el punal
Well-known member
A couple of years ago there was a brilliant thread about all the disasters, mishaps, naughtiness and general shenanigans that occur at office/staff/firm Christmas celebrations. I’m sure there are loads of hilarious incidents that perhaps you would like to share. I’ll start off by reprising my experience from years ago :
In the 1970s I worked for a national chain of off-licences in their Hove branch. It was decided that there couldn’t be a Christmas staff do before Yuletide as all the shops would be working flat out to sell as much booze as possible. A directive was sent out that the staff celebration would take place in early January as this would be a much quieter period. A Saturday evening was chosen and a well known Brighton hotel would be the venue.
Here’s the good bit! All the branches in the South East were permitted to close at 1.00 pm to allow all staff to travel and arrive in Brighton in reasonable time. Now, the locals, us in Brighton and Hove, had time to kill - what to do? Well, open up a few bottles of wine to get the ball rolling - all done in the back of the shop of course!
Come the appointed hour and everyone arrived at “the well known Brighton hotel” for an aperitif before sitting down for our belated Christmas dinner. Needless to say us locals were in a bit of a sorry state having had a four hour start ahead of the others. The first course was soup, one of the Brighton managers who had been on the brandy all afternoon chose this moment to succumb, he went down face first straight in to the bowl of Mulligatawny soup or whatever had been dished up.
From there on in events just spiralled into drunken chaos. The highlight being a young lad who had just started, going up to the sales director and said “You’re just a f***ing c***!” took a swing at said director, missed and collapsed on to the floor.
Never, ever, again did we have a staff Christmas party - I really can’t think why.
In the 1970s I worked for a national chain of off-licences in their Hove branch. It was decided that there couldn’t be a Christmas staff do before Yuletide as all the shops would be working flat out to sell as much booze as possible. A directive was sent out that the staff celebration would take place in early January as this would be a much quieter period. A Saturday evening was chosen and a well known Brighton hotel would be the venue.
Here’s the good bit! All the branches in the South East were permitted to close at 1.00 pm to allow all staff to travel and arrive in Brighton in reasonable time. Now, the locals, us in Brighton and Hove, had time to kill - what to do? Well, open up a few bottles of wine to get the ball rolling - all done in the back of the shop of course!
Come the appointed hour and everyone arrived at “the well known Brighton hotel” for an aperitif before sitting down for our belated Christmas dinner. Needless to say us locals were in a bit of a sorry state having had a four hour start ahead of the others. The first course was soup, one of the Brighton managers who had been on the brandy all afternoon chose this moment to succumb, he went down face first straight in to the bowl of Mulligatawny soup or whatever had been dished up.
From there on in events just spiralled into drunken chaos. The highlight being a young lad who had just started, going up to the sales director and said “You’re just a f***ing c***!” took a swing at said director, missed and collapsed on to the floor.
Never, ever, again did we have a staff Christmas party - I really can’t think why.
