Historically, I have loathed Christmas parties, and this probably due to the fact that our office Christmas parties in Buffalo were legendary for their awfulness. Commercial real estate offices are generally competitive and rather high stress workplaces to begin with, and as a result, most of the workers in our office would not have chosen to socialize with each other after hours. Insist that all the competitors gather in a social situation, and add alcohol into the mix and one has the recipe for disaster. Frankly, I’ve never really understood the concept of office Christmas parties anyhow. Don’t we see those people for most of the waking hours of our day, and wouldn’t we rather celebrate with friends and family? I used to go out for a beer after work with one or two of my co-workers, but I generally I had little interest in socializing with my entire office in a party setting.
For the last five years of my career as an industrial real estate salesman, when I moved up to Canada, I worked for one of the larger commercial real estate firms in Toronto. Every holiday season, the firm threw a big, fancy, black-tie Christmas party at some fancy club. To the completely unnecessary pomp and ceremony of a black-tie affair, add the over-inflated egos of more than one hundred commercial real estate brokers and salesmen, along with all their staff, and you have the ingredients for an anti-celebration. It was always one of the more uncomfortable social events in which I felt obligated to participate. The last party Shauna and I attended before I left the firm was so bad it was ludicrous. There were long, rambling, self-absorbed speeches by intoxicated, arrogant big shots. As if that was not insufferable enough, in addition to the speeches, some officious organizer had the brilliant idea to tax the limited attention spans of the celebrants by having various salesmen regale the audience with parodies of Christmas carols. I was charged with writing those parodies, which were to include cryptic and amusing references to salespeople and staff. Nothing could go wrong there. I congratulated myself on my diplomacy in somehow managing not to offend too many attendees with the subject matter. Nevertheless, in an event which was already running very late, these unrehearsed “performances” of my parodies were abysmal. Everyone just wanted the whole thing to be over, including Shauna and I, but the there was one final nail to be hammered into the coffin. The grand finale of this disastrous Christmas party fiasco was the performance of a very inebriated secretary singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. She was so hammered she could hardly stand up and, amidst the horrified, stunned (and silent) audience of 150+ attendees, this woman blundered her way through her performance during what seemed like an eternity. Shauna and I desperately fought to stifle our uncontrolled guffaws, and it might have been the most embarrassing performance I’ve ever witnessed in public. Keep in mind, I’ve attended hundreds of open mics.
I don’t know why Christmas is notorious for these obligatory and insincere celebrations. To all of you who enjoy your workplace holiday celebrations, I don’t mean to rain on your parade. Far be it from me to judge how you celebrate. My problem, especially with Christmas celebrations, is that the enforced routine frequently becomes an unpleasant obligation. Aren’t holiday parties supposed to be fun?
That said, the afore-mentioned annual holiday gathering down the lake which Shauna and I attended last weekend was great fun. Nobody got too hammered, nobody said horribly inappropriate things, and the spirit was one of community and good will. I think you will agree that when you find yourself loathing an annual social encounter, it’s time to find a better, more joyful way to spend the holidays.
Jamie Oppenheimer, Songwriter, Author,
Blogger, Radio Producer, & Host has been writing THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
every MONDAY since 1992 and has published the articles on his blog since 2006.
We are including Jamie's weekly reports, as a feature of #HuntersBayRadio, The Bay 88.7FM.
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