The Office Christmas Party Review

Fix Bar, location for the Christmas Party. I didn't sit down all night.

I have now been at Fosters for just under two months and have had the chance to form some friendships within the company, mostly with the other members if my team. Considering the work I do can sometimes get repetitive, the group around me is great and we keep each other entertained throughout the day with conversations about general rubbish and general office talk. This week was the first week that I had settled into a good routine so the timing of the Christmas party was perfect. Sufficed to say as the night wore on my status in the company as one of the “rookies” was coming into the fore as I found myself floating in and out of conversations and really having no idea what to talk about with other people.

This is one of the traps of the staff Christmas Party, it is a event where work related conversations are en masse that if you don’t have sufficient stories to keep the night going on then what else do you talk about? Unless you are talking about work related social events no one really wants to know who you are or what makes you tick. That’s what I don’t like about Christmas parties as I think it’s a chance to get to know your workmates better but you never really get the chance do you? There was one girl who I’d never seen before who asked me what I did before Fosters and the look of astonishment on her face when I told her that I was a kindergarten teacher in Hong Kong actually showed that she wanted to talk about something other than “then this customer wanted the 04’ vintage but all we had was the 05’ and boy were they pissed” yet I lost her in the crowd after she had to 'excuse herself to go to the bathroom' which i took as 'i'm not interested in that so bye'.

Also it seems most people know me by my last name then my first which is great for them as “Pepper” is a pretty easy name to remember but when someone shouts out “Pepper!!!” at the top of their voice and I turn and have no idea it makes me look silly.Yet they are entitled to belt out my last name in the same way that people who have known me since primary school can. Perfect example, the office hottie was working beautifully on the bar with a few of her colleagues and I was walking past when she shrieked “Pepper!!” Considering she hasn’t spoken a word to me at all since I started I was surprised that she actually knew my name. So I naturally stopped and was waiting for her follow up which was this "that's such a funny last name" as she giggled and slightly lost her footing off one leg which i out down to the number of empty shot glasses on the bar. I get that sentence all the time when other people are pissed. I think I should change my last name to “Captain Fantastic.”

Also with staff Christmas parties is the certainty that when “finger food” is provided, you usually end up eating your own finger because you are bloody starving. I have never liked finger food because with my tendency to enjoy food until I’m full I just can’t nibble on two party pies and call that an adequate snack. So if I reach in and take a few items off the tray fully knowing that it won’t come around again for the rest of the night does that make me look like a pig in front of the other staff? It’s these and other things that make most Christmas parties either a success or a failure. Our big boss of the department came along and I decided to stay right away from her as I knew the “so how have you settled in?” chat would have been bought out to play. As the night wore on at Fix, the beverages kept coming and I was starting to get bored talking about work stuff so I decided to go to another companies Christmas Party in the next partition and say hi. Considering I spent half the night between the two parties shows that not only were the people from the Product Makers (they make flavors) very nice but the people who I work with just didn’t fill my interest quota from the night.

I was walking around the bar as groups of employees were talking away about stuff I couldn’t be bothered with and I knew that they were going to kick on afterwards but considering the Docks were on “my” side of town I was going to go home from there. I decided to have one bourbon and cola before going home. I had had beer all night so when I put my glass down on the table and turned back to someone to finish a sentence I turned back and between me and the table was a guy so I reached around him and had a sip as my….ewwww it was tequila. I had picked up the wrong drink. Needless to say it had an immediate impact and I had to get out of the party. It was a nice night but it was just a run of the mill event and i called Sab as I was staggering along the waterfront because I wanted to talk to her. Even I have my limits of verbal conversation in an office environment and I just wanted to have a good (though now I was mildy pissed thanks to the tequila) conversation.

I called Sab saying I had another revelation and that was “Melbourne is a great city to live in as it has everything but it’s not a city to find yourself in.” The taxi ride home felt like an eternity but Saturday morning I wasn’t feeling the best but thanks to Panadol and a large Bacon Double Burger meal at Hungry Jacks I was feeling pretty good in the afternoon. It’s now Sunday morning and I’m in bed writing about Friday nights events and I’m looking back thinking “did I have a good time?” The office Christmas Party is a unique event as it’s not really social yet it’s not strictly business so you can have a good time but not let loose. Still if they had karaoke there, I would have given “Living on a Prayer” a very good crack, luckily they didn’t otherwise I’d hear about it Monday morning. Then again I would have bought the house down in the process!