes, I know. There are not enough face palms for this.

    Anyway, for our white elephant exchange, I brought a nice necklace I’d found on sale, and I figured it’d be fought over it was so pretty. Then I got to the party, and it was 95% men (duh, engineering!). I was petrified and just removed my tag from the gift and snuck it in the pile. When gift opening began and a sales dude picked my box, everyone looked immediately to the office prankster. The HR lady who’d interviewed me started scolding him about appropriate time and place for jokes. He was denying bringing that, nobody was believing him, I was quietly wanting to die but wasn’t brave enough to come clean, and the poor sales dude was stuck with a necklace he was sure was a low quality prank and would cause deadly allergies to whoever used it.

    Nobody ever suspected me and I never admited it. The necklace got thrown in the trash before the gift exchange was over. And I still cringe whenever I think of it.

    1. Robin Ellacott*

      You’d think one of them would have thought “yay, that’s my girlfriend’s gift sorted!” and been happy!

    2. Big Glasses*

      That’s a pretty weird reaction on their part, honestly! White elephant exchanges always involve a certain amount of gifts that just flop, it’s strange that they immediately assumed it was some kind of joke.

      1. Lady Meyneth*

        Thing is, as I found out much later, gifting someone a make-your-skin-fall-off piece of crap is absolutely something our jokester would do. He’d apparently given his boss a watch (of the likely stolen kind you buy on the streets) on the previous Xmas, that’d given him a bad rash. So people just assumed he’d upped the ante trying to get someone to give their SOs a dangerous necklace.

        1. LizB*

          That is such an ultra-specific piece of context that you had zero way of knowing! Wow. I say you did nothing wrong.

      2. JSPA*

        It actually says something excellent about how far we’ve come, as a society, that it’s no longer obvious the joke was of the “no gay!” variety (in the context of a, “rounded up, we’re all cis, het, cis-dressing, males here in engineering” presumption). But I’m pretty sure that’s the (so-called) “joke.”

    3. Dezzi*

      My first year as a supervisor, I had no idea what people did for the white elephant exchange. Every time I’d done one of those before, people brought fun things…so I showed up with a beautifully wrapped Spiderman chia pet.

      As you can probably guess, everyone else brought “nice” generic things, like mugs and Starbucks giftcards and scent diffusers and whatnot.

      I never ‘fessed up to my grandboss that I was the reason she got stuck with Spiderman.

  56. Bob*

    I don’t have anything too over the top, my last employer was pretty terrified of alcohol and fun at work-related gatherings so no drunken debauchery and people were generally timid about displaying a feeling in group settings, but there was the Chocolate Fountain Incident…
    To set the scene, the company holiday party was always held in the defunct cafeteria that, according to long tenured employees who were there in the age of myth and legend, once served actual food every day and wasn’t a sad excuse for a convenience store. It could seat probably ~200 people, but usually contained less than five. But, in an effort to promote mandatory fun, it was decked out for a holiday lunch, complete with caterers carving roast beef, serving sides, and tables full of pastries and fruit. And then there was the chocolate fountain. Now, I’m not a short person, and it towered above me. The fountain itself was taller than seemed sane, and it was set upon a pedestal of a table draped in white linens that was incongruous with its sterile, personality free fiberboard and plastic surroundings. The Facilities Manager in charge of soft services, however, was a short man. With a ladder. Trying to figure out why, instead of pumping forth a glorious stream of molten chocolate, the fountain was emitting… nothing.
    To truly appreciate this situation, you have to know a bit about this Facilities Manager. He was really a very nice guy, always animated and jovial, who would bend over backwards to help anyone. However, he also had a staggeringly and confusingly poor understanding of tact and professionalism. He would interrupt department lunches and meetings because, hey, he needed something from someone in that department and knew everyone would be there. He was the most entertaining person ever to have been (erroneously) judged fit to operate a two way radio, using it to repeatedly confirm that his day porter could hear him before launching into extended one-sided conversations about things like a hellacious pile of ants, or the fact that someone on the second floor hadn’t seen the cleaning crew working in a while so go up there and walk around with a broom or something. Comedy. Gold. He meant well, but he was a paragon of chasing shiny objects.
    So, the Facilities Manager is trying his very best to troubleshoot this chocolate fountain, that is definitely full of chocolate, but is in no way behaving like a fountain. It’s making a peculiar grinding sound at this point. I can smell chocolate several yards away, so clearly it is heating the chocolate. Finally, after almost half an hour of fussing, the thing burps forth what looks for all the world like chunky diarrhea. He immediately turns it off, hides the evidence back in the base of the fountain, says it’s not working and is now a dip bowl, and scurries away. Everyone is left looking around like “…did that really just happen?” and confirming that, yes, of course it did… and no one is even a little bit surprised to find the bowl of the fountain filled with partially seized chocolate. To the credit of both the Facilities Manager and everyone else, all involved just kind of… took it in stride. The party went on, the bowl of shattered dreams that tried to be a fountain and suffered an Icarus-like fate was largely ignored, and everyone wandered off once the novelty of a catered lunch wore off. I don’t envy the person who had to break down and clean that fountain, though…

      2. Elizabeth West*

        When I hit “The fountain itself was taller than seemed sane,” I thought he was going to!

        1. Bob*

          I mean, my entire department was watching with bated breath, waiting for pretty much exactly that…

    3. Roy G. Biv*

      I was hoping for a chocolate volcano, shooting up to the ceiling, leaving everyone nearby coated in chocolate. Very cartoonish.

      1. Bob*

        That did happen when I used to work in a cafe… gallon tub of mocha syrup hit the ground. It was like a mortar went off, but full of chocolate sauce.

    4. Xenia*

      Sounds like the wrong kind of chocolate might have been loaded in. I don’t think fountain chocolate is the same consistency as the standard chocolate bar you get at the store. Or there was water left in the pipe from the last time it was cleaned. Seized chocolate is wild.

  57. Tigger*

    A couple years back a lot of coworkers got really really drunk (the company had an open bar, free to everyone). Some of them started to make out with each other, basically going from person to person. These were people in their 50’s, all married. We weren’t allowed to speak about it afterwards, and the company no longer provided an open bar at holiday events.

  58. Stebuu*

    My super low stakes story: In 1998, I went to my first company holiday party. We were flush with dot com cash and had an exceptionally fancy party in a giant five star hotel atrium with multiple excellent food stations scattered throughout the room. The food was so good there were longish lines at each station. I had patiently waited in one of the food lines with my then-girlfriend, about to order, when the CEO of the company materialized and cut in line in front of me. My now-wife still refers to him as “that asshole” to this day, decades later.

  59. T. Boone Pickens*

    I’ve got 2.5.

    Unfortunately, I can’t share the best one because the details are so specific and this blog is quite popular so there is a reasonable chance that the person involved in the story would be able to identify themselves. As with most funny holiday stories, it involves someone who consumed too much alcohol.

    2nd one is I worked at a restaurant/brewery when I was younger and the vast majority of the staff was in their mid 20s. This of course led to all sorts of work hi-jinx. The capper was our holiday party which the company held at a VERY fancy place. It. Was. A. Disaster. The company sprung for an open bar which in retrospect was a huge mistake because..well we all drank regularly (we worked at a brewery duh). After about 2 hours the owners realized the tab was going to be massive and they made a mistake by announcing to the group that the open bar was getting cut off in 30 minutes. This essentially created a Great Depression style bank run where everyone mobbed the bar. The aftermath was predictable, guys getting into fights over dumb stuff, people hooking up in places they most certainly should not be hooking up in. People hooking up with other people they most certainly shouldn’t have been hooking up with! Of course the other unpleasantness (getting sick in public, going to the bathroom in places you’re not supposed to, etc.) I ended up leaving the following year but I heard through the grapevine the holiday party the following year was a much more muted affair.

    Last one which isn’t funny. I worked at a fancy country club during college and we did a TON of holiday parties, pretty much starting in mid-November we had a party every other night and once December kicked in, it was nightly. We had a policy change one year that per leadership we couldn’t put out tip jars anymore because leadership felt they looked tacky (the staff naturally disagreed but it is what it is). We were told to compensate it, the staff would share in the service charge that was charged for each party. IIRC, the company charged 20% of service so the staff was looking at a pretty nice holiday bonus which was great because we lost out on 95% of our tip income. We really busted our behinds and were looking forward to our paychecks at the end of January which is when the tip income was supposed to be distributed. I still remember the feeling of rage I had when I opened up my January paycheck and saw there was ZERO tip money on there. It was finding out Santa wasn’t real when I was a kid. Not only did ownership not distribute any tip money (they claimed that because it was classified as a ‘service charge’ versus ‘gratuity’ they didn’t have to share it) we found out the owners used the money to take a lavish vacation. To say this went over well with the staff, most of whom had been there for 5+ years would be an understatement. Even though this happened over 10 years ago it still annoys me to no end. Gosh that stunk.

    2. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      oh

      my

      goodness

      I’m amazed the place didn’t “accidentally” burn down within a week.

      1. T. Boone Pickens*

        We definitely lost a few employees over the decision and the folks who stayed had a really strained relationship with leadership going forward. It was such a stupid decision in retrospect, I mean we’re talking about $25k-$30k which split 8-10 ways is not a huge amount of money. I’d love to know the reasoning on why they did what they did. Our direct boss who was the food and beverage manager and to this day the best manager I ever worked for was so apologetic when word got out but she was powerless to do anything. She ended up quitting a couple months after that and the person they hired to replace her left a lot to be desired to say the least.

  60. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    The CEO of the tiny firm I worked for briefly hired a stripper for the office xmas bash. He also owned a chain of adult stores and err…okay was very big on promoting the business.

    (That’s the same firm I turned whistleblower on for running a Ponzi scheme)

    1. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

      (I was the only woman at that firm. Everyone else was white males age 20-30. None of them saw a problem with a woman getting her kit off in the office)

      1. irene adler*

        Gah!
        Back in the day, we had an out-of-town raw material supplier who would ‘treat’ our visiting staff (a rotating roster of men) to lunch – at the local stripper joint. It was a regular thing.

        When it was Eric’s turn to make the trek to this supplier, he commented on how he might find a way to beg out of the lunch ‘treat’. Not much appeal for a gay man.

    2. The Dogman*

      David Nash?

      I remember that one (if it is the correct one) cos it was an attempt to take over £200 Million from a Japanese bank…

      Good on you for reporting him! :)

    3. Notwhoyouthoughtitwas*

      A long, long time ago, in a city far, far away…

      There was a group of workers who, every Friday after work would trek the half block to the local stripper bar and stay for a couple of drinks. (My husband declined these outings.)

      The outings were, of course, completely hush hush. The men were “at a meeting” if everyone asked.

      Well, one fine afternoon one of the wives came by. Staff trotted out the party line and the wife just rolled her eyes and, in the driest, most ironic tone possible, replied “Oh, you mean he’s at “The Ballet”.” Except that she drew out the word ‘ballet’ into a sarcastic ‘baaaallllay….”,
      It. Was. Epic.

      Thirty years later, husband and I still refer to those establishments as “The Baaalllay”.

  61. Allornone*

    I don’t have a good story, but this time next year I might. It’s my first year with my organization and we just heard our Holiday party will be pajama-themed, and we’re all supposed to wear work-appropriate, holiday-themed pajamas. According to my colleague, this is a first, and kind of a weird direction for them to go.

    I don’t have work-appropriate, holiday-themed pajamas. Plus, I take mass transit to work, which means I’ll probably wear normal clothes and have to change in the office. I bought a cheap, red pajama set off Amazon that covers everything (did I mention I’ve gained some weight this year, and am horribly self-conscious about my body?) and might be feasible for future use. We’ll see what happens.

    1. Aarti*

      No way, so inappr0priate. This was floated in our office and immediately shot down. Wear your damn work clothes people.

      1. PT*

        A lot of holiday pajamas are just a baggy t-shirt and baggy pants. They’re like $10 at Old Navy.

        Actually I gave a relative some Old Navy Christmas pjs one year when I was short a gift and she ended up wearing them to school. She was working in an elementary school at the time and the kids had PJ Day a few times a year. They were modest enough for a teacher to wear to work.

    2. Pikachu*

      You can always wear them to Target on Black Friday. I cannot tell you how many people were there (adults too!) in full-on onesie holiday fleece pajamas.

      1. Anonymous Luddite*

        I’m with Pikachu: Go big. Full body kigurumi onesie, preferably with a hood and a tail. They are great for obscuring most body issue areas and at least where I live, that would be a guaranteed “do not F with me” on the transit.

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          Funny you should say that: my 2m spouse has a Pikachu onesie complete with hood and plush ears and tail. He also has a Christmas tree onesie which he was asked to wear for work and be sponsored for charity.

          (2m ~ 6’7″)

          1. Anonymous Luddite*

            Given some of the letters recently on AAM, thank you for clarifying that you meant metric.
            And yes, my 5’2″ (1.6) wife’s Welsh corgi onesie is always the hit of the party.

        2. ferrina*

          I’m getting flashbacks to the AAM where LW was wearing a dragon kigurumi and had to get on an emergency video call, forgetting they were currently a dragon…..

        3. Calamity Janine*

          i was just about to mention this seems like a good job for a kigurumi. especially because they’re cut to be very roomy, so nobody will notice any weight gain. (plus the distraction of, y’know, you’re a kittycat or Totoro or something)

          this has led me to a terrible conclusion which is: i will bet 5 dollars you can figure out who is in charge of this sudden shift. they will be wearing a kigurumi. they will be wearing a *custom* kigurumi. if you walk up to them, Allorne, and ask, “oh, is that your fursona?” and the color drains from their face (and/or they turn bright beet red in blushing, and/or they get extremely excited and tell you all about it may god have mercy on your soul)… that’s gonna be your culprit.

          no hate, i’ve got a fursona too. this is partially why i can smell this from a mile off…

      2. Someone*

        I wore a fleece Batman onesie to a Halloween thing with my kids this year and ran into the most fashionable woman I know. I probably won’t wear PJs in public for a while.

          1. Calamity Janine*

            honestly, you did probably gain her respect and admiration for it. any fashionista will tell you that an essential part of fashion is wearing whatever YOU like and want to wear. and that anything that seems stupid or silly to wear can indeed be fashion, with some accessories – and most importantly, the absolute confidence in wearing it.

            if this does not strike you as a truthful thesis, please view Basically Any Haute Couture Fashion Show

    3. Zephy*

      OldJob had a party planning committee that, during my time there, would let staff choose between two or three options for the theme of the annual Christmas party. My first Christmas there, the options boiled down to cocktail attire or PJs. PJs was the overwhelming favorite, so they went and set up a bunch of couches and rugs in the lobby around our huge (15′) Christmas tree, served breakfast-for-dinner and tons of cookies, invited spouses and children and had a Santa come in with gifts for employees’ kids. It was actually really nice. That said, your concerns are valid especially wrt public transit and having to buy clothes you wouldn’t otherwise need just for a work party. I also wore newly-bought PJs to that shindig – in my case, they were a gift, as Christmas PJs are a tradition in my family, but if Mom hadn’t come through in time for that party I would definitely have grabbed something cutesy and comfy at Walmart rather than come to work in the thing I actually wear to sleep in. (These days that’s just what the Lord gave me, so, even less appropriate than the stained tee shirt from college and holey pants that it would have been at the time.)

