Of all the aspects of my job that fill me with dread – and as a senior female executive in the sexist financial world there are quite a few – there is one horror like no other.
It happens every year without any problem and what makes the whole farrago so much harder to bear is that some poor fools actually believe it’s fun.
Yes, I’m talking about the Office Christmas Party (OCP). Let me tell you that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that even comes close to the exquisite torture of this event.
No outrage from the CEO. Not even a failed deal or a lost customer. Living on pizza and coke – the soft drink variety – late at night to seal a deal? Not even close. And to add another layer of irony, while I’m experiencing the whole charade, I have to pretend to enjoy it.
It hasn’t always been this way. As Mail columnist Sarah Vine says, the point of the OCP was to blow off steam, hang out with someone you secretly liked, tell the bosses what you thought of them and generally surrender to bad behavior. What could be better? It was as guiltyly enjoyable as a raunchy episode of Rivals.
Not anymore. Apparently half of all UK businesses are canceling Christmas parties due to cost concerns and HR concerns. A new worker protection law means employers could face unlimited fines if staff get frisky during the festive celebration.
How joyless – but in the financial sector the real glory days of the OCP faded with the great crisis of 2008. Before then, excesses were expected, if not encouraged. After that turning point we had to walk around and pretend we were wearing hair shirts. Covid did the rest.
Today the OCP, if it even exists, is just another way to climb the fat pole or stay on the fat pole in yet another economic downturn caused by our Labor masters.
Half of all UK businesses are reportedly canceling Christmas parties due to cost and HR concerns
The only reason not to abolish our OCP completely is to lose face. At my company, each department has its own job, and discontinuing it would be taken as a sign that our team has had a bad year.
And that would be tantamount to handing ammunition on a plate to my male competitors. We’re talking about men who talk over me, interrupt before I’ve barely gotten a word in, or insist on addressing my (admittedly impressive) cleavage instead of having a conversation.
I certainly don’t want so many people speculating and hanging around like vultures. Plus, I may not like the Christmas festive season, but I’m good at it. This is less the season of goodwill than a time when subtle maneuvers to defeat the opposition – both within my own company and beyond – come into their own.
In my experience, women are far more adept than blunderbusses at the dark art of social calculation. Like many of us, if we’re honest, I honed my skills in school. Most of the girls in Form 4A were mistresses of humiliation and passive aggression. Forty years later, it all comes in very handy.
My work is very social, not just in December. No matter the time of year, when I’m at an event, I have a game plan. My goal is always the same: show as much status and power as possible and do business.
I want to sit on the top table, next to the most important man – it’s almost always a man – in the room. That’s where being a woman is an advantage for once. There are so few of us that the mere fact of my femininity often gets me the best seat, even though I am not the oldest. It doesn’t matter that I’m put there for decorative reasons or to give an impression of ‘diversity’ – once I’m there, I’ll make money from it.
Yes, it’s all a bit strange at its core, but success in my profession depends as much on knowing the right people as it does on mastering the numbers. If I didn’t care about things like the OCP, I’d be in the wrong job.
We all act as if the Christmas party is a chance to relax and bond with colleagues. In reality, every detail, no matter how small, is calibrated to send signals to the team and the rest of the company.
“Christmas is a high-stakes political theater where everyone plays a role, whether they realize it or not, and the denouement can be explosive,” writes one finance executive.
It starts with the choice of location. Just choosing something very expensive would be a sign that you had a good year, which may or may not be true. But that’s not enough.
The place has to be chic, yes, and also just edgy enough to show that you’re au courant without being in a real Hackney.
Then in my case there is the cost and nightmare of the party outfit, a headache reserved for female executives. It has to be glamorous, but professional enough to scare off men who are drunk or crazy enough to take their chances.
Then there’s the seating plan. This is a work with intricate choreography, designed to make it clear to everyone whether or not they are in favor.
In other words, it’s high-stakes political theater, where everyone plays a role, whether they realize it or not, and the denouement can be explosive.
Failure to understand this reality can be catastrophic. A few years ago, when I was number two in another department, my then-boss mentioned that the head of a rival team had suggested organizing a joint Christmas party.
I instinctively protested and warned against doing such a thing, which I interpreted as the first step in a likely power grab. My former boss thought I was paranoid.
It soon turned out that my suspicions were completely justified. The entrapment of our party turned out to be the opening salvo of an attempted coup. The intruder was ultimately unsuccessful, although he caused much anxiety before leaving to try his tricks again elsewhere.
The outrageous antics that used to make the OCP a guilty pleasure are now just gigantic risk factors that make the event nerve-wracking for any boss.
Nowadays people are more careful, but there is still the risk of bad behavior after the fourth or fifth glass, or a surreptitious line of coke – yes, it still happens.
The only difference between now and the 1990s is that people could get away with more back then.
I still remember a party in the mid-nineties, when a very chic and polite former colleague walked home unsteadily. He took a shortcut through a city alley, where he came across – literally – two asset managers, both married, having vigorous outdoor sex.
In true British fashion, he apologized to them, although he couldn’t resist spreading it around the office the next day. After all, kindness has its limits. Everyone thought it was very funny and the couple became an official item.
At a party on a boat on the Thames, also in the 1990s, an important client in her early 50s got drunk, started daddy dancing and then pulled down the breast tube of a much younger female guest, who was not wearing a bra underneath. . There was a lot of gossip about it, but it had no consequences, although it should have.
At another event, a money manager went crazy and decided it would be a good idea to find out what two Scottish guys were wearing under their kilts. The answer revealed itself in the form of boxer shorts, which he seemed to find disappointing as he proceeded to slap their bottoms quite hard. They weren’t happy about it, but officially no one complained.
Some veterans in our industry seem not to have noticed the wave of unrest that has engulfed just about everything.
This includes one of our most senior executives who insists on speaking at every Christmas event.
Over the years he has managed to upset everyone. His gems include speculating about who will be the first person to be fired in the new year and suggesting one woman had a shotgun wedding. But it has become an annual ritual where people look forward to being insulted, just like the unfortunate guests of the late Dame Edna Everage.
My worst moment personally was in the 1990s when another rather old-fashioned guy who used to be on the team drew my name in Secret Santa.
He left, he went to Ann Summers and bought me a merkin. I unwrapped the package in front of everyone at the OCP, revealing a triangle of nylon down strung onto a thong.
Determined not to show shame as everyone roared with laughter, I pretended to be amused.
Yes, I was offended. But if you can’t scandalize your colleagues, friends and family at Christmas, when can you? December in the city is no time for snowflakes. See you at the party…
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