Sorry -- can't make it. Whatever night it is I'll be washing my hair

Some people like to rock some people like to roll
But movin' and a groovin' gonna satisfy my soul
Let's have a party ooh let's have a party

One of the really pleasant aspects of not having a full-time job is that I will never-ever have to undergo the rigors of an office party at any time.

Christmas season is, for whatever reason, the time of the hideous gathering of co-workers at all levels in the business hierarchy, throw them all in an assembly place, ply them with huge quantities of booze, feed them with crappy rubber-chicken meals, punctuated with assorted hors d’ouevre (hors de combat, I say) and demand that they have a good time with one another.

In the first place there is a fatal flaw in the scenario. The assumption is that everybody that works together wants to play together. Nonsense. I have always had colleagues who became friends, and I would socialize with them, regardless. As for the rest, they were just colleagues. In fact, and this is invariably the case, I didn’t even like some of them.

The merriment of Mr. Fezziwig’s jolly Christmas party is a piece of Dickens fiction, not real life. And the fact that such gatherings are de facto 'compulsory' makes the concept even ghastlier.

In the second place, there is an assumption that there is something ‘matey’ and democratic about killing the pecking order so that folk can have fun together. This is balderdash. The boss is still the boss even if he/she well into his/her cups tells a subordinate all the sordid details of said boss’s personal life. Come Monday the subordinate will find that the old order has not changed at all. This moment will be especially poignant for the dude who decided at the party it might be cool to put moves on Mr. Big’s 20-years-younger bimbo wife.

I had a female subordinate at my newspaper who, there is no question, ‘liked’ me. I never gave her any encouragement in that direction, and I honestly liked her and respected her in a boss-subordinate manner. She was talented and accomplished at what she did.

But, at the annual Christmas party she would drink. She and alcohol were not a good combination. When she got drunk she would decide it was high time she declare her passion for me. Indeed, she would even try to demonstrate her passion for me. She would ask me to dance and grind her pelvic bone into me and try to wetly kiss me at every chance she got. In fact, she was so overt that my wife of the day wasn’t even offended because she knew my colleague was drunk and meant no threat. I, however, found it a tad embarrassing. Being publicly humped by a co-worker in open view does tend to mortify. Even in private, if such attentions are unsought, it's distressing.

Of course, come Monday she would be filled with remorse and apologize profusely. I would always be forgiving and tell her there was no cause for concern. I would say that because I wanted to keep her as an assistant and also because I knew that next year the scenario would be re-enacted. Kind of in the nature of parties, alas.

Those particular parties were back in the days when I still hoisted a few. Though even then, as a mid-manager, I was always pretty circumspect about my consumption at office parties just so I didn’t make a buffoon of myself and give people something (more) to gossip about. When I began seeing the female colleague who was to become my second wife they already had mucho fodder for gossip.

(Someday, by the way, I’ll write about how office romances – even when the parties are unencumbered by spouses etc. – are never-ever-ever a good idea.)

Later, when I quit drinking about 12 years ago, workplace shindigs became truly obnoxious. And, more than that, they became horribly boring. This only led me to believe they had always been boring and people only drank too much to alleviate that reality. Imposed merriment never works.

Yet still, the parties go on. Yet still people get polluted, make passes at those they shouldn’t, fool themselves that they are having a grand time and then, well over the limit, they get into their vehicles and drive home.

Hopefully they get there.