    4. Dark Macadamia*

      See I thought this sounded cute because I was thinking you work remotely, but definitely weird for an in-person workplace!

      1. Allornone*

        If I worked from home, then yes, I could definitely see it being cute. And who knows? This may work out really well. Apparently, we will all feast on holiday desserts and exchange secret Santa gifts (optional participation). But I’m just starting to get to know a lot of my coworkers (we’re all spread out across a four-story building), so yeah, this is not my ideal. But I’m staying positive. My new red jammies arrive today and hopefully I’ll look ok.

    5. anonymous73*

      I hope they specified what work appropriate pajamas means, because a few jobs ago when I worked in a big office the section on what was and was not allowed to ear was a mile long because of people taking their attire a few steps too far.

      And I would just wear my regular work clothes. I don’t wear pajamas, and my around the house stuff is stained and holey.

      1. Allornone*

        the only specification we’ve received is “appropriately fully covered.” My coworkers all seem like reasonable people. I guess we’ll find out who isn’t.

  62. Know Your Place*

    This is going to be really tame compared to a lot of the comments, but it makes me cringe every year. Our “holiday” party is technically our annual longevity celebration (it always occurs on the same day the annual longevity bonuses are paid out). There are always holiday decorations and a Christmas undertone to the whole thing. Anyway, this is supposed to be about celebrating the employees, right? Yet, every year, members of the leadership team (mostly department heads and up) receive a special invitation to join the board members in a separate room at the venue for some “preparatory holiday cheer!” before joining “the rest of the staff and their guests” for dinner and entertainment. And god forbid someone who wasn’t invited ends up in that room. This happened to a coworker several years ago. She asked a hotel employee where to go when she arrived and was directed to the “special” room (unbeknownst to her). Eventually one of the invited managers had to come over to her and tell her that he was told he had to ask her to leave. She was so embarrassed. They probably thought she intentionally went where she knew she didn’t belong, like she was crashing their party. The whole idea that at a celebration of the staff, the board members are too good to mingle with them before dinner reeks of elitism to me. It’s like they want all the staff to arrive and then be there to witness “the chosen ones” parading into the dining room like they are above everyone else. Either that or the board members don’t want to have to be around the commoners any longer than necessary. Or maybe they need to be halfway drunk before they can bear to tolerate the rest of us.

  63. Duckling*

    At my very first company holiday party, my company rented out a local restaurant for everyone and their significant others. I went, had a great time, and left around 10pm when it seemed like other people were leaving. Little did I know that this company always has an after party at a nearby dive bar and, after the bars close, anyone still standing goes to a 24 hour diner. Well I missed those festivities, but came in to work the next day to almost everyone sharing stories about how one coworker fell down and hit his head at least three separate times at the dive bar. Knowing how copious drinking and concussions can be very bad, I asked if anyone had spoken to coworker that day. Our own bosses laughed off my concern and said it was fine, this just happens at the holiday parties. I continued to worry all morning until coworker stumbled into work at 11:45, took a long lunch, and then went home at 2. I probably should have taken that as a sign that I was not a good cultural fit, but it was my first post grad job and I convinced myself I needed to stay for the resume experience. The next year, I forced myself to stay awake through the after party in case anyone else needed medical attention. Previously concussed coworker seemed to have learned his lesson about heavy drinking at company parties, but two other coworkers got into a loud argument and one of them threw his phone at the other. I corralled them into separate cabs with the help of a third coworker’s very nice, very sober wife. I’ve since left that company, but I learned that I never ever again want to be in a dive bar with my coworkers at 2am on a Thursday.

  64. Voodoo Priestess*

    This isn’t much compared to the others, but one year I received an invite to my husband’s holiday party, along with all of the other spouses. My husband is a department chair in academia and there’s nothing wild since they’re always strapped for cash. Besides the department faculty and staff (and spouses), all of the major donors and their spouses were invited. Well, far more donors RSVP’d yes than the planners had anticipated so about a week before the party, I was un-invited by my sheepish husband, along with all other faculty spouses and even some of the staff (!). Can you imagine being un-invited from your own department party?! Anyway, I was happy to NOT attend since there is an old codger that would always get a little handsy after a drink or two and could never take his eyes off my chest. My poor husband, on the other hand, had to put on a suit and tie and schmooze at the 1-drink-per-person event. Old codger asked him repeatedly why I wasn’t there.

  65. Buttercup*

    This comes to me secondhand, but I love it, so here goes:

    Right around holiday time, my department got charged with breaking into employees’ lockers if they weren’t using approved locks. I really enjoyed getting to use the bolt cutters, but a coworker was completely unable to operate them. He just didn’t have the physical strength. Word got around to our VP, who thought this was the funniest thing. Cut to the holiday party a week or so later, and the part that comes to me secondhand. Said VP got a bit tipsy, and started piling my coworker’s plate high with cookies and desserts to “help him build up the strength” to use the bolt cutters! As far as I know, he was never able to use them, even after the “boost” at the holiday party!

  66. chiagate*

    Ten years ago I worked at an organization that was undergoing a merger. The office manager who had previously handled the white elephant exchange and holiday office festivities had been laid off in merger-related cuts earlier in the year, so when the holidays rolled around, the six admin assistants from our department of 20 or so team members, volunteered to take over the planning. We organized the exchange, brought in cookies and treats, and also decided to somewhat prank our team by each contributing a different Chia Pet, along with a gift card, to the exchange. To be clear, the main “gift” was the $20 gift card (Starbucks, Visa, local lunch spots, etc.) and the Chia Pet was just a funny addition. The holiday party day rolls around with the gift exchange during the workday and a bigger party with another department after work at a bar. As the exchange progresses, the six of us can barely contain our church giggles as Chia Pet after Chia Pet was unwrapped and most of our colleagues laughed along with us. Even in previous years, these exchanges got fairly heated with people stealing gifts from each other and what not but the presence of the Chia pets really got under the skin of some folks – especially an Assistant Vice President who had the gift she wanted stolen in one of the final rounds and ended up with a Chia Pet (PLUS gift card). Fast forward to the boozier part of the evening and this AVP felt it necessary to storm up to me and one of the other assistants after too many drinks and loudly berate us and accuse us of ruining the exchange for her and everyone else because of the Chia Pets. To be clear, this woman easily made close to all of our salaries combined and I’m fairly certain this Chia Pet/gift card combo would not be the only gift she was receiving that year. The Vice President of our team (and the AVP’s direct boss) actually apologized to us on her behalf and thanked us for organizing the exchange. The AVP called out the next day with “pink eye” – which I think is code for a wicked hangover and even worse case of embarrassment.

    1. Murphy*

      My father buys my sister a chia pet for Christmas every year as a joke (in addition to a real present) and has done so as long as I remember. She’s 52.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        I’m told you can sprout plain old chianti seeds sold in bulk bags….silly side gift idea?

  67. A lawyer*

    This is really only a tiny piece of this whole evening, but a coworker got so drunk at a holiday party that security was trying to escort him out of the premises and he was yelling at the top of his lungs at the security guards, “You’re from Uzbekistan! I just know you’re from Uzbekistan!” None of us could figure out why he said that or why Uzbekistan was relevant. That coworker was fired the next day, over the weekend, so we never got a chance to ask him.

  68. Jack Straw from Wichita*

    My significant other’s holiday party is NIIICE. Lots of good food, like excessive amounts and lavish displays of every appetizer, main dish, etc. you can think of. The same with the alcohol and open bar, there literally isn’t a bottom shelf option. No Bud Light. No cheap vodka. No Two Buck Chuck wine to be had. The dress code is relaxed and ranges from tailored suits to guys in Carhart hoodies. It’s a work party that we actually look forward to because it’s so laid back and we really do have a good time. The last one was in 2019, and it may be the last one period. Or at least the last one where drinking isn’t monitored.

    At the last party, an employee’s guest decided to give his girlfriend a lap dance. In full view of, well, everyone. People around the couple were half-heartedly trying to get him to stop, but they increased to frantic levels of “OMG STOP!” once he took his shirt off and could tell he was fully committed. Eventually someone got him to stop by tackling him to the ground with his pants around his ankles and his belt still in his hand, waving it around like a lasso.

    1. Jack Straw from Wichita*

      Oh, and I left out the info about the venue. The company rented out the entire art museum (we are in a mid to larger sized city, it’s not cheap). The juxtaposition of a strip tease being done in the Gothic cloister was priceless. I would bet money that that was the first time someone did a lap dance there.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      Maybe they’ll have forgotten all about this incident by the time they next have to plan an in-person holiday party… though it does sound pretty unforgettable!

  69. CW*

    Mine is not really funny or eventful, but in December 2016 when I worked at a small firm, we went out to a restaurant after white elephant. I was new, only been there since November, so I was only a little over a month in. An hour into arriving at a restaurant, the coworker I sat next to asked out loud, “So, how do you like working at (company name)? Do you like it or hate it?”

    Nothing really embarrassing, but asking if I had hated it in front of one of the owners within earshot made it awkward. I didn’t find it awkward because I didn’t realize it at first, but she immediately did and got embarrassed. I got confused as to why she started laughing and stopped herself. She whispered to me that she shouldn’t have asked that question out loud in front of the owner. I quickly realized, so the question never got answered.

    I should point out that I actually hated it for reasons I won’t say here, and I was out of there by April 2017. But that’s a story for another day.

  70. Emma*

    Oh man, this is a story I’ve only just become able to share without being absolutely mortified. And it happened over 5 years ago! Right after I graduated college, I got a year-long visa to work in Ireland and did temp jobs while I was there. The job I had around Christmas was my favorite – great people, a longer contract, interesting work, and good pay. They invited me to their office Christmas party at a fancy hotel in town and I decided to bring my best friend who was visiting at the time as my plus one (I want to say I okay-ed this with someone beforehand, but I honestly don’t remember). After dinner there was a DJ and a dance floor. My friend and I were already rip-roaringly drunk and made it our mission to teach everyone the Cotton-Eyed Joe. We were the only people on the dance floor the entire night, except for the CEO who was maybe too amused by our antics and joined us for a waltz as the rest of the company looked on from the sides. The worst part is it took me a solid year to change how I viewed our behavior that night from “charmingly boisterous party-starters” to “embarrassing trainwrecks.”

      2. Hlao-roo*

        I put a link in a comment that’s in moderation right now, so for those who have not heard of Tiger Mike before, search “angry boss writing angry memos.” Originally posted on October 4, 2010.

      3. Don't be like Mike*

        You have to google Tiger Mike Memos. He is truly the reason why HR exists in the 20th century.

        MEMORANDUM

        DATE: December 22, 1977
        TO: All Employees of Tiger Oil Company and Tiger Drilling Company – Houston Office
        FROM: Edward Mike Davis

        What the employees of Tiger Oil International, Inc. do is none, of your business! You work for Tiger Oil Company or Tiger Drilling Company when it comes to employment procedures or anything else. Tiger Oil International is a separate company and wholly run as a separate company.

        If you are not happy working here, I suggest you get a job somewhere else, but you cannot work for Tiger Oil International without my approval.

        Any conversation of unhappiness or unrest among my employees pertaining to this will mean immediate termination.

        (Signed)
        EDWARD MIKE DAVID

        P.S. On days you have to work, and you think you should be off, you wear slouchy dress attire. That will not occur in the future. You will wear proper dress attire to work always. Also, all employees should have the proper attitude to coincide with proper dress, especially on those days when you’re working and think you should be off.

    2. starsaphire*

      It’s always a good day on AAM when someone invokes Tiger Mike.

      (Don’t ask me how much work I got done today… the answer may or may not be none.)

  72. Secrete Santa*

    I was working for a vacation real estate company and we had a pretty big problem with the admin who did the newsletter/marketing/emails. She would NOT let anyone proofread her work or even allow anyone to correct anything and she had ZERO understanding of synonyms and misused words all the time and misused things like LOL and LMFAO, and also created her own bizarre shorthand to such an awful extent that it caused confusion, hilarity, and in some cases, offense and loss of business. Long story about the layout of the company, but we also had some rental units on-site for prospective buyers and a small spa, cafe, and bar. You know, vacation town stuff. She also did the menus and all the holiday announcements. This one was, and will always be, my favorite. It went out to over 15k former and current buyers and clients, inviting them to the company holiday party:

    Cum celebrate our Holiday Szn with Secrete Santa! Fist four clients up and get a free giraffe of wine at their table!

    What she was TRYING to say was that during our Secret Santa dinner and raffle, the first four clients who entered would get either a complimentary wine to take home or a carafe of wine at their table. Some other gems on the menu included “gooze breasts” “Bef stek” “Coozeberry Jam” and my absolute favorite “fresh tilabia”.

    Some people thought she did this on purpose, I know for a fact she was just an absolute idiot.

    2. Robin Ellacott*

      WOW I would have thought she was making some of those choices in person too. “Fist four clients”… oh dear.

    3. Gracely*

      Now I really want to find a wine carafe that looks like a giraffe.

      And also, wow, that number of mistakes in a single short announcement is kind of glorious.

        1. Nanani*

          Tilapia is a type of fish often served in restaurants. Swap that p for a b and it could sound like genitalia, depending on accent.

    5. pancakes*

      It does seem unlikely that even a colossal idiot would stick to a theme that closely by accident! Wow.

    10. Calamity Janine*

      the fact that you didn’t get t-shirts printed with some of these phrases and then pass them around at the next secret santa event… shows you have remarkable restraint.

    11. Nanani*

      Was she in fact a business cat? Because those typing skills would be impressive for a cat but are abysmal for a human whose job involves writing.

      1. Secrete Santa*

        I wish, if she were a cat it would be even funnier but no. She was related to someone higher up, I think their aunt, and it wasn’t until right after this menu went out that whoever she was related to put the marketing and stuff like this in someone else’s hands. Or fists.

        I used to think she did it on purpose but when we tried to tell her, hey this sounds odd, this sounds sexual, she got all mad and accused us of making it up to make her uncomfortable.

    13. J*

      Thank you so much, I laughed so hard I nearly threw up! Please tell me you have more examples of this person’s stunning wordsmithing!

    14. Seeking Second Childhood*

      That was such spectacularly bad writing that no oe commented on the other horror: She invited 15,000 people to the company holiday party!
      I was so aghast I checked some numbers from Wikipedia. That is 4 times the seating capacity of New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House, and about the seating capacity of Wimbledon Centre Court!

      1. Secrete Santa*

        Yeah, that was the kind of thing she did a lot. We usually had backup and crisis control ready for when did stuff like invite 15k people to a venue meant for less than 100 so fixing the problems was the least of our worries. Most of the worries came from people either being offended at her misspellings and gaffes and canceling their rentals or calling us to tell us there was a typo or misspelling. People love to call and email and point out spelling and grammar errors. I mean, in this case, they weren’t errors so much as they were WTF am I seeing kind of thing but yeah.

