Partying Is Such Sweet Sorrow
Tales of holiday office gatherings gone bad

By Amy Joyce
Thursday, November 23, 2006

TRINA RAND WAS ALL DECKED OUT, husband in tow, at her new employer's annual holiday party. The formal, sit-down dinner for the employees of the international economic consulting firm was being held in a private room at the swanky downtown restaurant Galileo, and Trina was excited. This was much grander than other holiday parties she had been to when she worked for a laid-back nonprofit.

After eating and socializing, the attendees started to play the annual company gift exchange game. Each employee brought a gift and then was called to the front of the room to pick up another one of the wrapped packages. Before unwrapping it, that person had to try to guess what was in the package, or could trade it for an already unwrapped package.

When it was Trina's turn, she made her way to the front to pick her gift. Her husband, "an outgoing and oft-irreverent South African" who'd had a few drinks, took that moment to shout out, "I hope it's lubricant!"

The party stopped, and all Trina's new co-workers and bosses fell silent. Trina says she "wanted to melt into the carpet." After what seemed like an eternity, the crowd began to giggle. Trina took her gift and assumed her career was ruined. "The Washington corporate world tends to be a little different than everywhere else," she says. Her husband didn't get that so much. "He was like, 'Whatever. People just need to chill.'"

It's six years later, and Trina is now an independent consultant but still working with her old employer. In fact, she attended a business dinner with her former co-workers not long ago. There, some of the consulting firm's newer hires were treated to the tale of her office party humiliation.

LOTS OF PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD TO THEIR ANNUAL OFFICE HOLIDAY PARTIES. They get to hang out with their favorite co-workers, chat with higher-ups they never knew and meet colleagues they haven't talked to beyond "tnx" e-mails. Sometimes they even bond with a personality-challenged supervisor or an annoying cubicle mate.

For others, however, holiday office parties often are best enjoyed after the function is over, when, come Monday morning, the nation's office workers can rehash the detritus. If you've ever wondered: Yes, it's true. The big bosses really do talk about your performance at the party.

A former executive in the Northern Virginia technology industry admits that she and two other colleagues used to spend a few minutes holed up in one of their offices the Monday after the holiday party. To anyone passing by, they looked as though they were discussing serious matters. But what they were actually doing was quietly creating their very own Holiday Party Academy Awards: Most Indiscreet. Drunkest. Sluttiest Dresser.

"Did it hurt anyone's career?" this woman asked recently. "Oh, I don't know. Sometimes you don't know those things" until later.

But therein lies one of the big problems with the office holiday party. Your performance at this should-I-let-my-hair-down or stay-buttoned-up party matters. If you don't go, your boss might think you're not a "team player." You may also miss out on a chance to woo the big boss or hear a compliment that you might not collect in Cubicle-Land. But if you do go, management experts say, be careful.

"The advice I was given when I started working was: When you go to an office party, your job is to ensure that the next day you have a job," says Clay Parcells, a regional vice president with Right Management Consultants. So far, he has held onto his job. But he has heard plenty of tales of office parties run amok. Among his favorites: people who drank too much at the "dry" holiday party thrown (and subsequently shut down) by a Mormon boss, and employees who were caught smuggling bottles of wine out of a party. "People just act very weird," he says.

Randstad USA, a staffing organization, sends a memo to its employees every year as party season rolls around, and advises them to be professional at events within the organization and out in the community. "As a reminder, the celebration is a company-sponsored event, and as such, all company policies are in effect," the memo reads. "Party attire means no jeans. Encourage your teams to dress appropriately for a company-sponsored celebration!"

Genia Spencer, Randstad's managing director of operations and human resources, says, "One of my colleagues here always says at the beginning of party season that you won't make your career at the company party, but you can easily lose it."

It is a party, after all, so naturally, people let their guard down. That's usually a mistake. "The fact that it's fun is deceptive," says Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychoanalyst and adviser to chief executives. "And that's what makes it so dangerous."

LAST YEAR, REBECCA AND HER COLLEAGUES, who work for a nonprofit in Washington, dutifully trudged out to Northern Virginia to attend a holiday party being thrown by a vendor. "It really helps with the relationship," she says of why they make the effort to go. "We get to know them on a personal level."

Sometimes a little too personal.

At the party, a small group had congregated to do the usual "so what does your company do?" networking routine. The group started regaling each other with workplace horror stories, trading anecdotes about interns showing up for work in tube tops and other inappropriate office wear. That's when the vendor's wife suddenly jumped in: "Yeah, people like that get what they deserve," she said. "Just like those people in New Orleans!"

The conversation halted, and the co-workers looked at one another trying to discern whether it was a joke. But no, the woman went on. Dregs of society. Poor. No wonder they got stuck there in the hurricane.

Then the vendor himself came over to join in the conversation. He did not cut off his wife's rantings. "I estimate that guy lost about five clients that night," says Rebecca, who didn't want her last name used because she didn't want to compromise her relationship with other vendors. "We haven't used him since."

THOSE WHO ARE ASKED TO HELP PLAN A HOLIDAY PARTY sometimes wind up feeling as though they are stuck in the middle of a bad episode of the TV show "The Office."

Jen Teal worked for a federal agency's field office last year and was asked to help plan a lavish off-site party for the employees and their spouses at a local hotel. ("Not funded by the tax dollar, mind you," she says.)

