Office Holiday Parties - A Blog Jog Down Memory Lane

In no order of importance, memory reliability, and with names/identifying details mercifully kept anonymous unless it was something I actually did, which I have no trouble confessing, here is a random sampling of Office Holiday Parties Past:

1. The party where the Chief Financial Officer was so drunk that he fell and broke his wrist while walking home from the party. He told everyone that he'd slipped and fallen in a patch of ice; no one believed this explanation as the night in question was perfectly clear and dry.

2. The occasion when a co-worker and I smoked a joint on the way to the party, which was held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York. Pleasantly be-numbed, we wandered around the giant hotel for a good half an hour looking for the correct ballroom. When we eventually got there, we were so overcome with the munchies that all we did was stand at the buffet and stuff our faces with food. I don't believe I said a word for two solid hours.

3. The "office premises" party where not only did we have a live band playing on the 16th floor (you could hear them in the elevators beginning at the 11th floor), but a female co-worker and I xeroxed our bra-covered bosoms and taped the copies to the CEO's office door. Embarassing to admit, true, but no one but she and I ever knew what we did. Ah, the sweet volatile mixture of copiers and alcohol.

4. The party when a female co-worker literally collapsed from a surfeit of drink and had to be poured into a cab; I rode with her to her apartment, asked the driver to wait, plopped her on her sofa and sped back to the party - in my haste to get her safely home I'd forgotten both my purse and coat. I assured the driver I'd be right back for money and damn if the man wasn't waiting outside the venue for his payment. Got a right good tip he did, too.

5. The company where the official holiday festivities mattered far less than the "after party"; the breathless anticipation of being invited by the coolest group of people to join in the sequence of late night/early morning bar-hopping, securing one the ritualistic day after bragging rights and the mother of all hangovers.

Good times all.