      2. VegetarianRaccoon*

        oh, I interpreted that part as meaning that the party was for clients who had spent 15k or more on whatever the business was selling- so this was sent out to only to biggest of cheeses! 15k people?! spectacular.

    15. They Don’t Make Sunday*

      gonna hafta come back later to finish laughing at this thread because every line is gold and I’m afraid I’ll wake the baby.

      !!!!!

      1. Pippin*

        Tears are literally running down my face. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. Thank you.

    17. marvin the paranoid android*

      I’m not sure if my favourite here is “bef stek” or “Secrete Santa.” I don’t know what Santa is secreting but I guess Coozeberry Jam might be the best we can hope for.

  73. Borkii*

    Well, there was the one time at Very Old Job that the HR manager got very drunk at the holiday party, and she ended up grinding on the dance floor with an entry level male employee. As the gyrations intensified, she yelled out “Now THAT’s what I call HUMAN RESOURCES!!!”.

    About ten years later at Less Old Job, I landed a spot on the events committee. To make a very long story as short as possible…when we were at the holiday party venue setting up for the festivities, the committee chair used an anti-gay slur (not towards someone in particular, but still super not okay). I’d always know he was kind of homophobic, misogynistic, and racist…but he had never said something so blatant before. I told him that wasn’t cool. He told me I was being too sensitive (“It’s just a joke!).

    I reported him to HR the following Monday. He got shitcanned…and I later found out through a very reliable branch of the grapevine that he had been reported for at least two other incidents that happened at the party, including GRABBING THE HR MANAGER’S ASS.

    1. Distracted Librarian*

      “Now THAT’s what I call HUMAN RESOURCES” really needs to become a new Ask a Manager slogan.

  74. Cookies for Breakfast*

    This borders on identifying, though there were several large groups at the same venue, and I won’t say how many years ago it happened (I’ve honestly lost count).

    A former director delegated the planning of the department holiday celebration to two very eager volunteers, as the previous year’s dinner he’d organised had been a total disaster, and people still had the memory very fresh in their minds. The volunteers were two people who self-described as SUPER FUN LOVING AND CRAZY, and promised THE BEST PARTY EVER. They would not reveal anything beforehand. That was somewhat of a tradition at my workplace, and the surprises always ended up being over the top (HR must have got a lot of feedback, as they always share plenty of details in advance now – but boy would I have a story about the theme of a party I refused to go to).

    “What could be worse than last year,” we all thought? Indeed, what could be worse than seeing staff scramble to set up a table in the corridor, being served poorly cooked food, being told we had to eat a three-course meal in less than an hour because of another booking, and being asked to have the remainder of the party outside the toilet door?

    Here’s what: a medieval banquet themed venue. I’ve erased most of the details, but I’ll give you a few that stuck in my mind.

    1) The menu circulated in advance. A colleague who managed to find out the secret venue warned people not to order the soup. When he said why, some of us thought he was joking, and still ordered the soup (I did too, there were no other starters I liked). The fact that it tasted awful is secondary here. My colleague hadn’t been joking when he said the venue didn’t give out cutlery “to keep with the medieval theme”. Our massive wooden bowls of soup came, and we were supposed to just drink out of them. Spoons appeared at our insistence.

    2) Our meal was regularly interrupted by medieval-themed singing, dancing and juggling performances by costumed staff members, the likes of which I’d only seen before at kids’ summer camp. Guests were welcome to join the singing and dancing. The people who had booked the venue did so enthusiastically. The rest of us were all frozen in our seats. Picture 20+ people cringing to their deaths, willing the show to finish so we could do the gift exchange and get the hell out.

    3) Apparently, because it was a medieval venue, instead of politely calling over a staff member, guests were encouraged to shout for their “wench”. Not that any of us were willing to try.

    Those of us who were there still remember it. It became a running joke. When a different colleague planned a very ordinary lunch at a non-dysfunctional restaurant the following year, word is the two organisers took it personally that their skills were no longer required.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      So I’m wondering if people were encouraged to refer to the male servers as wenches too, or whether the restaurant just invented some faux medieval slang for the male servers….
      Anyway, that sounds like a hilariously, excruciatingly bad holiday party. Sorry that you had to suffer through it, but it makes for a great story!

      1. Cookies for Breakfast*

        Just writing it down, I realised I could fill a whole thread with holiday party stories from two separate workplaces. Pandora’s box is open – some that I thought I’d forgotten quite quickly are coming back to me now!

        I tried to remember whether there was another gendered word for servers but couldn’t. It’s probably for the best. The one other thing I remember is a colleague describing the whole event as “atrocious”. It’s the first and only time I’ve heard that word spoken in a work setting.

      2. Susie*

        Google says the male equivalent of wench is swain.
        Just for the record: in some Shakespearian texts, the masculine version of a wench is a swain. It seems that in Shakespeare’s time the word swain meant a young male peasant or shepherd and wench a young female peasant.

    3. Siege*

      We did a holiday party once at Teatro Zinzanni here in Seattle. Fantastic performances, and a great show, but I feel like it’s surprisingly risque to have a holiday party where one of the jokes is that the performer’s clothes fell off. (She was appropriately dressed for aerobatics underneath the dress, but still. That bit, the idea was that she’d wound up on the aerobatics by accident and in trying to get rescued by the clown still on the ground, her dress fell off over her head.)

      Very talented performers, a fun show, but I was days away from getting fired and had tried to back out of attending on the grounds that my direct team was composed of passive-aggressive jerks that I didn’t want to spend the time with, but the tickets were non-refundable, and the parent org had gotten the subsidiary orgs to finance the cost by making them pay full price for the tickets so that the parent org’s tickets were free. To be clear, no employees paid for the tickets, it just was really emblematic of how the organizations did business there. Also, the issues that caused the organization to suck weren’t rectified when I was fired, and the organization was out of business entirely within 18 months. Can’t imagine why that could happen, when the person I worked most closely with refused to speak to me for over a year because I was “too stressful” to talk to and the second in command did literally nothing except plan an annual two-week business trip to some interesting part of the world so she could get head pats and schmoozing from business leaders here and in the destination countries.

    4. Gumby*

      I don’t think this is as identifying as you think it might be. There is at least one chain (“Jousting, horsemanship & falconry plus a 4-course, utensil-free meal served in a castle-like space”), probably the one you went to, that has 10 locations spread throughout the US plus one in Toronto and I am sure each location ran pre-covid/still runs dozens of work holiday parties each year.

  75. GOOD TIMES*

    At my company’s last big Christmas party, a few shenanigans happened. (They then switched to a low-key potluck during work hours)

    First, some people were saving tables for their department but one person instead joined a table where her friend was sitting, throwing this one lady at the table into a rage, because it was saved only for accounting people, apparently. She wouldn’t stop snarking and carrying on and got others at the table making passive aggressive comments until the “interloper“ got so upset they went to the ladies room crying.

    Then, one of the people in Sales found out that her husband was having an affair with her co-worker in sales. There was yelling, and shoving started between the women at one point.

    My boss was so drunk, as everyone else was rallying around trying to stop the above commotion, she was alone on the dance floor doing an “Elaine style” dance to Feeling Hot Hot Hot.

    Finally, the bigger boss was giving some sort of speech to congratulate the employee of the year, who was nowhere to be found. Turned out a few of them had rented a room (this was taking place in a hotel) and went up there to drink and just never came back. Boss said “F*** it” right into the microphone.

    Merry Christmas!

  76. Bernice Clifton*

    My first office job was in a government department where the organization could not pay for any employee food or beverages, even office coffee or a water cooler.

    Every year for the holiday party, they would hold a heavy appetizer lunch with a cash bar at a restaurant. The invitees were all current staff and former staff of the department, no guests. The professional staff covered the food/rental room cost for the clerical staff as a Thank You type of thing. (The party was organized each year by a different person on the professional staff, so they were behind the who would pay for whom decision.)

    Before my time, the email had gone out to to the professional staff letting them how much it would be per person. One of the professional staff read the email and said something to the effect of, “I don’t see why we have to pay for the clerical” and was overheard by a member of the clerical staff who sat outside her door.

    The clerical staff member spread the word amongst her colleagues, and NO clerical staff showed up, even ones who worked in different sections than the professional staff person who had made the remark. Obviously, their absence was noticed and asked about, so it led to everyone finding out what had been said.

  77. Mimi Me*

    This is my Aunt’s story. Her workplace was for blind people and most of my Aunts coworkers had worked there for years and had previously been classmates of hers at the local, world reknown school for the blind. One year they did a Yankee Swap and this guy she’d known for years brought in a half empty box of tampons. My aunt said there was a bit of confusion, a good deal of teasing, and the assumption that he had grabbed the wrong thing for his gift swap. Nope. It was always supposed to be a half empty box of tampons. Apparently this guy had recently gotten married and his wife was super cheap so she wrapped these up as his gift because she’d recently seen a doctor who told her she could no longer use tampons and therefore she insisted he either give them as his gift or sell the tampons individually to his coworkers for a quarter a piece.
    The stories my aunt would tell about this couple. The poor man, who my aunt had literally known for over 40 years and had always been sweet and kind, became a miserable and sad person after his marriage and the wife just ran wild over him.

  78. MilenniOwl*

    My first year at the company Christmas party(real estate office, oldjob), I was in line to get food when the CEO came swaying up to me (clearly a bit drunk) and she noticed I was unaccompanied. The following exchange transpired:
    CEO: where’s your daaate? Are you siiingle?
    Me(slightly embarrassed): Oh you know, just didn’t have a plus one.
    CEO: We’ll set you uuuup! Do you like boys or girls?
    The line moved in such a way that her husband got between us, thankfully.

  79. Me*

    You know those company’s you can order bulk pens and things can get them personalized…like bank branded pens?

    Well I work with someone who is known for being their own biggest fan (not in a good way). Years ago he bought a bunch of these bulk pens printed with merry xmas on one side and his name on the other. And he gives them out to people at work as xmas gifts. Literally anyone he crosses paths with in the month of December. It’s been years and its’ the gift that keeps on giving. He must of ordered thousands.

    And if you work for him, you get two.

  80. QKL*

    I worked at this one place that loosely related to my husband’s specialty, think teapot repair and my husband was a designer of the protective coating of teapots, my husband has a stellar reputation in our area. This workplace was tiny discount retail and my husband is infrastructure of large companies. I knew this company was dysfunctional before going in, I had been warned about the owner by some members of the local business association, but because of it’s size, there was an opportunity to expand my skill set and my future pay if I stuck it out for a year, but my boss at this company was weirdly into my husband in a professional way. Now my husband and I have a rule about not working in the same place unless it’s our own company or a large and established company, this is to ensure we’re not both out of work at the same time, and as someone with access to this company’s accounts, it was less than stable. From the day my boss found out what my husband does for a living, he started the feeler questions about if my husband would come to work at the company, this made me uncomfortable because I wouldn’t want my spouse discussing my career prospects to that degree without me present. I tried to be diplomatic and even asked my husband his feelings on it even though I already knew what he’d say, but the inquiries were so frequent that I actually said the words, “We can’t afford him,” more than once. We had a mandatory Christmas party off-site, and spouses were invited. When we got there, the boss saved a seat for my husband next to him, which was odd considering this was supposed to be for the employees. I couldn’t hear most of their conversation because it was so loud. On our way home, my husband told me my boss offered him a job! I felt so bad for my husband, having to navigate office politics on my behalf for 3 hours was very uncomfortable for him. The work he was offering was what my husband did at the beginning of his career, it would be a huge step back, which had already been explained to him multiple times. To this day, I wonder if he only hired me in an attempt to poach my husband. I left after a little less than a year for a much better opportunity with double the pay thanks to the dysfunctional structure that allowed for a teapot service rep to manage the books and handle the hiring and firing.

  81. A Feast of Fools*

    Big box home improvement store: The store manager wanted to throw a holiday party for all the employees. 1/3 of which worked 9:30PM – 6:30 AM, restocking. The other 2/3’rds covered the store’s open hours: 6:30 AM to 10:00 PM.

    So, of course, the natural thing to do is throw the party at a time when the store is closed and everyone can participate because they aren’t helping customers: 4:30 AM.

    Which meant that some people needed to show up at 3:30 AM to get all the tables set up in the only place big enough to accommodate everyone: the lumber aisle.

    And, because the store wasn’t open for business, not all of the lights were on (too expensive!), so the food was served and eaten in a kind of twilight darkness.

    Attendance was mandatory.

    (I was a “closer” at the time. So I clocked out at 10:30 PM, got home and into bed by 11:30 PM, then had to get up four hours later at 3:30 AM so I could eat cold food in the dark for a couple of hours before going back home and trying to fall asleep again. I do NOT miss retail).

    1. Anonymous Luddite*

      I worked holiday retail for a decade.
      I saw it coming.
      I was still shocked that they made you do it.

      1. A Feast of Fools*

        Put it on the schedule, even. At least we got paid. Though the line to the sole time clock in the [cramped] breakroom took 15-20 minutes to get through.

    2. CW*

      I worked retail for extra money while I was in college and everything you described? Totally accurate. I, too, do not miss retail.

  82. Zaphod Beeblebrox*

    Posted this earlier last month:

    One year, our office had a number of things going on. There was a “design a Christmas card” competition, a “Best Christmas cake” competition and a charity event which comprises buying a Christmas decoration, nominated a charity, and hanging the Christmas decoration on the Christmas tree, with one charity being drawn to receive the proceeds. You may notice a certain recurring word here.

    There were some other events – quizzes etc, which were put under the banner of “Winter Festival”.

    Cue outrage that “we weren’t allowed to do Christmas”, with people sulking and refusing to take part in any events, even the ones named Christmas, and loudly criticising anyone who did take part.

  83. Jessica Ganschen*

    I don’t have any holiday party disasters, thankfully, but I do have one that I still think is pretty funny. When I was in the Air Force, I got voluntold one year to help with the Squadron Holiday Party. I ended up putting together part of the entertainment, about half a dozen holiday-themed Minute to Win It games. For one of them, we had eight sealed boxes filled with an increasing number of jingle bells in increments of five. The point of the game was to put them in the correct order of the least jingle bells to the most to win a small prize. I ran the games along with the party’s MC, who was the spouse of someone else in the Squadron.

    One of the first players that we got for that one was a kid who couldn’t have been older than four or five. She picked up and set down most of the boxes without changing anything, very unhurried. I gently reminded her of the goal of the game, but she didn’t pay me much attention. Eventually she switched around a couple boxes, and then I had to check them. They absolutely weren’t in the correct order, of course. I looked over at the MC and gave her the tiniest possible shake of my head. She gave me a tiny nod and looked pointedly at the tree on stage that all of the prizes were attached to. I turned to the little girl and proclaimed that she’d won a prize.

    (The girl’s brother, a couple years older than her, went next, and got all but the last two correct, so I went ahead and gave him a prize also.)

    1. Her Blondeness*

      All these disaster stories, but I like the sweetness of yours. Truly a story of holiday cheer and kindness.

