SUD OF THE WEEK: Company Holiday Party Crasher

1 day out of every year your company drops the memos and rules of conducts, lifts the velvet ropes and encourages every member of the corporate clockwork, from lowest cog to the chime-ringing CEO, to feel like, to act like they’re “friends”. But in spite of this game of double-think, a man must remember one thing – THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHOM YOU SEE EVERY DAY, MORE THAN YOUR CHILDREN OR YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER; THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DEPEND ON YOU WHEN THEY NEED SOMETHING DONE; AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO DECIDE HOW MUCH AND WHETHER TO PAY YOU.

So the Seemingly Unimportant Decision this week is more of a warning to all men – keep it in the fairway at your company party. Specifically follow the following important guidelines:

1. That chick you always run into in the office kitchen, the one you’ve been flirting with all year – don’t fuck her. At best it’ll make it hard to make eye contact for some time to come or you’ll have a tough time concentrating as she delivers her next presentation with the semi struggling for its place at the conference table as you remember how she looked naked. At worst the whole office will know, ask you how it was, ask her how it was, and the stress and drama will lead her to killing herself; or even worse, if she’s a better performer than you, it could lead to your dismissal, and just when you needed to pay down all those credit cards.
2. Don’t get hammered. It seems like fun, like everybody’s doing it. But the list of shit that can go wrong if you’re hammered is long and frightening:
1. You get into an argument with that asshole at your office, the one who always piggy-backs some smart-ass remark onto anything constructive and funny you say. Nothing ruins a company party – or shows the boss you’re not the team-player he thought you were – like a fight.
2. You boot all over the place. Possibly even on the boss’ $800 Ferragamos. This is the man he wants leading the new expansion project? You’ll never survive Japan.
3. You flirt with the boss’ wife. Don’t remember her from the company picnic and maybe she enjoys fucking with her husband’s underlings as much as he does. You say her tits make you believe in God again and invite her into the coat room. She says no, you wake up with a demotion. She says yes, you wake up unemployed.
4. You show your immature age. Let’s be honest, if you’re under 30 you’re still a kid. Beer pong is still an acceptable weekend activity, an entertainment center is overkill, if you can walk  a path to your bed your room’s considered clean and sometimes when you get hammered you take your shirt off and sing MAKE IT RAIN. Your 50-year-old boss, who may enjoy letting loose by putting on the old boat shoes, taking the sloop out, and enjoying some cris and blowski by sunset with an aspiring Victoria's Secret model or, possibly, his wife, will think perhaps you still have some evolving to do before he can give you a raise and certainly if he gave you money you’d just waste it trying to make your car look all “like the bling”.
3. Office relationships only APPEAR to be different for the night. It’s an illusion. The number 2 guy (or woman) at the company, a few g-and-t’s in, talks to you conspiratorially about how amazing it is you could have a X-mas party after the boss made that bonehead play in Q-3. Best thing you should do? Nod and say something like “Well this party is certainly a good time.” Worst thing? Tell him a list of other stupid plays the boss made on 2011. Because tomorrow #2 will be the man worried that you’re nipping at his heels and the boss’ll know you’re getting all T.O. on his ass. And we all saw what happened to T.O.

So in the end look at it this way – for one night you can loosen your tie. Maybe share a stogie or a drink with the CFO and talk about sports, discover you both have the same alma mater, that you both love THE LEAGUE or some shit. This is acceptable. This gives you something to talk about next time you’re both stuck in the urinal stalls at 11 AM on a Monday. And each year, if you play your cards right, this is when you show you can be their chums as well as their current chums do – that’ll factor into that raise, that promotion, that glowing recommendation, whether said friendship is mentioned specifically or not. But keep it in the fairway, folks. Because if you turn the one night your company hooks you up with free food and booze into
your college CEOs and Secretary Hoes party, middle-management limbo could very well be the name of your unpublished autobiography.

-          - Ryan