I am entirely incapable of relaxing at work holiday parties, work happy hours, etc.

the other reason I have a hard time connecting with co-workers is almost all of them are married with kids and I can't relate to either, and when you're married w/ kids, you tend to talk about both a lot (not that it's a bad thing, but I'm a bachelor so I usually get a deer in teh headlights look on either topic)

I staye away from the people I actually worked with and took the opportunity to meet people I rarely encounter (and high-level execs who are otherwise loathe to speak with underlings). Sometimes I did the karaoke bar but that was before my voice badly deteriorated. We always had our Christmas parties at a golf glub where you could rent rooms for the night at the adjoining hotel, which I always did, which dramatically increased the chances I wouldn't be leaving alone.

Christmas party last week was the first time I didn't recognise any of the tunes they played at the disco. RIP my pop life. I have an ok time at these things, really like some of my colleagues and hang out with them IRL, but when it comes to the company-wide events I find it impossible to let go and get trashed, I generally limit my drinking to a couple of pints. This is probably a good thing.

In my department, there are nine "bosses" and each boss has a staff of two attorneys and an AA. Okay.

So we never have an officially sanctioned, work-wide holiday party. But every year, the professional association of lawyers who practice before our agency throw a gross, huge party at a hotel or night club with shitty beer and a band of old lawyers called like "Promissory Estoppel" or something, doing classic rock covers and we can go for free if we want. I went once, saw my future, and never went back.

This year in my department they restarted a tradition wherein the bosses can take their staff out to lunch as a group, which is fine, except that some of the bosses decided they didn't want to pay for lunch for their staff, and there is one attorney who is a "floater" so has no boss to take her out, and a couple of bosses who are in southern IL but whose staff is in Chicago and those bosses are like "I'm not coming to Chicago for lunch" so it's basically three bosses and their staff and the other staffs and the one poor floater are just shit out of luck I guess.

My partied rocked. I did the electric slide.

Party.

I had a pretty good time at my office party this past weekend. At a favorite local Mexican joint, decent food, pretty fun party games that weren't TOO awkward, and I ended the night killing our allotted budget ( use it or lose it! ) with the managing partner, drinking $50/shot tequila. Then I went and jammed with some friends' cover band, and four of my co-workers came out, and the file clerk ( young, but pretty cool dude ) ended up arguing with my noon-work friend of the relative merits of Northern v. Southern California.

Good times!

Obviously, the high-water mark for holiday parties for me was 2001, when I picked my now-wife up at our office party. Great times!!!

wish me luck, y'all

open bar for 5 hours, for better or worse

whoa

for real tho

Lucky. Fucking. BITCH.

Since the department party two (!) weeks ago was a university function, no booze. This is what sucks about a public university.

Oh, you'll be fine. In case things do get wild, the following are things that I have learned are generally frowned upon from attending various work holidays over the years:

- drinking the free wine sitting on the table straight from the bottle
- dancing on a table top
- hooking up with a co-worker out in the open and showing up to work the next day three hours late with mad scratches all over your back and proceeding to show them off
- passing out at the table
- showing your boss you tattoos where doing so means they see an area of your body that they normally would not

(Only actually guilty of one of those - the rest were things I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed.)

One more - starting a fight and taking a swing at a co-worker - don't do that.

holy hell dude--pace yourself!

Just because there is free booze available for five hours doesn't mean you have to drink free booze for five hours.

As I'm posting that I realize how alien that would have sounded to me as little as six years ago.

Also do ppl who lose it completely at office parties never drink? I mean… have some dignity.

Me either. I had my work Christmas party a few weeks ago and I just wandered around aimlessly, stoned and kinda drunk, not talking to anyone.

run wild, run free imo. be magnificent out there

drink like the wind!

Also do ppl who lose it completely at office parties never drink? I mean… have some dignity.

Combination of:

- free booze
- nervousness/excitement at drinking free booze with people you don't usually see after 6 pm on Fridays.

even booze you have to pay for will get you fucked up if you drink it right, pro tip

open bar for 5 hours, for better or worse

liveblog it

damn I guess this free food/booze thing really happens at everyone's office parties except mine, right ;_;

i ended up leaving with bottle of patron *kanye shrug*

Somebody told me last week that Siete Leguas is the real Patrón

You walked out of a bar with a bottle of Patron? You have had a week.

well it was a secret santa thing, but still

pour it out for your 'fins