  84. Contingency planner*

    When I was a wee polite grad student. I was invited to a holiday party purportedly for a group related to my student job. It seemed good for networking for more interdisciplinary job options, but the senior staff member had a track record of invitations to “group” events that the rest of the group “cancelled” last minute so I did some due diligence to check that other people had heard of this event and were attending. Even with that follow up, I brought a friend from my program because it would be valuable networking for her too.

    And good thing I did. While there was an event, and I heard it was enjoyable to those that attended later, I apparently failed to confirm time with the other known attendees. So I showed up with friend in tow to find only the senior staffer and his two best friends with their wives present at the apparently 2 hour early time I was given. The two of us made polite chit chat for about 15 minutes, bemoaned the time communication error in a *very* southern polite manner and how we were only able to stop in briefly- and then left for a pre-planned escape option.

  85. Anonymous Luddite*

    My mom told me about her “most memorable” holiday story and it always gives me pause.
    My father proposed to my mom a few days before Christmas and they set a date for January. She announced her engagement at the holiday party. At the end of the party, her boss let her know to clean out her desk before heading home because their company didn’t employ married women because obviously they should be home with the children.
    For context: this was in Utah in 1967. We’ve come a long way in a short time, folks.

      1. Anonymous Luddite*

        She laughs it off – in part because it was 55 years ago.
        And in part because this is the same job which she was specifically asked, “What are you willing to do for this job?” and her reply was to ignore the innuendo/subtext and speak to her professional strengths and dedication.

        1. Rainy*

          Ah yes, the time-honoured family values practice of requiring your female employees to provide sexual favours.

          1. Anonymous Luddite*

            That’s the icing: Mom was literally a first year Boomer – born in fall of 45 and raised in the 50’s. To this day, she insists that he wasn’t asking anything sexual.

  86. Annoying Jedi Intern*

    Last year we did a Zoom holiday party (thank goodness they didn’t make us do an in-person event) and our executive director decided to entertain us by playing the harmonica which he had been practicing during the lockdown. It was so cringe.

  87. Salad Daisy*

    I worked for a company for a number of years that always gave a week’s pay as a Christmas bonus at the Christmas party. Fast forward to the last year I was there, when they hired a new VP. At the Christmas party, cards were handed out and everyone eagerly opened theirs to find…$25 gift cards to Walmart. Stunned faces. I was sitting at the table with the VP and said “Oh good, now I can buy cat litter”. Party broke up soon after. No cheer in Mudville. Should have known something was up, as company closed down in July.

    2. Enough*

      And that is why my husband and I have always classified any money not the base salary as found money. we worked at a firm that gave out annual bonuses in December (they were not and never were Christmas bonuses). The year the bonuses were smaller you would have thought someone had come in and robbed everyone. I was just glad we were not there the year there was no bonus. too many people counted on it to pay their Christmas bills.

      1. WellRed*

        Oh that happened to us. The last year under our former owner, we didn’t get our token $100 bill. We got jars of marinara. The office admin felt so bad she also passed out boxes of pasta to go with.

  88. Hollywood Handshake*

    At a private school where I once worked as a teacher, about a week before the Christmas party, each faculty member would receive an envelope in their mailbox with their name printed on it, and instructions to place our cash contribution to the Christmas gift for the school’s president and principal into the envelope, and return it to the principal’s admin assitant so she could track who contributed and give us “credit” by signing our name to the card. The Christmas party consisted of a cheese plate, a cash bar, and a big ceremony where the septaginarian vice principal would take a microphone, tell a very inappropriate joke, and then present the president and principal with their presents, usually a significant sum of cash. We faculty one year got a mouse pad as our party favor.

    Luckily, a new administrative team took over a few years later, and when they found out about this practice nearly spit their teeth out in disbelief and changed course immediately. We then each got a $100 gift card, and were explicitly instructed not to give any gifts to the administration.

    1. Enough*

      My kids went to Catholic school that did collect money for Christmas gift to the principal from the families. But she was a nun and for most of her time there was no assistant principal. Always voluntary and the card was from the school (no specific names).

      1. Hollywood Handshake*

        That makes total sense! Much love for the nuns who basically worked for a pittance. In this case these were two laymen making much, much more than their faculty.

  89. Fern*

    Our recent holiday dinner was, as always, lots of fun. Good dinner, lots of drinks, people I enjoy. We have a pretty casual environment that is heavily male dominated (I’m the only woman) and our joking tends to the raunchy side which has never been an issue – I give better than I get. But the dinner had spouses present, which usually means the guys tone it down. One of the newer guys had mentioned he’d like me to meet his wife because he thought we would get along. But when I came over to meet her he had already been drinking and introduced me by saying “Fern and I used to hook up” which…is definitely not true in any way. She and I were both pretty mortified for each other. He was right though – I liked her a lot!

  90. Fake Old Converse Shoes (not in the US)*

    Back at OldJob, the owner had decided that our first end of year party was going to be dinner at a restaurant that was well known to be a tourist trap. Not only they didn’t let us in until the entire group was present, but when we finally could enter the waitresses tied our bags and purses to the chair, claiming it was to protect our belongings from pickpocketers! I had to stay until 3 am, when the owner was too drunk to stay awake. The next year I packed a pair of scissors just in case.

  91. Acme HR*

    A few years ago in December a group at my job was hosting a salsa class for employees at a restaurant twenty minutes away from the office, pretty much right after work. We were allowed to invite partners so I met up with my husband after work and we went to the location on my calendar invite.
    We arrive, and there’s someone at the door so we say we’re from Acme Co, and they let us in, checked our coats.
    Inside there are a bunch of people I don’t recognize, and I figure we’re just a little early and that it’s an open class. So we sit down and I put on my dancing shoes. Ten minutes pass and meanwhile we’re offered finger food, which we turn down. We then go to the bar to get drinks and the bartender waves us off when we try to pay. We look at one another and look around more carefully, realizing that we’re at the tail end of the Teapots & Kettles Co holiday party!
    But surely my colleagues are on the way. We take seats in a corner and try to figure out what’s going on. I gave the company name Acme Co at the door, but they let us in anyway–and I figure from the slideshow on the screens that the parent company has several sub-companies and the door guy didn’t memorize them. Plus we were dressed for dancing and looked the part. As I’m taking off my heels and getting flats on we’re offered more food by the lovely servers–so we ate a couple of bites while I got my phone to find out how we ended up at this party (where no one gave us a second glance and there was tons of food not being eaten).
    There were no emails or event updates, we were at the address on the invite, now fifteen minutes after the class was supposed to start. I had to install Slack on my phone to find the group Slack channel. That’s when I see that just as I’d gotten on the subway, my colleagues had met up and taken a cab to a different location of the same club chain, half an hour away!
    If we tried to meet them it would be too late to dance by the time we got there, so my husband and I had another drink, tipped well, agreed politely when a tipsy “colleague” raved to us about the food, then said goodnight and went home. Neither of us would ever have tried to crash a random holiday party but we had to admit theirs was pretty darn good.

  92. Hawk*

    This is the story of the strangest Christmas (yes, it was totally Christmas themed) work party ever. My husband has been begging me to share the party for years on here.

    My husband had just started a new job the previous March. The office wasn’t finished yet, so he was working from home. This was about a month after we got engaged, for additional context. His new boss invited the whole start-up and their families to his house for a Christmas party.

    We should have started getting worried at the first sign of trouble, when the second youngest party member’s diaper started leaking and his mom didn’t notice. Then my husband’s boss insisted we try his venison chili. The man was a hunter, and shot the buck on his own property. The chili was too spicy for my husband, who adores spice. Then the boss took us into his kids’ hangout space, which he then told is in great detail that he built by hand. Then, it was show time. By that, I mean his daughters all performed their Irish dancing for us. Then we all were trooped into the living room, around the Christmas tree, for the children (the boss’s kids and the guests’ kids) to read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” out loud. Then the gift exchange started. My husband ended up with some high-end coffee. Somehow, the men ended up in the boss’s office, where he showed them his military honors and guns (he would later take out one of those guns in the office and stare pointedly at it if someone disagreed with him).

    The boss later was fired, and the company now doesn’t make their own product. The entire team turned over within two years.

    My husband calls it “the VonTrapp” holiday party. I still don’t know what to call it.

    1. feath*

      Apparently at OldJob, before it got too big, they’d have company parties at the CEO’s very large and expensive property. Considering they hired a lot of fresh-outta-college people I wonder if anything similar feeling happened…
      (I say apparently since I worked there after it was too big, and they never did holiday parties for the two years I was there)

  93. Hello, I'd like to report my boss*

    I’VE BEEN WANTING TO POST THIS FOR AGES!

    This was in about 2009, in a UK London office. A French coworker decided to be a “journalist “ and wrote up all our drunken shite at the Xmas party. He wanted to observe “ze English drinking culture”.

    He sent it to loads of people.

    It was EPIC, horrifying detail. It included details of two people kissing at 2am which nearly caused a broken engagement, as well as lots of other detail. I was not spared… and he had to leave after 6 months as some people still were angry with him.

    He emailed it out. I think he hoped it was funny? I saved the whole thing… it is amazing and weird, but I treasure it as a bizarre thing and the strangest Xmas party story I have…

    I have changed names and cut the swearing so it doesn’t get moderated. Here’s a very short extract:

    “Facts & uncertainties regarding [Company]’s Christmas Party by [redacted]

    I) In the Morning: Work Time. Really? As an efficient reporter should always do, your reporter brings his camera in the office. A good report obviously needs to be accompanied by a few pictures here and there. Nabil notices the aforementioned artefact. “Is that your camera?” “Yes.” “Sh*t, we’re f-ed.” […]

    [many long paragraphs later]

    Your reporter joins the dancing bunch again, so do Nabil and Aaron. Avni seems quite lost, stumbling around, bumping into everyone. Employees help her the best they can, directing her, making sure that she doesn’t fall. Neil tastes fame for 5 minutes, parading around the bar with Alexi’s white fur coat on. Your reporter has to say that he looked like a classy pimp. Some random clients enjoy themselves, applauding.

    [continues for another 22 paras of excruciating detail including puking, slapping kissing and clubbing]”

  94. Sammy keyes*

    This is a little more mildly amusing than laugh-out-loud funny, but I still think about it and chuckle.

    Years ago, I worked at a fancy-ish small-ish corporate law firm in a major city, as a receptionist. I moved on after a couple years, but kept in touch with some of my lovely former coworkers. The year after I left for a different job, one of the legal assistants asked if I’d be interested in volunteering at the firm’s holiday party in exchange for getting to attend as a guest. The party was at a swanky hotel with an open bar, luxurious food, and lots of people I missed were going to be there, so of course I said yes. I also volunteered my (at the time) PhD candidate boyfriend to join me.

    My volunteer job was to stand in the hotel lobby at a small podium checking in guests and directing them to the party. The firm had rented a private elevator for party guests to use, and my boyfriend ended up being a sort of elevator monitor, making sure that no one who wasn’t a guest used it. (This was fairly easy as he had met most people at the firm before, and had attended enough social events that most of them recognized him right away)

    My boyfriend was wearing a very bright, novelty holiday-patterned vintage suit that made it very clear that he was not one of the hotel employees. But as a lifelong academic who had never held a service job (bless him), I think he was sort of thrilled by his role and ended up really leaning into being an “elevator boy.” At the end of the night, he excitedly told me that he had played the part so well that one of the firm’s shareholders insisted on tipping him! (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the shareholder in question, despite having met bf multiple times, was one of the most oblivious people in the entire world, to the point that i had no idea how he was such an acclaimed lawyer) Anyway, I told him that if the whole PhD thing doesn’t work out, he should push elevator buttons for a living.

  95. Leishycat*

    I took my spouse to my company’s holiday party which was held at an arcade/entertainment venue (think Dave and Busters but a little more upscale). The company president was in from out of state for it along with a few other higher ups. When we went to get in line for the buffet, my spouse cut in line in front of the president (not out of intentional rudeness, she was kind of tipsy from the free drinks and didn’t realize). He waved it off, thankfully. After we finished dinner we decided to do some bowling. I put in my name on the score keeping terminal, but when she went to do hers she entered “DICKSQUAD”. I turned around and there behind us was the company president again. I’m still rather embarrassed by it, and have kind of wondered for a while if that evening influenced their decision to fire me a few months later.

    1. Lady H*

      I’m curious if your spouse thinks she played a role in your firing, too! The name of the bowling team seems like odd judgement on her part when it’s your work party… to put it mildly.

  96. Cait*

    My department went to a local, beloved restaurant as part of our holiday outing. We were going to go to their Holiday Murder Mystery lunch where, we assumed, we’d eat lunch while the play was going on. I personally thought there might be a little audience participation required but nothing like what we encountered.
    Firstly, when booking the lunch, we were sent a picture of the room we’d be in. It was spacious and well-lit and beautifully decorated! When we got to the restaurant we were escorted into the basement where there were no windows, dim lighting, and a dingy bar. As we sat there, the actors came out dressed as elves, reindeer, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus. The costumes looked like they were picked up at the Halloween Store discount sale and smelled like they hadn’t been washed in years (yes, I could actually smell them). They moved from table to table, “in character”, and even sat down with us many times… where they stayed for several minutes. Now, I can appreciate the work and skill it takes to improv but after about 10 minutes all I wanted to do was drink my Diet Coke and wait for the actual performance to start – not be forced to talk about Santa’s dismissal of labor laws with a guy in tights. After about 15 minutes of this I realized, with great horror, that this WAS the performance. These actors were going to improvise a play about a murder in Santa’s Workshop for the next 2 hours.
    It. Was. Dreadful. I have never been so uncomfortable in such a “festive” setting. The most surreal part was when they would make dirty jokes and break into song. A guy dressed in a muscle suit with reindeer antlers on his head gyrated behind me as I stared intensely at the table. If there was a crack in the floor, I would’ve slid into it.
    What made it worse was the fact that the poor waitress (who apparently been pulled aside at the last minute and told she was going to be waiting on 30 people by herself), was struggling to take orders that we had already placed when we booked the event. We got there at 12pm and by 2pm, we still hadn’t been served. Not only that, but no one had been murdered yet! When we finally got our food, I realized that things were not going to get any better. The food looked like it could get up and walk away and the dessert was, what I assumed to be, canned apple pie filling with Redi-Whip on top.
    We got a break from the show while we ate (or chose not to), at which point we were forced to tell the actors that we had to be back on the bus by 3pm and someone had better get murdered soon. They picked up the improv pace and the workshop inspector faced death-by-wrapping-paper. We were given pieces of paper to write down who we thought did it and turned them in. The motive behind the murder was of a sexual nature, which I thought was a bit inappropriate for an office outing, and we were able to get out of there in time to get back to our bus.
    We complained to management but were met with not much more than a shrug. If the food was at least decent, I could’ve brushed off that cringe-worthy “murder mystery” but, alas, there was really nothing redeeming about this outing. Except maybe the waitress, who has my condolences.