The big boss wanted her to book a deejay. So she found one that had a Web site where people could enter song requests. To make sure the workers would have fun at the party, Jen publicized the Web address in the office so everyone could select the songs they wanted to dance to in the hotel ballroom. And they did: "Friends in Low Places," "Hot in Here" and "Get the Party Started."

A few days went by, and Jen was called into the big boss's office. He was livid about the playlist. He said the songs were crude and obnoxious, and asked Jen to overwrite all the selections and replace them with his preferences. "He wanted a 'Sopranos' soundtrack. Lots of Sinatra, 'Mack the Knife' and 'Cotton-Eyed Joe' because he knew a dance to it," she remembers.

Jen knew that if she changed the songs to the boss's choices, no one would dance, and she would be blamed for the party's lameness.

"You never disagree with the big boss in person," she says. She agreed to fix the playlist, but then waited until after the deejay had burned CDs with the employees' selections so it would be too late to change the party music.

On the night of the party, everyone seemed to have a great time, Jen says, including the boss. The workers danced; the boss danced. And unlike so many office parties, people didn't just stop in, make their formal hellos, and move on. They closed the place down.

But come Monday, Jen was called into the boss's office again. "He was upset that we had too good of a time, and it wasn't professional for us to all behave like that."

Her lesson? "With certain personality types, you can't win." She has moved on to another agency. And although she has helped organize smaller office holiday parties, she has one thing to say about getting involved in a big shindig that the boss is micromanaging: never again.

IT'S NOT ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT when an office party goes bad.

Trish Navarro and her then-boyfriend were new college graduates when he landed a great job at a Washington think tank. When he was invited to the holiday party at his boss's Kalorama home and told the night would feature a white elephant gift exchange, Trish jumped at the chance to join in.

Off they trotted to Wal-Mart to find the perfect gag gift.

The night of the party, Trish noticed that everyone else was 10 to 15 years older than they were. Serious-looking. Dressed professionally. It was not the kind of party she was used to. "Every party we had been to before had been a kegger," she says.

When the white elephant exchange started, out came funky paperweights, ugly kitten calendars. Then it came time for their gift. One of the older analysts sat down to open it, and Trish could barely keep a straight face. In the package: A "rutting buck call" -- a small plastic tube that emits a noise that's supposed to attract does for use in hunting season. The box featured a cartoon of a deer with bulging, "I really want her bad" eyes.

Trish and her boyfriend burst into laughter. But no one else did, Trish recalls. A rutting buck call, it turned out, was not what the white elephant exchange was about.

Two months later, Trish's boyfriend was fired, she says. It wasn't a result of the party, though the rutting buck call probably didn't help. Her remaining consoling thought? It could have been worse -- they almost brought deer urine.

WHEN PEOPLE THINK OF OFFICE PARTIES GONE WRONG, the first thing that comes to mind are alcohol-induced debacles. But in the Washington area, holiday potlucks are also a rich source of complaint.

When Jeannie Willis was in law school several years ago, she worked for a medium-size firm in Bethesda, where the bosses decided that year's holiday party should be toned down. Previous parties were nice events, held at a local restaurant, where the employees were treated to lunch.

But this year, it was to be a potluck affair. As is so often the case, the assistant and secretary types took it upon themselves to try to make it nice. Everyone brought their best homemade foods, candy and cookies, and decorated the office.

Then in walks the big boss. "You know, the one with his name FIRST on the door," Jeannie says. His contribution: a Ziploc bag full of crusty cheese cubes that looked as if they'd sat out all night at another party.

Instead of perking up morale with a potluck lunch, Jeannie says, the law partner truly deflated the office.

But sometimes it's not the boss who's the problem. Meet Washington attorney Deborah Golden. She's dating Katie Feiock, another local attorney.

When Katie's boutique law firm held its annual holiday party last year, she decided to ask Deborah to come. It was the first time the relatively private Katie had brought a girlfriend to a work-related event. So Deborah was anxious to begin with. She took forever looking for the right dress. She called friends with worry. She even packed her emergency allergy medicine.

The two got to the party looking fabulous. It was a dressy affair ("Let's just say I wore a mink stole, and it didn't seem unusual," Deborah says) held at Washington International School.

Deborah helped herself to some ravioli. Unfortunately, the ravioli had apple in it. Deborah wonders the same thing you're thinking: Who puts apple in ravioli? And yes, that would be what Deborah is so deathly allergic to. She had to run to the bathroom to make herself throw up. Next, she tripped on the stairs and broke both of the three-inch heels on her shoes. Katie promised no one saw, but Deborah knew better.

After that humiliating scene, Katie quietly led Deborah to a corner table and handed her a drink. Deborah tried to lighten the moment, blurting out to her girlfriend: "All I've got going for me tonight is this great cleavage." But the comment came out of her mouth just as the music stopped and there was a lull in conversation. Everyone sitting near them heard and laughed out loud at Katie's nauseated, broken-heeled, cleavage-revealing girlfriend.

"Luckily, she wasn't fired, and she still fell in love with me," Deborah says. "I'm just not sure I'll be invited to this year's party."

Amy Joyce writes about workplace issues for The Post. She can be reached at joycea@washpost.com.