The office party is a place to keep your knickers on

Hey, little Annie, wanna sit on my lap? I bet you’ve been a naughty girl, but Santa has got something nice for you.”
I couldn’t believe it: Santa Claus had made a pass at me. It was 35 degrees outside and Santa smelt of sweat and mothballs. Worse still, he had backed me into a corner and was breathing beer traces on my face. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. The last time I’d been up close and personal with the man in red, I was all of seven years old and he certainly hadn’t acted like this.
As he closed in on me, I wondered what was the best course of action. Should I make a run for it, knee him in the balls, or just laugh it off? Sure, chances were that if I gave Santa a little present, he’d make sure there was something extra special under the tree for your’s truly that year, perhaps even a promotion. See, Santa also just happened to be my boss…
Welcome to the office Christmas party. Depending on where you work, it’s an event that can be a minefield to navigate. In some places, Christmas parties are a staid affair, involving dinner, a glass of wine, polite conversation and a trip home to bed, alone. Or so I hear. Most of the ones I’ve been to have been somewhat more amusing affairs.
I was a mere slip of a girl when the above incident took place. It was the first office party I had ever attended and it was an eye-opener. The food was good and the drinks were free, so everyone was eating and quaffing like it was the last days of the Roman Empire. Until that time, I had always regarded my boss with a mixture of awe and fear. After the Santa incident, I was forced to see him in an entirely different light.
Of course he was wrong to proposition a junior staff member less than half his age, but what was worse was that he didn’t take the rejection well – and come the New Year, I was forced to look for a new job.
Some offices are hotbeds of sexual tension. After all, it’s not unusual to be attracted to the people we work with. We spend every day with them, we know if they are smart, how they act under pressure and if they have a sense of humour. For many people, particularly in large companies, work seems to be the best bet for meeting potential sexual and romantic partners. Although some firms have strict rules in this regard, many turn a blind eye or are not concerned about what the staff members get up to after hours.
Romantic involvements with colleagues present special challenges. It can be hard to separate your work from your personal life. You rarely get time apart. And, in addition, you inevitably find yourself the topic of much office gossip. Despite these difficulties, people can and do make office relationships work. But while having an office romance is one thing, a quick romp with a colleague is quite another.
If you come on to a co-worker, it’s a good idea to make sure that you both want the same thing before proceeding. If one of you is interested in a relationship and the other is happy to call it quits at the end of the evening, trouble will invariably result. However, at an office party, the Christmas spirits are generally flowing freely and inhibitions are at an all-year low, so people tend to throw caution to the wind. The results can be disastrous!
As a general rule, having casual sex with a colleague is a bad idea. Unlike one-night stands in general, you are going to have to face him or her in the cold, sober light of day. If it all went well, fair enough. And in theory there’s no reason why both parties can’t feel suitably invigorated while also being perfectly willing to carry on in a spirit of mutual respect and friendship. If things go wrong, either on the night or afterwards, it can be a real problem, particularly if one of you is higher up the office pecking order. Approach with caution, if at all.
An uninvited come-on to a colleague could land you facing charges of sexual harassment. My friend Paul was forced to take action against a co-worker who repeatedly groped him at social events. At their Christmas party she licked his face and tried to drag him into the toilets. While some men would have been delighted with this, Paul was horrified. He is gay, and despite his protestations, his colleague was determined to ‘straighten’ him out.
If the statistics are to be believed, almost one in four of us does something we regret at the office bash. I know I have – mouthing off at the boss, an ill-advised snog here or there after one too many glasses of wine, and so on. One Christmas I ended up at Dublin airport (but that’s a whole other story), and last year I fell asleep on Mr Stuart Clarke’s couch while the remnants of the HP team carried on carousing around me. Very embarrassing – particularly as I often talk in my sleep.
It’s hardly surprising that so many of us misbehave over Christmas. After all, before the festive season became sanctified as a Christian holiday, it was an opportunity to have some serious fun before knuckling down to face the bleak mid-winter. Nothing wrong with that of course, but mixing business with pleasure, and especially alcohol, can be hazardous.
Have a happy Christmas and enjoy yourself. Eat, drink and be merry, but do so responsibly. Christmas parties are supposed to be a chance to let down your hair, but it might be wiser to hang on to your knickers.b