    1. The Smiling Pug*

      Improv theater, done well, it’s amazing. Done poorly, it’s one of the most awkward things ever. I majored in theater in college, and one guy in particular was convinced he was the next Hottest thing. He kept trying to turn any post-rehearsal time into “Improv practice time.” Thankfully everyone realized pretty quickly what an ass he was.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      The only way this could have been funnier is if it had somehow collided with the medieval themed restaurant further up this thread for a Christmas medieval murder mystery.
      Seriously, though, that sounds excruciating! Reading this thread has made me glad that all of my work Christmas parties have been fairly sane, in spite of years working in nonprofits and higher ed.

  97. Leslie Who*

    At the company’s annual holiday luncheon, the CEO always required any new employees (that is, those who started working at the company that year) to stand up, introduce themselves, and share an embarrassing story from their lives. It was the CEO’s idea of hazing, I guess. It was always awkward but mostly harmless.

    One year, an employee shared a story about when she fell asleep with the stove on. The kitchen caught fire and she woke up surrounded by firefighters. “But it turned out for the best,” she said proudly, “because I’ve been having an affair with one of them ever since!”

    The crowd was stunned. A few people chuckled uncomfortably. The CEO took the microphone back and joked that no one could top that. Unfortunately the tradition continued, I suspect because the CEO loved the story and chased that high ever since.

    1. RJ*

      OMG that’s hilarious…

      (you’d think that would have taught the CEO a lesson but some people are just drunk on power I guess!)

  98. WeAreSantasElves*

    In my first year working as an attendant for costumed characters at a major theme park, I was pulled from my usual character and location to assist Santa as he greeted guests at the front of the park. This guy was the best Santa I have ever seen. He looked the part, his eyes truly twinkled, and any kid who asked for expensive electronics was told “my elves don’t make electronics at the North Pole- I believe you’ll have to ask your parents for that!” which I thought was much better than just promising expensive iPads and video game consoles. Everyone loved this Santa – the kids, the parents, and the other attendants. We even had an adult woman who said she was Jewish come up to “sit on Santa’s lap” because he was that charming. It was an awesome few days.

    A few weeks later, I was pulled aside mid-shift and told to report to park security headquarters. I’m a naturally anxious person so my mind started to race with what I could possibly be in trouble fork. It was a long, scary walk up several flights of stairs to a part of the park I had never been. The security HQ was a weirdly sterile contrast to the joy of the park, and the walls were covered in dozens upon dozens of security camera feeds. So many camera feeds. Suddenly I remembered all the wedgies I had pulled out of my awkwardly costumed butt in back corners of the park when I thought I had been alone. This company was known to “terminate” people over minor transgressions, and I just knew I was living out my final moments as an employee. I was made to sit down in what felt like a questioning room from a cop procedural and two terrifying guardsmen slid a picture across the table, asking, “Do you know this man?”

    It was Santa.

    Apparently Santa was being accused of grabbing women too tightly when they sat on his lap – specifically, the Jewish woman who had decided to “go for it!” I was horrified and did my best when asked to write a formal statement recalling the day. I never saw that particular Santa again, but did go on to assist many lovely characters, and helped to protect some of them (particularly princesses and mermaids) from being groped themselves!

  99. MonivanR*

    At my last job, we did secret santa. This was my first job out of college and my first time at an office Christmas party. There was a chart hung up in the lunchroom where we could write ideas of what we wanted to receive. I had been at this job around 6 months by this point, and the woman I had to buy a gift for was in a different department. We had met but I knew nothing about what she liked. Her only gift ideas were gift cards (which to me, seemed pointless, what’s the point of us all exchanging gift cards?) I happen to have an aunt who makes handmade organic soap (they are wonderful and most of my family loves them) so I thought, a couple of bars would make a nice gift, right?

    Well, when she opened the present, she immediately looked unhappy and said something like “Oh no not again” and showed a few others the soaps with an upset expression. It turns out this woman’s husband is anosmic/can’t smell and apparently in the past somebody had cruelly gifted her soap hinting that she must smell bad (I guess if her husband can’t smell, it means she must smell badly?)

    I was mortified and felt awful- these weren’t cheap/lousy/brandless soaps they were meant as a genuine gift. But man did I feel like an ass- I later on told her I was the one who bought them, had no idea about people mocking her by gifitng soap etc. and apologized- she understood and I think felt better that I was just a new employee who didn’t know.

    I no longer give soap as gifts.

    1. I'm Just Here for the Cats*

      A good lesson for everyone to not buy scented things for Christmas exchange unless you know the person. For example I’ve gotten soap and perfume that I cannot use because it either irritates my skin or the perfume is too much and causes asthma.

      This also goes for air scents too. Please for the love of all stop with the Scentsy stuff! (its a brand that too many people I know are selling and it sucks). I’m just going to either donate somewhere or throw it out.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Agreed. I have eczema on my hands and I get lotions I can’t use because they burn like fire. They either go in the garbage or get regifted. I tell people, don’t waste your money.

        Also, everything from Bath and Body Works or The Body Shop makes me itch. What is in those things?!

    2. Zephy*

      I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, and have celebrated most of the Christmases between then and now with his family. The first couple of Christmases, when they didn’t know me very well and I wasn’t accustomed to their family gift-giving culture (“send me a list of items you want with links to buy them and I will do that for you” is not how gifting worked in my family, ever), were…awkward. I got some weird gifts, because it felt wrong to just hand over a list like they wanted me to, so they just guessed (haphazardly) rather than let me sit there with nothing to open on Christmas morning. I appreciated the thought and being included, but talk about awkward. One of these gifts was a rose-scented bath/skincare set from his grandma. I choose to believe my MIL was making a joke in extremely poor taste when she made a remark about “oh, giving someone soap as a gift means you think they smell bad!” I laughed it off in the moment but I still think about it a lot, and I don’t think I’ve given a bath/fragrance set as a gift since, unless someone specifically asked for that kind of product.

      1. Rainy*

        In general I approve of telling people exactly what you want, but yes, in my family it doesn’t work like that at all (and to be fair, I think some of the fun in my family’s gifting folkways is the lengths people will go to to select something perfect–after October, we are all private eyes with but a single charge: get evidence of your family’s heart’s desires!), and so when my in-laws presented us with their xmas lists the first year we were married and I was expected to buy socks that were $30 a pair for a woman who relentlessly belittles and taunts me, I really blew my top.

      2. Dancing Otter*

        Back in the dark ages, even before Miss Manners, that’s exactly what I was taught. Never give soap, because it implies the recipient needs it.
        Same with breath mints: if they really do need one, you still pretend you’re the one who needs it and offer only because sharing is proper.

        1. Rob aka Mediancat*

          My father asks for a specific soap every year, so he get is.

          My family practices the “big list” method of Christmas: We give people a list of 30 things we want, please pick a few of them, and stuff not on the list is fine too.

  100. RJ*

    This is really tame but it still cracks me up and might just be a life tip for the rest of you:

    One year our company got in on one of those holiday parties where a hotel event centre hosts and sells tables so smaller companies can have the full buffet/dance floor/door prizes experience. I don’t remember how many tables there were but it was a fair number.

    They hired a local B-list radio personality to emcee, and he got up and introduced himself as Brent, welcomed everyone and so on, then called the first two tables to the buffet and said for everyone to wait until they were called. He came down from the stage and was walking by our table and my boss, without skipping a beat, casually calls out, “‘Sup Brent.” Brent looks over as he responds, “Hey! [pauses…realizes he doesn’t know her…realizes what she’s doing…] aaaaah, I see what you did there…” And we were the next table called.

  101. MeghanJK*

    My school district is doing a goosechase as a countdown to winter break. One challenge for today was to have a paper snowball fight with another team. One team went over the top and wrapped a yoga ball in paper for their snowball fight. They then had students record the video of the snowball fight.

    ~the team was my team. We’re chaotic middle school teachers. It gave me an excuse to give students a break during testing. XD

  102. Tank Beller*

    This one is *darkly* funny so… warning for that.

    In 2019 I started working for the same company that my sister and her husband work for. We are in completely separate offices and departments so a majority of people had no idea. This meant that I spent the 2019 Christmas party explaining to people over and over and over how we were all related. My sister was also visibly pregnant at the time, so everyone was commenting on THAT as well. Then the open bar hour started and things went… downhill.

    Someone at my table did some math and realized my sister is younger than I am and that since I don’t have any kids, she was Beating Me To The First Grandchild! For some reason this topic was endlessly perplexing and fascinating to her and the woman next to her, who started asking me all sorts of invasive stuff – were my parents disappointed that I was (gasp!) in my thirties and hadn’t had kids yet? Did I have any plans to Find A Man and hurry up and get married so at least I wasn’t The Childless Old Aunt?

    I spent a while politely demurring but the questions just. kept. coming. Finally I was Done – the next time one of them opened their mouths I ended the conversation by getting overly personal right back:

    Her: So do you ever feel JEALOUS that your LITTLE sister has a husband and kid before you do?
    Me: Well, you know how it is – life is weird! Things change so suddenly sometimes! When my fiancée passed of a heart attack at twenty-nine, you know, it was a big sudden change! There’s a lot of feelings you have to deal with about future plans and things not working out like you’d hoped! But you get through it, right?

    Then I smiled really warmly at them both. The table went silent, the gossips turned absolutely white, and the subject was dropped completely. I heard for months from coworkers about how impressed they were that I kept my composure without making a scene, but I was internally HIGHLY AMUSED that I had dropped that bombshell on the collective office (nobody had known about my fiancée, since it happened before I started working there) and didn’t have to be careful about it in conversations anymore.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      You win the award for the best response of all time to this intrusive bullsh*t question. I salute you and I am in awe of your composure.

    5. Emma2*

      Wow, this is awful (them) and brilliant (your handling of it).
      Also, on behalf of the next childless woman they would have targeted, thank you. I hope this experience stuck with them for a while.

  103. anonymous73*

    A team member and I rode together to our holiday party one year – she drove. She then proceeded to get wasted at the party and not eat anything. I was separated from her most of the night and she apparently had put her keys in my purse at some point because she knew she couldn’t drive. When it was time to leave, I couldn’t find her keys. I checked for a while, but never found them. So another co-worker offered to take us back to the office, and I would drive her home. She proceeded to vomit in our co-workers new BMW, with the window down, but didn’t quite make it outside of the car (so it made it’s way in between the door where the window sits). I do not handle vomit well, and when presented with any clean up will vomit myself. So I ran into the office to get cleaning supplies but couldn’t help. I also grabbed bags in case she got sick while I drove her home. And then I found her keys. She had jammed them so far down into the side of my purse, there was no evidence that they were there. I felt so bad (for the other co-worker, not her). She was told she had to pay to have his car detailed. I started to distance myself from her after that (she made a lot of questionable decisions and had a lot of family drama).

  104. Sindirella*

    OH, I actually have one!! I never thought to share this before, but it’s office legend now.
    We had an older gentleman in our office that was a really nice funny guy, but pretty buttoned-up and professional at all times. One year we had an office White Elephant gift exchange and one of the gifts was a foot long summer sausage. The older gentleman was the one who opened this gift and he excited waved it around and announced that he’d gotten a “tube steak”. We all died laughing, but he honestly didn’t get the joke!!! He knew he’d made us laugh, so he kept commenting on his tube steak, but never really understood what it was he was saying that was so funny! He’s retired now, but every Christmas we always ask around to see if anyone is planning to bring some tube steak to the Christmas party.

      1. UKDancer*

        I’d not heard of this either but google tells me that “tube steak” is a slang expression for the male genitalia. I think it’s also used to describe a long sausage. I’ve not heard the word used for either. I wouldn’t have got the joke but I don’t keep up with slang very much.

  105. AMH*

    In my early twenties I attended my company’s holiday party during which lots of alcohol was consumed by both the staff and C-Suite executives. During this party, 1) Another female co-worker propositioned me for a threesome and 2) An older sales rep (male in his 50’s) told me I was a “very sexy girl”…in front of my supervisors (who just nodded along! WTF! Help!). It was a really weird night.

  106. EggyParm*

    Our CEO loved hosting the annual Christmas party as he felt it was his personal thank you to all of the employees. He would spend weeks planning out the decorations, tasting food for catering, hand selecting the gifts, and always made sure there was a huge open bar with premium drinks for everyone to enjoy. The party started at 7pm, ended at 12 am, and then he would do an extended “after hours” party until 2am. Needless to say, people wound up pretty wasted at these parties and the CEO was the most wasted every year. Luckily, he was a happy go lucky type of drunk who usually just ended up thanking everyone profusely for their work.

    One year the dance floor was pumping and everyone was having a grand old time when the DJ decided to play “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” (you know, the song from Dirty Dancing). Suddenly the dance floor parted. The CEO stood at one end of the dance floor, zoned into the music. The VP of Sales locked eyes with the CEO and they began to fully run toward each other, each clearly assuming the other would catch him. They leapt into the air with drunken grace and enthusiasm. ::smack:: They landed on the concrete with a smack you could hear over the music and crowd. All we could see was some blood and two bodies trying to untangle.

    They had both cracked their heads on the ground and gotten concussions. Neither gentleman wanted an ambulance called so someone’s sober wife packed them into her SUV (each of them with a roadie in-hand) and drove them off to the ER.

    The next day we got an email from the CEO with the subject, “Each Year Gets More Epic” and a picture of him and the VP of Sales posing together at the ER with stitches on the side of their heads.

  107. BitingMyTongue*

    I used to work at a company that arranged a nice holiday party at a local restaurant with a buffet and open bar. I usually leave by 10pm but one of my colleagues, “Ann”, always stayed as long as the drinks were still free. One year, she got so drunk that another colleague, “Adam”, helped her into a cab to get home; except that she wasn’t ready to leave and crawled across the back seat to escape out the other side. Unfortunately she pushed the door open just in time for oncoming traffic to hit it! During the fracas with the (justifiably) pissed off cab driver and subsequently the police, Ann ran away. This part of the story was told to me by Adam.
    A few days later, Ann shared that she woke up the next morning in a hotel room at same hotel where the company put up colleagues from out of town, but felt embarrassed and snuck out.
    Fast forward to the next holiday party, Ann was starting at the various colleagues from out of town, trying to remember who she slept with and enlisting our “help” to figure it out. Then of course she got drunker and started telling the president of the company (!!!) this whole story and ended by saying that she didn’t remember which colleague she spent the night with. And the president of the company says, “Oh, I was staying in that hotel last year too. Maybe it was me….”

  108. Jam on Toast*

    Quite a few years ago, my husband and I attended a Christmas party at a local hotel, put on by the construction company he worked for. It was the first year we’d attended and because of past instances of drunk driving, the company had not only paid for the catered meal but also reserved rooms for all the attendees.

    Among the highlights of the evening were the multiple escorts who were hired to attend with guests. One of them ended up sitting at our table. Her ‘date’ had hired her because he had recently broken up with the boss’s daughter and didn’t want to be seen attending alone. He proceeded to get drop-dead drunk on the table wine, and boozily monologue about his romantic difficulties. Full credit to the escort, she was among the best company at our table and when she wasn’t babysitting her maudlin charge, was a lovely conversationalist.

