Without a Christmas party this year, we’ll have to make do with the memories

Chris Blackhurst has been visited by the Ghost of Work Christmas Bashes Past… well, the ones he can remember, at least

As you rise up the management ladder you greet the idea of the annual ‘do’ with a sense of dread (Getty)

Watching Industry the other evening, I found myself remembering office parties. You know, those things we won’t be going to this year, along with school carol services and the wunderkind who can play to concert standard, and “seasonal drinks” with the bloke who has had “a brilliant year” and wears red cords and a godawful supposedly hysterical jumper as if to prove it, “and how’s yours been?”

Just as the office bash for the boys and girls on the City TV drama was dreadful, I too have been to horrors. We all have. For me, there was the advertising agency bash where they covered the entire carpet right through the building in plastic sheets, so we were all slipping and sliding from all the spilt drinks. Even the stairs were shrouded so we had to cling on to the rails for dear life as torrents of lager and ad execs came tumbling down.

At least that was a party. I can also recall the City “do” where we stood around making polite chit-chat. The “crack” consisted of listening to the senior partners regaling us with how they would soon be flying off to their Caribbean villas or ski chalets. Lovely.

Or there are the ones that turn into counselling sessions in which someone takes you off, away from the throng, and pours their heart out about some aspect of their life and you’re left flummoxed – not sure about what you’ve heard. Your brain is a whirr – from the alcohol, what you’ve just heard and the knowledge that you’ve been spotted huddled together in the corner of the room so questions will be asked. Still, you’re glad to have been admitted to their inner circle – a feeling that only lasts until you discover they’ve told others the same tale and in fact you were down the list.

The dinners where there is no seating plan and you find yourself stuck on a long table with the person you’d never voluntarily sit next to

In the cold light of the following day, on your way in, you’re wondering what to do about it. Then, to compound your confusion, you meet them in the lift or by the coffee machine and they make no reference to what they said. There was one person who told me something about herself at the office party and continued the conversation – a year later at the office party.

As you rise up the management ladder you greet the idea of the annual “bash” with a sense of dread. You just know that as the evening wears on, and the booze kicks in, someone – and you damn well know who – is going to have a go about their salary, or why they’ve been overlooked for promotion again, or why you got rid of their best friend, and you’re going to wish you were somewhere else.

I’ve had the ones where people have been packed off home in taxis, absolutely smashed, those where drink was thrown deliberately, the ones with tears and shouting. Only once can I recall actual fisticuffs, and it was more a case of tiredness and emotion than real animosity, and sure enough by the end of the night, they were dancing together arms linked. Awful.

Those where the boss has proved they can only have a script to speak to their staff, they can’t do from the heart with meaning without writing it down and rehearsing over and over. Worse, they then show they can barely read by pausing in all the wrong places and killing the payoff they’ve been going over and over, the punchline that’s so funny it will get them all roaring – except now it doesn’t. The ones where the toadies are keen to ingratiate themselves so they’re desperate to say something, only forcing more toadies to follow suit, until it starts to feel like one horrible, gory “I’m so grateful, aren’t we all wonderful”, mutual love-in.

Many, where the bosses haven’t turned up – one where nobody from senior management was present at all. That put us in our places, made us understand, like Downton, there was above stairs and below stairs and we were very much below.

The dinners where there is no seating plan and you find yourself stuck on a long table with the person you’d never voluntarily sit next to, let alone have dinner with, ever. There’s a reason why you’ve barely exchanged a word with them but here you are, trapped for two to three hours. Further along, people appear to be enjoying themselves, but you’re snared. That will teach you to arrive fashionably late. Except if you do get there on time and plonk yourself down in the middle, thinking you’re guaranteed to be OK, that the folk who are the best company will sit in the next seats, you may be forced to watch as they choose to go elsewhere, and you’re left, obviously marooned.

The dinners where there is a plan and you spend the meal trying to work out why so-and-so is sitting there, and you get confirmation of the colleagues who are regarded as the rising stars and seated close to the chief, and it’s not you.

No, seeing Industry brought it all back. These, after all, were the occasions I can remember. The best were the parties of which I have no memory. Lord knows what they were like or what I did. But they were good, I think.