    But it wasn’t until after dinner had concluded that the wheels *really* fell off the bus. To this day, I don’t know exactly what some of the attendees *did* in the indoor swimming pool that necessitated it being drained, but my husband says the clean-up charges were in the thousands. Being confirmed non-partiers, Mr. Jam and I were eager to avoid the impending trainwreck and when we were invited back to his co-worker’s suite to join three or four other of the more down to earth employees, we were anticipating fun, low-key evening playing cards or shooting the breeze.

    We get to “Mike’s” room and settle down on the sofa. While we’re chatting, Mike suddenly grabs this duffle bag and starts rummaging around in it. I assume he’s eager to get out of the monkey suit but that’s not what was packed in his luggage. Instead, he starts organizing these thick baggies on the coffee table in front of us. Folks are making themselves at home, and he’s pouring what must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of hard drugs onto the table six inches from my knees. He’s chopping and chatting and telling jokes and all the while, he’s making little white lines, like he’s playing in Pablo Escobar’s sandtable!

    I have no idea what to say and just want out of this awkward encounter. Mr. Jam and I have a frantic, yet totally silent, marital conversation, consisting entirely of raised eyebrows and shoulder shrugs, the result being my developing, quite out of the blue, a sudden and blinding headache from the half glass of red wine I’d had earlier at supper. Alerted to my suffering, Mike generously offers me a thick joint, promising that it will fix whatever ails me, but I decline very politely and retreat with all haste back to own, blissfully drug-free hotel room.

    After I leave, Mike apparently realizes just what he’s done to make me so uncomfortable and he begins apologizing profusely to Mr. Jam on my behalf. You see, while he’d been cutting the hundreds of dollars of cocaine right in front of us, he’d also been telling a mildly off-colour joke, the punch line of which included a word that rhymes with truck. Clearly, my delicate ears couldn’t bear to hear such salty language. Mike’s apology went on and on as he promised my husband with absolutely sincerity that in future, he would remember to watch his language more carefully whenever he was around me. Mr. Jam assured him that I wouldn’t hold the joke against him, I was just especially sensitive to bold reds, but Mike remained doubtful.

    And then there is this party coda. A few years later, after my husband had been gone from the company a couple of years, we chanced to run into ‘Mike’ in the parking lot of a big box store. In between inquiring about our kids and Mr. Jam’s new job, he once again took the time to apologize to me for the joke he’d told all those years earlier. Neither of us mentioned the drugs!

    1. Isben Takes Tea*

      That is wild.

      Mr. Jam and I have a frantic, yet totally silent, marital conversation

      That is fantastic, and something I can clearly visualize!

    2. Trek*

      I love this story! Mr. Jam and I have a frantic, yet totally silent, marital conversation. I really think if you can pull this off inside a den of iniquity and Pablo doesn’t pick up on it you have indeed found your soul mate! Cheers!

  109. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

    My first holiday party at my first job out of college, in Home Country. No one drove and booze was flowing freely. I was 22, and a 19-yo guy on another team had a well-known crush on me. I was engaged, soon to be married, and could not reciprocate even if I wanted to. I was also the youngest on my team, everyone else was ten years older, saw me as their kid sister, and were very protective. Before the party, the guys from my team pulled me aside to say: “Don’t worry about Crush. We’ll make sure he’s good and drunk and cannot hit on you,” led him to a faraway table, and started pouring him drinks. Crush then proceeded to drink them all under the table, escaped from their group, found me, and insisted that we date. I said no. He objected. You know how, sometimes, at a big party, everyone stops talking at the same time and there is suddenly a total silence? It was in that kind of silence that Crush loudly informed me, “You *will* be chasing after me yet!” Everyone stared. People talked about it the next day. The 22-year-old me was mortified.

    (Crush and I remained friends, and in the end, our babies ended up sharing the same crib – but not because we had babies together – we did not – I gave my children’s crib to him and his new wife, per their request, when I was leaving for the US.)

  110. White Elephant Gone Wrong*

    One year at my last job, the white elephant gift exchange got ugly. The CEO, who was new that year, had brought some nicer gifts (an ipad, an alexa, airpods/beats, a few other gifts like that) while the rest of us were supposed to stay under $15. The rule was that a gift could be stolen twice, and then it couldn’t be stolen again. I was in a mid-senior level position and unwrapped the ipad. One of the (entry level, minimum wage) admin assistants stole it from me, and then a senior director (just under the CEO) STOLE IT FROM THE ADMIN. This happened again with a different senior director and the SAME admin with the Alexa. Every single one of the nice gifts that the CEO brought ended up being taken by the most senior managers and directors from the entry level/very junior staff. Those of us who were in the middle just kind of looked on in horror. I don’t think I ever looked at those senior people the same the rest of the time I was there.

    1. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

      OMG what the hell.

      I hope that was the only example of unlimited greed from that company’s leadership.

      1. White Elephant Gone Wrong*

        I left before the next holiday party, but I do wonder if the CEO rethought the fancy gift idea.

  111. Notwhoyouthoughtitwas*

    This is a bit of a long story and I hope to make it worth the price of the ticket.

    Time – about 10 years ago
    Location – oh heck no! (although I will admit that the weather that day was -4F/-20C)
    Setting – A Christmas party at a professional firm

    Awesome Sauce was a great company to work for. Well managed, good benefits, paid more than lip service to things like diversity, work life balance and so on. They also were a great place for newly minted professionals to grow their skills.

    It was a great party. Good food, thoughtful entertainment, open bar, indoor swimming pool.
    Those last two? Not a good mix!

    So after a few drinks, a couple of the Young Professionals decided to go for a swim.
    Clive stripped down to his boxers and went in first. In doing so, he scratched his knuckle. Literally, a skinned patch on his knuckle that oozed a bit.

    Fergus also jumped in (although with more clothes on).
    Bob, not planning to swim, thought it would be fun to hide Clive’s clothes in various places around the party room. (This is relevant later).

    As you may know, an open cut in water will continue to bleed. Add in Clive’s enthusiastic swimming and the knuckle kept oozing. And then Fergus noticed.
    And then Fergus panicked.
    Fergus was convinced that Clive was DYING. Right then and there!! Horror! Panic!!

    We thought we had Fergus calmed down (and out of the pool) but his panic, like a drunken swimmer, reemerged and he went off to find a phone.
    To call an ambulance.

    Clive – and the rest of us – were rather shocked to learn there was an ambulance present to take Clive to the hospital for his injury. While this got Clive out of the pool, it also prompted a search for his clothes. A search not helped by Bob who couldn’t remember where he’d put them.

    Eventually, Clive was dressed and went to talk to the ambulance crew.
    Who took him to the hospital.
    In his damp clothes.
    In winter.
    With no jacket.
    Because…booze?

    The rest of the story unfolded without witnesses, but we all heard about it later.

    Maybe it was the cold, or maybe he was bored, but Clive, who had (correctly) all along asserted that his injury did not need treatment, got tired of sitting around the hospital waiting room.
    So he left.
    About midnight.
    Slightly damp still, without a jacket, and in sub-zero temperatures.
    To walk home.

    When an inebriated patient leaves the ER under those conditions, the police are called to try and ensure their safety.
    The police did not find him.
    They tried to call him, but Clive’s phone was back at the party with his jacket.
    Clive was at a buddy’s house, safe, warm and sleeping it off.

    The Police called his mother. Who also had no idea where he was.
    Mom, however, was much less prone to panic.
    Her solution was to send her errant child a FB message to the effect of “Call the Police, they’re looking for you.”

    Clive did so the next morning, and then relayed his tale of woe to the rest of us.

    1. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

      You do know you created a classic, to be shared year after year right next to Frozen Boob!

      Lord, grant me the unflappability (is that a word?) of Clive’s mother. I’d have been up all night, not knowing what to do other than panic.

      1. Narise*

        How many moms post on face book ‘Police are looking for you son, call them.’ And go back to bed. I love this story!

      3. Notwhoyouthoughtitwas*

        Clive’s mom was a pretty chill person. I think she had to be.

        We did ask Clive afterwords why his mother wasn’t more worried and he just shrugged and said something to the effect of “I guess she’s used to it.”

        For the record – Awesome Sauce continues to be a great company and host thoughtful holiday gatherings.
        It should be noted, however, that they no longer use the room adjacent to the pool…

        And Clive has matured into a sober, thoughtful professional.
        Albeit with a great sense of spontaneous humor.

  112. Weird spelling*

    I tell this each year.

    I work for a small family owned business with three locations. Each year during the Christmas season, the owners throw a big holiday bash at their house and the staffs from all three locations gather. It is fun and for many years there was A LOT of wine.

    One year, a coworker’s wife got very drunk and as they left, my boss (owner’s Son In Law) jokingly asked the wife if she’d like another glass of wine. To which she replied “Why don’t you eat my ass?”

    It’s been more than a decade, and we have not had alcohol at the holiday party since.

  113. The Prettiest Curse*

    So, this is a pretty boring story compared to some of those above it, but the UK folks here might find it amusing.

    Background: I’m British and lived and worked in the US for many years. In my last job in the US, I worked for a smallish non-profit (about 40 people). During my time there, there was only one other British employee, who was from Manchester. I’m from Liverpool. For the folks who don’t know regional UK nuances, this is a big regional rivalry (think San Francisco vs LA.)

    A couple of months before the holiday party, we were doing an icebreaker in the monthly all staff meeting and as part of my response, I happened to mention that Liverpool is waaaay better than Manchester. (Sorry Mancunians, it’s true.) Everyone laughed. My colleague from Manchester laughed too, but clearly he didn’t forget the slight, because during our office holiday gift exchange a few months later, he stole a nice bottle of wine from me while making a remark about Manchester being better than Liverpool. I think that may have been the year that I ended up with a Tamagotchi (remember those??) in the gift exchange.
    My colleague was a lovely guy, but quite reserved and never joked around, so I was impressed and amused that my mild insult of his home town finally raised a joke out of him!

    1. UKDancer*

      Funny but you’re both wrong. Leeds is definitely better than both Manchester and Liverpool. Up the White Rose!

      1. Rainy*

        My BFF and I were on the platform having taken the train from Liverpool to a small town in Kent to visit some old friends of mine and the guard asked us where we were from (we were clearly travelling–giant suitcases, air of North Americans who’d been grappling with the English rail system, etc), and then where we’d just been. We said Liverpool, and he allowed as to how he was glad we’d left Liverpool, as it wasn’t a place for decent sorts like us. We giggled (tiredly), and he yelled down the platform to the other guard “What do you think of Liverpool then?” and the other guard promptly shouted back “Can’t say, ladies present!”

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          My husband is American, and years before we met he was on one of his many trips to the UK. He had the opportunity to visit Liverpool, but skipped it because the guidebook advised it was too dangerous. Liverpool has always had crime problems and was not exactly a tourist trap back then – but my husband is from a big American city with a high murder rate, so I found this story pretty hilarious when he eventually told it to me!

          1. Rainy*

            We really enjoyed Liverpool, though my friend saw more of the town than I did, as I was sitting in conference papers all day at the uni while she set out with a tourist map. We were staying in a really lovely little hotel with the nicest staff ever–we were coming up on needing to wash clothes, and when we asked the maid where was the closest launderette, she said there was no need, just give her the stuff we needed washed and she’d throw it in downstairs. No charge. And the breakfasts, my lord, the breakfasts in little English hotels are so good.

      2. The Prettiest Curse*

        Ha, I have never been to Leeds, but can’t imagine it would be better than Liverpool! Got to say, though, that I am Team Lancashire all the way. Yorkshire is great, but also a tad over-rated. ;)

    2. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      I live in the overlap between Liverpool commuterville and Manchester commuterville, where the split of LFC and MUFC supporters in any pub or school playground is approximately 50:50.

      I definitely smiled at this story.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Ha, don’t get me started on local football teams! Whenever I got asked the Liverpool or Everton question growing up, I had to explain that my dad was from a different town and therefore I supported his team instead of a local one. That was character-building…

        Oh, and the best part of this story was that, since we were in the US, almost all of our colleagues (except one) had no idea about the rivalry and had never visited either city!

  114. Lalaith*

    Calling this work-related is a bit of a stretch, but what the heck. My husband is in a brass band, and every year (except 2020) they do holiday concerts. One year, one of them was at a local high school.

    This event was already a bit unusual because they weren’t the only ones performing. OK, fine. But also, the organizers mixed the groups up instead of letting one do their whole performance, then bringing another group up… so at some point the brass band is all sitting on stage awkwardly while a kids’ dance troupe is performing in front of them. It was odd.

    Anyway, to start off the second half of their performance, the band played “Here Comes Santa Claus”. Their arrangement of it has a tuba solo, and my husband plays the tuba and is also a fairly large guy, so he dressed as Santa and started the song off by walking down the aisle up to the stage while the band played, and then stood and played the solo. So during the intermission, he went and got dressed and came out into the hall to wait for his cue – and found himself face to face with another Santa. The organizers had arranged for a Santa, and hadn’t informed any of the other performers. Husband quickly sorted it out with the other guy and went in.

    Of course, the organizers had no idea this exchange had happened. So as my husband walks down the aisle, smiling and waving at the audience, some lady behind him is whisper-shouting, “Stephen! What are you doing?! Stephen! Stephen, come back!” Husband – who is not Stephen – just smiled and waved at the lady and kept right on going.

    We still yell “Stephen!” at each other sometimes to make each other laugh.

  115. Rat Diva*

    When I was in college in the late 90s, the chemistry club held an annual Christmas party. We had an ugly silver tree that we called the “Chemis-Tree” and we’d decorate it with test tubes and other glassware. One year one of the professors made hot mulled wine in a big beaker on a hot plate. I drank way too much of it because it was delicious, but he’d used godawful cheap red wine to make it because the spices and fruit cover up the nasty wine flavor.

    A bunch of us ended up in somebody’s dorm room watching South Park and giggling like idiots.

    The next day, I learned that cheap wine hangovers are the worst and I haven’t drunk red wine since.

  116. Rat Diva*

    I just remembered another one, though this one is more warm and fuzzy rather than funny.

    After college, I worked at a department store for way too long. Anyone who’s worked retail during the holidays knows that it’s about the 397th circle of hell.

    One lady from the cash office put together goodie bags on her own dollar, and anyone who wanted could enter their name into a drawing when we turned in our drawers at night.

    I won one of the bags, which was just little things like sample bottles of bubble bath and a cute kitty-cat ornament and a cosmetic bag. The anticipation of who’d win and showing off your haul was a little bit of fun, and those were tough times for me so I really appreciated her kindness.

  117. Anony-elf*

    I am anonymous for this as it might be identifiable. I moved from North America to London for work. My previous office Christmas parties had been pretty bland and inoffensive. I quickly learned that the rules were different in London.
    In London there are companies that set up massive tents in December and sell office Christmas party packages. You can have somewhere around 2-3k people at a sit down dinner at these things. At the one my company used, each year has a theme. Before dinner there are drinks in a room with various bars set up around the place. I feel like the bars had individual themes tied to the overall theme. My office was a very corporate environment- I would expect almost all companies buying these party packages were similar.
    – one year, the theme was Coyote Ugly. It probably was actually “Wild West” or something, but the stand out feature was a Coyote Ugly themed bar complete with women dancing on it
    – the next year was “Circus” (maybe?). Before dinner there were cancan dancers on top of one of the bars (I guess it isn’t a holiday party if you don’t have women flashing their knickers for the guests). That same year, during the entertainment between courses at the meal, one part of the entertainment was a woman who walked out on the stage wearing leather, carrying a whip, and holding onto 4 leashes (possibly reins). At the end of each leash was a man wearing a pair of tight shorts and a metal wire thing over his head that formed the outline of a horse’s head. I remember them wandering around the stage but not doing much else, I think she cracked the whip occasionally (I may have blocked out anything else).
    – another year was “Carnival in Mexico”; all entertainment and decor was based on Dia de los Muertos.
    This was mid-2010s.

    1. Siege*

      I am unsurprised by the Dia de los Muertos thing (well, all of it, really). I had a conversation in 2002-ish with a Canadian woman in my school’s anthropology department where she was talking about her horror over the fact that some of the older (white, male, do I really need to say that?) faculty were very, very interested in hearing more about her work with the “red Indians”. I have never once heard anyone, including my screamingly racist grandparents, use that term in real life. Like, maybe in John Wayne movies, I’ve heard it? And they thought it was fine! Years of the transition to “Native Americans” or “First Nations” from “Indians” just totally passed them by, which is quasi understandable, EXCEPT that this was an anthropology department at a world-class university, and also, you don’t have to be in that context to start making guesses about racially-loaded terms being insulting. Like, even if you DON’T know, why wouldn’t you mirror the language of the person who has modeled “First Nations”, and then directly said “The correct term is First Nations”?

      I was, armed with this information, later unsurprised to learn that my own tutor used “bongo-bongostan” as his fake generic country for example stories.

      1. Just me*

        My in-laws are British and they very un-ironically use the term “Red Indians” to distinguish Native Americans from South Asian Indians from the country of India. They thought that was a perfect valid term until it was specifically pointed out to them.

        1. UKDancer*

          Same with my family. My grandfather would also say “Red Indian” I think that as the UK doesn’t have exposure to First Nations people (except through cowboy films) the change of naming practice probably passed a lot of people by.

          I mean I know what the polite words are for the different minorities who are part of the UK . I only learnt the proper names for Indigenous Peoples when I visited Canada and a Canadian explained the historical context.

          Obviously there is definitely a higher level of expectation of anthropologists!

    2. Lucy Skywalker*

      Things where a “circus” theme is an appropriate one:
      Children’s birthday parties
      Carnivals
      Pop music albums
      Proms/school dances
      Halloween costumes
      Children’s bedrooms

      Um, yeah….that’s about it.

      1. Antony-elf*

        And the list of things where a “circus with a hint of bdsm” theme is appropriate is even shorter….

  118. Holiday Headshots*

    I ended up interviewing at a company the same day they were holding their holiday lunch. It was just some catered food during the lunch hour. My interview ran long as they ended up doing what they would normally do over a few interviews all in one. So while waiting for someone else to come along to talk to me the HR person took me over to where they had a photographer doing silly prop photos but also head-shots for the company to use. I was all dressed up for the interview so why not? So I got my photo taken “just in case”. I figured being asked to take a head shot was a pretty good sign the interview was going well. I had a voicemail on my phone from the manager I interviewed with by the time I got back to my car saying to expect an email with the offer in a day or two so I guess I was right!

  119. UKDancer*

    I never had any particularly good stories to tell because most of my Christmas parties were fairly tame. The only amusing one was about 3 jobs back when we went to a Chinese for Christmas lunch. Towards the end of lunch I got a call from the office that the CEO needed to see me urgently as he had a critical meeting at 5 that afternoon with a key supplier. As expert in that particular part of the company’s work I needed to rush back and talk him through things.

    So I had to leave before the banana fritters were served (I love those) and went back to the office. I briefed the CEO and 2 other very senior people on what they needed to know. What I had forgotten was that I was wearing large light up reindeer earrings and I hadn’t switched them off. The CEO (being a delightfully polite and charming gentleman) did not mention this the whole time. I then stood up to go and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way out of the office and saw that my earrings were flashing. I then discovered that in my rush to get back to the office I had acquired a large visible ladder in my (snowflake decorated) tights which ran from ankle to knee. Goodness knows what I looked like and what the top brass thought of me.

    The next morning my boss received a lovely email from the CEO praising me for coming back and briefing him in such an illuminating fashion which was sweet of him. I suppose it made sure I was at least memorable for the remainder of my time in that company.

  120. Palliser*

    So, I have been friendly with a client for many years. We would see each other at industry conferences frequently, and he often spoke at mine. He fancies himself a bit of a provocateur and likes to gently needle people. At one of our industry conferences, for some reason there was a barbershop quartet. I was speaking with my boss, and suddenly the quartet appeared in front of me and started to serenade me by name. The client had paid them to ambush me and they followed me around the reception for a while. I pretended to be more flustered than I actually was, but told the client that one day, at a time and place of my choosing, I would repay him in kind.

    A number of years passed, and I found out that you could very inexpensively make custom socks featuring pictures. For example, you could create socks that show hundreds of the same image of your cat. From working with this client, I knew there was an old head shot that he hated. There was nothing wrong with it, he just preferred the newer, slicker, more recent one. We swapped it out from the event web site, but I had the old copy of it. Also, I knew client’s boss, who was well aware of client’s propensity for teasing and pranking. I emailed client’s boss about a month before a big industry holiday party and asked if he would be willing to wear client headshot socks if I had them made. He thought it was hilarious, so I had the socks made and sent them to him.

    On the evening of the holiday party, client, client’s boss, and hundreds of others that we know in common were mingling at the reception. I tapped client on his shoulder and said, “Client, It’s so nice to see you! Have you noticed your boss’s socks today?” Client’s boss was wearing one of those modern narrow tapered men’s suits at a length that ensures sock visibility. Client looked down and saw hundreds of his own face looking back up at him. Client’s boss and myself laughed hysterically while our mutual industry contacts looked on and more and more people clued in. Client was shocked speechless and turned bright red. I told him that my revenge for the barbership quartet incident was complete and we were now even. He was good humored about it, but I think the prank actually improved my professional reputation. I am known for being very polite and nice, in a way that some men in particular mistake for weakness. My boss told me that he respected the hell out of my discipline for the prank, and in general, my new reputation is as more of a steel magnolia ;) So that ended up being a very fun holiday party (for me).

    Client and I are still buddies, but he hasn’t messed with me since!

    4. The Prettiest Curse*

      Hiring a barbershop quartet to follow someone around is some kind of evil genius, but your revenge was both hilarious AND creative!

  121. Lucy Skywalker*

    Okay, I’ve got one.
    In my old job, I had a manager who had just converted to a non-mainstream religion, and like some new converts. she was so excited about it that she felt that all of us should be exposed to it as well. This particular religion believed in something similar to The Law of Attraction, that is “we all create our own reality by thinking positive or negative thoughts.” This view is not only offensive to me and so many others, it was directly in conflict with the mission of our workplace (a center that provides advocacy to parents of students in special education). For our holiday presents, she gave each of us items associated with this religion.
    She also frequently bashed mainstream religions such as Catholicism; even going so far as to mock Catholic beliefs and sacraments in front of all of us. I was Catholic at the time and found it highly offensive.
    When she gave us other gifts associated with her religion after our annual all-day meeting in June, I’d had enough. I went and talked to HR, who talked to my manager. They said that she was free to practice whatever religion she wanted on her own time, but it was not appropriate to push it on to her subordinates. The HR person even compared it to a Catholic giving her subordinates rosaries or Bibles as gifts; to which my manager said, “Oh, I never thought of that, but you’re right.”
    She stopped giving us religious gifts and pushing her religion on us.

    1. They Don’t Make Sunday*

      So glad you spoke up. That’s some awful, harmful nonsense, on top of being inappropriate at work.

  122. Marion*

    OH MAN, I have a good one!

    A few years ago my husband had just started a job at a very large, very blue collar production company. They went ALL OUT for their Christmas party – local hotel ballroom, catered, DJ, gambling tables set up, the works. It was an opportunity for a bunch of really I guess “rough” people to dress up and feel fancy.

    Everyone got three drink tickets to try to keep things less rowdy, but it uhhh…didn’t work. I was 8 months pregnant, so I donated my drinks to my husband and someone else at our table, and a lot of others were doing similar things.

    The result was that half the party was completely sober, and the other half were RIP ROARING PLASTERED. There were loud political arguments. People were stealing gifts off the raffle table and trying to hide them under their clothes. No one could use the bathroom because people were hooking up in there. In the middle of the owner’s presentation, the assistant’s date got up on a table, pulled down his pants, and PEED ALL OVER THE FLOOR.

    My husband quit that job three months later. I still wonder if those parties were always like that.

  123. The Katie*

    My lab has several employees with young children, so we do a lab picnic every year for Christmas. Last year, the picnic organiser decided to try being Santa. He arranged it with the parents beforehand so that he has gifts for all the kids who were there. However, we’d had to reschedule that years picnic, and we’d ended up in a different park to the one that we normally use, which we had to share with another party. The other party had also organised a Santa to come visit their kids. One of their kids saw two Santas, got confused, and headed to the nearest one, who just happened to be our picnic organiser. Another colleague, who was photographing the event, has a good shot of the kid being dragged away by her mum.
    This year, the worst that happened was a third colleague’s dog, a humongous malamute, slipping her harness and later stealing some food.

  124. The Christmas Party Nightmare*

    Three years ago, I was responsible for organising the office Christmas party with two of my colleagues. It’s taken me this long to a) write this down without trauma and b) laugh about it.

    Our office is made up of around 75 people, and we have a pretty tight per-head budget. Most years we go out for lunch somewhere, and then afterwards everyone heads out to a bar – standard stuff, but generally enjoyable. In 2018, we thought we’d try something “different”. Major. Mistake.

    A friend suggested a social cooking afternoon. Our colleagues are generally up for a laugh, and we found a local place with a nice website and good reviews. They suggested a “Food Olympics” event at a local outdoor bowling club, where we’d have harbour views and a fun game to play. We’d rotate between stations competing in teams: cooking and eating our own “Masterchef” gourmet burgers, making cocktails, decorating a cake for dessert and playing bowls. It sounded perfect. What could possibly go wrong?

    A week prior and the first red flag showed. I got an email to advise that our event was no longer to be held at the bowling club, but in their “pop-up masterchef kitchen” on a busy main street. It sounded fishy but we’d paid the deposit, and couldn’t have found another venue in December with a week’s notice.

    When we turned up, we discovered that the “pop-up kitchen” was actually an abandoned Cross-fit gym. Think an echoing concrete cell with a ratty curtain dividing it in half. We were then greeted by a dodgy man who called himself “Chef”, who proceeded to take us through four hours of hellish chaos, as we rotated between the following stations:
    • The “bowling” and “darts” corner: A motheaten strip of green carpet with a plastic bowling set, next to a dartboard that was hand-drawn on an old cardboard box and sellotaped to the wall
    • The “cake decorating” contest: Each team was provided with a supermarket bought cake, cans of whipped cream, some inedible and unspreadable garishly coloured “icing”, and toothpicks
    • The “make your own cocktails”. There was only one cocktail option: Sex on the Beach. “Chef” asked if we had any “feminists” present who might object to some “provocative” jokes. Despite our advice that this wouldn’t go down well, he proceeded to make them anyway. The cocktail ingredients were cheap juice mixes and Kristov vodka. If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of drinking Kristov, you should know it’s actually a “vodka flavoured spirit” generally imbibed by 15-year-olds at high school parties. The “cocktails” were stirred in plastic cups. I had found out I was pregnant the day before so had to pretend to take sips while “Chef” said things like “it should be served with sand at the base of the glass… because you always get a sandy bottom”.
    • Finally, the highlight: Making your own “gourmet” burgers. There was no oven, grill, or stovetop in this pop-up kitchen. Instead there were four wonky trestle tables with 3 single gas hobs (for teams of twenty people). There was no ventilation and it was a HOT day. The burger supplies were heaped on the bench, still in their supermarket bags. The pre-prepared meat patties sat out in the heat growing salmonella for four hours. There were some bottles of sauce and condiments, limp lettuce, approximately three tomatoes and one choice of cheap burger buns. Cooking supplies were even more limited: maybe four crappy pans, no sharp knives, a couple of breadboards and a tiny sink in the corner of the room for washing up as we went. People tried their best, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole team had come down with food poisoning. And because it took so long to cook, the last team wasn’t able to eat their “lunch” until 4pm (we had arrived at 11.30). By that point they were keeling over, starving, and mad, and they probably only had a tomato and vege patty to choose from.

    Throughout the ordeal, we had to serve our own warm wine and beer from a makeshift bar on another trestle table, writing down what we’d had on a scrap piece of paper and tallying it up at the end. “Chef” kept running out of supplies and had to make about 5 trips to the supermarket to top up. The only thing that made me feel slightly better about our event was that at least we were at the front of the divided room, so had some natural light. In the back – amidst our cooking smells and smoke – another forlorn christmas party had to stand in the dark completing a wine and cheese tasting session out of plastic bowls.

    At the event’s conclusion, our (brand new) senior leader led a round of applause to thank us for organising the party while “Chef” gave me a VERY close hug. I wanted to sink into the ground. Everyone was a sweaty mess by the end; they were so exhausted that the after-party only lasted another hour. My co-organiser and I snuck out the back door with the one good thing to come out of the party: a bucket full of money to donate to the local women’s shelter.

    When am I organising another Christmas party, you may ask? The answer is Never. Ever. Again.

    1. Miss Curmudgeonly*

      How did this place or these people get good reviews? Was it all a scam, i.e. the nice website and with made-up reviews?

      1. The Christmas Party Nightmare*

        I think the ownership had changed. They used to be based in a proper building, then cowboy chef took it over!

  125. RunnerGirl*

    In the early 2000s I was in university and one year I was doing a co-op placement at a Catholic Organization that ended at Christmas time and was invited to the Christmas party. It was a small staff so was held at a small banquet facility in one of those shared holiday party situations. Multiple small parties shared in the buffet, entertainment, etc. which included a dance floor. The staff was mostly female, and though some were married, no spouses attended the event.

    After dinner the dance floor got going playing crowd favourites including things like YMCA and line dances. However as it would mean women dancing with women the director would not let us get up to dance, my memory is not perfect but I think to the point of trying to block physically us as we got up from the table to hit the dance floor. Having grown up in a more liberal Christian faith, going to youth group dances, I can just remember thinking she was joking, then being shocked when we all, including permanent staff members realized she wasn’t. I wasn’t really in a position where I felt like I could challenge her either. I think we all revolted at one point and got a dance in, but it certainly put a damper on the evening and started to make real to me the implications of Catholic organizations that offer essential, publicly funded programs.

    1. Lucy Skywalker*

      That’s so weird. I went to a Catholic college and we had dances and mixers there all the time.

        1. Lucy Skywalker*

          But in line dancing and YMCA, people aren’t touching each other, so I still don’t see what the big deal is.

  126. BR*

    My husband and I had just bought the healthcare practice we had worked in for about 18 months, the practice had been running for about 15 years.
    We had always heard stories of crazy Christmas parties, but the one we had been to was fairly tame, and we didn’t expect too much from the group of 4 middle aged women who worked there.
    So our first Christmas party, we decided to do drinks and nibbles in the office, nothing too big. Plus I was 8w pregnant, and didn’t want a big party. I thought everyone would have a drink or two and head home.
    So we finished early for the day, drinks started about 3.30pm. About 5pm, all the nibbles were gone, so pizza was ordered. About 8pm, the music was getting pretty loud through the ancient sound system. By 10pm, there was red wine spilled all over the carpet in the waiting room. The party was still going strong at 11pm, when I called it quits to go home and sleep.
    Went back the next morning to clean up to find the doors not locked properly, speakers crackling and hanging off the wall, and the office generally trashed from party mess. I cleaned the place up (despite morning sickness making it even more miserable) organised expensive carpet cleaning over the Christmas break and swore no more parties at the office ever again!

  127. DiplomaJill*

    Oh my. One year one of the owners scheduled an Amazon vacation and missed the holiday party. We had a life size cute out of him made and I brought it to the bar with the private room we were having the party in. Everyone brought “accessories” for the cut out and posed with it. As the night went on the accessories got r-rated and the poses got dirtier. I think the pinnacle was wife of the other owner (also the new business manager) and the office manager (small company, also hr) posed obscenely with the cut out wearing women’s underwear. The vacationing owner was embarrassed but thought it was funny.

    The next year, vacation owner showed up but left early. The party migrated from the restaurant to a nearby strip club where the non Amazon vacationing owner handed out bills to all the employees (men and women) for lapdances.

  128. PurpleHeartRed*

    1500+ person holiday party with catering and open bar. An ever so slightly tipsy Admin was yelling at the VP of HR that the bars had closed without announcing last call. A group of us were standing behind the VP frantically signaling her to stop when we hear WHAM! We all turn to see a 22ish yo engineer face down on the table. Without missing a beat, VP turns around and says “and *that’s* why the the bars are closed!”

  129. Lived through state government*

    I have two. Both state government and both related to charitable giving.

    Two staff, Monica and Joey, are in charge of collection for a local food bank. They have piled the food nicely in a picturesque pyramid in the main lobby and all is going well. Monica noticed that someone (they don’t know who) tried to donate an open and half-empty box of cereal. She tells Joey that they either need to throw it away, take It home, put it in the break room, but cannot donate an open food container. Joey flips out and starts screaming at her that she is trying to “steal food from the hungry”. She starts screaming back. Now they are yelling. Loudly. In a public part of this government building. Once the (public) screaming match is over, Monica storms off but not before she starts kicking over the nicely stacked pyramid of donated canned goods and boxes (a-la Clark Griswold when he can’t get the front lawn Santa to light up.) they both got a talking to and written reprimand.

    Different part of the same agency -Penny Wars. It’s a fundraiser where each team sets out two jars. One is for pennies and the other for all other coins. Your team wins if, at the end, you have more money in pennies than other coins. So you put pennies into your own jar but other change into another groups. Don’t worry the money is all converted into cash/something useful for the actual donation.
    This is taken very seriously and the groups get very competitive. People started bringing in rolls of pennies for their group and rolls of quarters for others.
    One day, someone from Group 1 goes to put a roll of quarters into Group 2’s bucket. Someone in Group 2 has decided He Has Had Enough of not being in first place and physically shoved the first guy into the windowsill so hard that the group 1 guy fractures his arm.
    Group 2 employee is fired and the entire group is no longer allowed to do the Penny Wars.

  130. Nono the Totally Toxic Office Manager*

    I used to work for a professional association that had a totally toxic “office manager” who I’ll call Nono. Nono was always keen to let the front-line staff know that they weren’t important, and holiday time was no different. Every holiday season, Nono would arrange for the most highly paid executives in the organization to receive elaborate, extremely costly gift baskets, while the rest of the staff would get some “cheap-ass” item which cost maybe 5% of the gift given to the execs. Of course Nona made sure to get herself one of the elaborate, costly gift baskets, even though she wasn’t high up in the hierarchy. She was despised by the staff.

  131. JD*

    “The Vibrator”

    Years ago, a department I worked in held an annual holiday party at a local bar/restaurant that always included a White Elephant gift exchange. One year, a newly hired employee who wasn’t starting work until January was invited to attend, so it was the first time most of us met her. One of the gifts opened early on was one of those three-pronged triangle shaped back massagers with a button you could push to make it vibrate. When it was New Employee’s turn to pick or steal a gift, she excitedly shouted, “I’LL TAKE THE VIBRATOR!” A moment of silence followed, then the irrepressible laughter of 35 tipsy people. It went on and on. I have never seen anyone turn so red. Most of us were kind about the incident afterwards and dropped the subject, but a few people couldn’t help themselves and ribbed her about it for months. And of course every year when the holiday party rolled around, someone inevitably brought the story up and shared the details with all the new employees who hadn’t been present for the original incident.

    The story has a happy ending, though; I’m still connected to this individual on LinkedIn, and ten years later, she’s the director of that department! So it didn’t hold her back at all, and I’m sure jokes about the incident have long since stopped.

  132. Infrequent Commenter*

    Christmas 2019 – I attended the department holiday lunch for the company I had joined less than a month before: I barely knew anyone and am a real introvert so didn’t want to go, but I got talked in to it. The head of department bought everyone a drink (I was driving, so just sparkling water for me), then we waited for food. Unfortunately the pub had overbooked itself so the first course took over an hour to arrive, during which time the head of department bought another round of drinks. The second course took even longer to arrive, so more drinks were purchased, then the distribution of the food took ages with multiple mistakes, so people bought more drinks… I left after dessert was finally served about four hours after we arrived, but later heard that some people stayed longer with a bottle of whisky purchased by the head of department, and said head of department had to be helped into a taxi, accompanied home, and poured out of the taxi at the other end as he was so drunk.

    Luckily he was a nice drunk (see paying for multiple rounds of drinks) but he was very sheepish the next time we saw him!

  133. Cadsuane Melaidhrin*

    I used to work for a small company with about 15 employees. Local holiday parties typically start Friday after work, but this year we decided to start early and had dinner at a restaurant at 3PM. We had a fixed budget, being a small company, and had carefully calculated how much we could spend for the restaurant food and still let people drink as much as they wanted, and had found a good compromise that included one glass of the local traditional holiday liquor per person for those who wanted it (very strong liquor, mind you). The owner and CEO was cool with this until everyone had had their glass and asked if we could have more. Of course we could, bring another two bottles! So everyone was very happy and well and truly tipsy at this point (late afternoon). Apart from the hour nothing unusual for a local holiday party.
    After dinner the party moved into town and we calculated that the company could buy another drink per person within the budget, and then everything else was on themselves (this is fairly standard practice here), but when I ran it by the boss (who was beyond tipsy at this point), he said that people should just buy what they wanted to drink and bring their receipts on Monday and get everything reimbursed, no questions asked and no limitations. People loved it and got more beers, but were generally responsible about it.
    Now, for unclear reasons someone had brought a purple unicorn hobby horse that would neigh when you pressed a button and this accompanied us all through the afternoon and evening. It started out with someone taking an occasional picture of the unicorn next to someone, and ended up with pictures of the whole company with the unicorn everywhere, and we needed all combinations of people such as “We haven’t had a picture with the unicorn and Jim and Joe together! This combination must be made!” and also for Jane and Bob, and Jim and Jane and Simon, and on and on. I have no idea what other people in the bar were thinking, but they must have had Questions. Meanwhile, beers kept showing up in people’s hands that they didn’t remember buying but everyone was so drunk at this point that they just brushed it off.
    By 8PM most people went home to sleep after the party of their lives, and those that really partied hard stayed out til 10PM at most, and a good time was had by all.
    When people came to work on Monday and compared notes, we collectively decided that the unicorn pictures would never see the light of day and this would never be spoken of again, and we also realized that no one at work that day could possibly have bought the number of beers that would explain the level of drunkenness that happened, the numbers just didn’t add up. This mystery was only revealed after the New Year when a coworker who started his Christmas vacation early came in with receipts that totaled ten times what any other employee had spent. He had gone from unicorn picture to the bar to get a round, handed off the beers, taken another picture, gone back to the bar and so on until he went home.
    The CEO declared it the best holiday party ever, and people still talk of the legendary holiday party of 2015 though no one who wasn’t there knows exactly what went down. And the unicorn pictures are still a closely guarded secret.

  134. o_gal*

    This wasn’t exactly a party, but it was the closest thing to it that the company ever had. I was interning one Christmas break from college and they had me fill in as receptionist for a short time due to some circumstances. The company did studies for the FDA on drug efficacy.

    We had won some local radio station contest for raising charity funds. The prize was to film us singing carols that would be played on their affiliated TV station’s holiday show.

    That morning I was told that there was going to be an extremely important call coming that morning from a high up person in the FDA and I could NOT miss or mess up this call. It was vitally important that this call be forwarded correctly.

    At the appointed time, all of the available emoyees gathered in the lobby on the stairs about 20 feet from the reception desk, and begin singing and being filmed. Everyone is wearing holiday clothing and silly Santa hats and singing their hearts out. Loudly singing their hearts out. You can tell where this is going, right?

    On cue, phone rings and I absolutely cannot hear the caller. I am crouched under my desk, with the handset crammed against one ear, finger in the other, apologizing profusely that I cannot hear them, and can they call back in 20 minutes when there won’t be 50 people singing loudly 20 feet from me?

    Luckily it was not The Phone Call.

  135. Spencer*

    A few years back we were doing a yankee swap at work. There was a present that got taken a few times including by the person right before me. I decided I was going to take it as is the rules. The person who had it flat out said no, I responded that is not how it works, they said nope i deserve this more than you. They then got upset started crying so I just said fine and kept the gift I opened. I then had many people tell me I was wrong for making a coworker cry. All I did was follow the rules and tried to do exactly what they had just done right before me. I no longer work there, still did for a few years after this. without fail every year people would bring it up, but at least it turned more into a joke about never “swapping” presents with that particular coworker and less about me making them cry.

  136. Maxine McDowell*

    I work in a very conservative, faith based organization (a faith of which I do not practice) that employs a surprising amount of people. The yearly Christmas party is very formal and tends to be an older crowd. Everyone bring their spouses. One year there was a game played where you had to answer questions about yourself and an older gentleman got asked to say something nice about his spouse. When he got the microphone he answered “My wife is the best lover” and everyone just lost it laughing while the couple was a little confused as to why everyone was laughing. The next day he had to send out a company wide email apologizing and that he meant his wife had a big heart with the capabilities of loving many people. It’s still talked about to this day because to that crowd of people, it was seen as quite scandalous.

  137. Joel*

    We have a Christmas raffle every year. Two years ago our deaf employee won the BOSE head phones. He found it funnier than any of us.

  138. JustaTech*

    The first holiday party at my husband’s start us was really small, just dinner with spouses/partners at a nice restaurant. It was a large enough group that there were several tables and all the young programmers (and partners) ended up at the same table.

    Somehow the subject of the 100-question Purity Test came up (NSFW). It had been a common thing to do in college, but one of the programmers had never heard of it and wanted to take it. This being the very early days of the smartphone, he leaned over to the other table and asked to borrow the founder/CEO’s phone so he could take this very sexual, very mind-altering substances oriented “quiz”.

    So not only did we learn some stuff we probably didn’t want to know about my husband’s coworker, but he also didn’t close the website before handing the phone back to the boss.

  139. Entendre Pair*

    One year I bought my boss a pair of unicorn cat socks after she admired mine in a meeting. She returned the favor with a pair with Christmas trees in them that said “let’s get lit!” I should mention here that this woman does not follow slang/pop culture, and I’m positive she did not understand the double entendre.

    Later that day my coworkers and I were discussing the awkward present in the lunchroom (rule 1: don’t do that). Unbeknownst to me, someone from HR overheard the story, and relayed it to that entire department. I had to convince our HR that 1) boss had no idea what the socks meant, and 2) even if she did, I was amused, not insulted. Fortunately they believed me and nothing happened, but I never discussed the socks at work again.

    I still wear them, though.

  140. HotMess*

    My old boss forced us to take a party bus to the suburbs to play drinking games in the house next door to his house. That sounds weird, but he owned both and only lived in one. He claimed that he bought the second house to tear down to increase the size of his yard, but he outfitted it with darts, a pool table, air hockey, table tennis, speakers – definitely was a party house for himself or his kids.

    We were paired up in a random drawing and had to play these games with someone else on the team, who may or may not be competitive and may or may not get increasingly drunk and pissed if you weren’t good at those games.

    One year, a team member ended up hysterically crying and screaming in the backyard and the boss’s wife had to come intervene. That poor woman.

  141. The Witch of Sanity's Annex*

    I work for an answering service, and I have done this same type of work for about the last 12 years in several states. An industry “holiday norm” is that clients will send us food gifts, ie chocolates, fruit&nut baskets, etc.
    These are usually set out in the break room 1 or 2 at a time.
    One year at a service which shall remain nameless, one of our favorite (no, really) clients showed up with not only the usual chocolates-for-all, but $10 local bookstore gift certificates, and gift certificates for a free thing-that-client-did (pressure washing I think?) for each of us.
    Except the chocolates were booze filled. There were only 3 of us working on Xmas Day, and between the chocolates and the lack of callers?
    BEST WORKING XMAS DAY EVER.

    A very long time ago, in a far away place, I worked in a heavy-machinery engine shop. We had the holiday party at the “nice” hotel (small town you understand) spouses welcome, catered, really nice door prizes for everyone ( I still have that comforter!) and games, etc. Please note that I am a woman and was the ONLY woman not in an admin role, but don’t often present as feminine, and back then even less often. We were told to “dress nice, not formal, but nice.” Sigh, OK. Out came the “I hate girl clothes but wedding/funeral/etc.” nice skirt and blouse, makeup, pretty flats, and hairdo that was not the usual bun on top of my head. Also of note is that I went by initials due to there being several ladies in the office part with similar names to mine. Think Kate, Katie, Catherine and Cathy,
    You know you look different when you’re called up to receive an award (silly awards for the most part) and your direct boss says “we were looking for (my initials), not his spouse. ”
    Cue the ENTIRE machine shop howling with laughter. The ladies from the office staring at him like he’d pooped on the podium. The Big Grandboss gaping at him.
    I gave him the 1-minute sign, trotted back to my table, grabbed a pair of safety glasses and walked back up, plopping my hair atop my head.
    He finally got it, and about laughed himself inside out.
    The award was “For being the only lady in a sea of assholes”
    The award came with a set of the Baoding chime spheres. Large ones. In brass.
    And that was the year I got big brass jingle balls for Christmas.

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