Work's meals and parties - do we have to..?

[clarion]

Not sure they make stationery cupboards that big, sweety

[Regulator]

Not sure they make stationery cupboards that big, sweety

 

[rogerzilla]

Our budget has been capped at £35 for all the time I've been here (18 years), so it's either rubbish, we have to pay, or (normally) both.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Blimey, paying to go to the company Chrimbo meal? Sod that, I wouldn't go.

It's different in the public sector. Can you imagine the Daily Wail if my employer paid for all 20,000 staff to go on a Christmas night out? Even if they only gave £20 per person, that's still - well, maths I can't do. £400,000?

[andyoxon]

On the basis that there is no such thing as a free lunch - perhaps you get to enjoy it more if you've paid for it.  How's that for faulty logic...

[docsquid]

I never enjoyed ours.  Mr DS's were paid for by his old employer until they went bust, and were mediocre - you could predict exactly who was going to get drunk and could even place bets on the time to collapse of a number of employees.

Being retired, I am spared this.  Even better, we're going skiing for Christmas and won't have to worry about Christmas dinners at all.

[Gandalf]

I haven't been for years, I'm afraid being vegan the food side of things is too much of a war of attrition with which I can no longer be arsed.

I'm also mildy irritated that for those of us who don't jump at the chance to go out to eat mediore food and get bladdered, there is no alternative.  I'd be quite happy with a book token or a Wiggle voucher of equivalent value to that spent on alchohol.

[bobajobrob]

Our typical work night out, all paid for by the company:

Start off with a curry and some beers. Go to bar then to nightclub, several rounds of drinks. Carry $boss back to his hotel and order shorts and cigars on his tab, while he passes out. Leave at about 4 am.

[ian]

I mean I can understand the bar not being free,   

I can't.   

Me neither. Our parties even have waiters to bring those drinks directly to us. I don't work all year to have to queue for my own drinks, oh no.

[teethgrinder]

I'll go to mine. I wouldn't go if I had to pay for it though.
But, it's free grub and the people I work with are all OK. I always try and sit with the ladies from the office. All on diets and fussy eaters. That means plenty of leftovers, so I usualy have a queue of plates to work my way through
I don't bother with the drinking though. I just have a few then go home and leave them to get bladdered. They always feel shit the next day.
I usualy liberate the unused bottles of wine too. The warehouse manager and I worked together one year. I cycled home with about 6 bottles of wine stuffed up my coat one year
We divied them between us the next day.

[hugo15]

I can never be bothered attending the "official" company party even though it is free. C**p food and having to talk to people I can't stand.... no thanks.

We have an "un-official" department and associated hangers-on who we like party, which involves a meal at a nice restaurant and retirement to the pub to get lashed. Much better.

[Greenbank]

Pre-acquisition they were fantastic. Drunken drug-fueled extravagances often in exotic locations at the expense of the suckers large corporations who purchased our wares. We had an expensive run in with a dinosaur once.

Post-acquisition we don't get one. Our team goes out for lunch somewhere nice nearby and we pay for it ourselves, and not much work gets done in the afternoon¹ as we're usually still in the pub.

Go or don't go, just don't whinge about it. There's nothing worse than office whingers, especially about office parties.

1. Half a day's pay for doing no work buys a pretty damn good lunch.

[Mrs Pingu]

I'm firmly with Kirst on this. I hate the excreble 'bring a party to a party' things, hideously expensive, drink that costs twice as much as in a pub, generally at a hotel in the middle of nowhere so you have to wait an age to get a taxi back and pay a fortune for that too, dinner finishes late and it's far too difficult to leave when you want to.
I too would rather just go to a decent restaurant, have a nice meal and then if people want to split up into their appropriate 'circles' and go to different pubs afterwards they can do. Plus you can escape early unnoticed betwist restaurant and pub!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I still resent paying £35 for pastry containing mashed potato and a couple of mushrooms.

[Mike J]

I'm not going to my works one this year, as its in exactly the same restaurant as last year, the only reason they are going again is because the wine is free during the meal, but last year the meal was crap to be honest.

[rafletcher]

Generally I have avoided those to which I could ahve gone. The last 10 years were with a company with 600+ employees. The very first year we were split "north and south", so only around 300 at each, and the Marriott at Slough was big enough not to be cramped and managed the catering well. But still and expensive night for mediocre food and raelly really crap music.  The following years were amalgamated into one do, first at a hotel near leamington - way too small for the numbers, trestle tables of 24 people, so converstaion was limited by and to your immdeiat neighbours. After that the Metropole at Birmingham airport. Lunchtime burger £18.00.  We went once, and after that I lied to my wife to prevent  re-occurrence!  Last year was in Dublin - a small friemdly company, but still one where a "night out" has to end with people so pissed they can remember the next day what they did. I didn't go, thankfully having the excuse of returning to the UK for my wifes school do - which we also didn't go to. Do you sense a theme here??

They can obviously be very pleasant experiences for some, but most larger gatherings are let down by indifferent catering (at best), crap (temporary) staff, and over loud, distorted '70's music - YMCA being a typical "must play" selection from the DJ.

[Jaded]

I go down to the pub and have a pie and a pint. For conversation I can talk to the barman. Benefits of working at home? 

[Julian]

I still resent paying £35 for pastry containing mashed potato and a couple of mushrooms.

My work party one year was at Tiger Tiger, which provided a vegetarian option which was meant to be a filo pastry with seasonal vegetables.  What it turned out to be was a stodgy lump containing potatoes and parsnips, and dribbled festively with chocolate sauce.  Sorry, jus.   

Better than the following year though, where we had the 'party' at the office.  At 4pm on Xmas Eve, the boss turned up with twenty warm cans of Heineken (one each).  Merry Christmas, everybody!

I'll probably go to mine.  I work at a small company and absence would, as they say, be noted.

[geraldc]

They're a bit like New Year's Eves, alternate between good and bad.

Secret Santa at my current work place is just an excuse to buy filth from 'adult shops'. Presents get opened at the table regardless of the location. Essentially it's chocolate phalluses and blow up dolls aplenty.

[rogerzilla]

My secret Santa present (to me, not the one I purchased) once consisted of two items: the December issue of Escort and the December issue of Fiesta.

[Jaded]

Do Ford still publish those magazines?

[rogerzilla]

I believe so.  Sadly Focus magazine turned out to be full of science stuff, with fewer technical close-ups.

[Zipperhead]

I always try and sit with the ladies from the office. All on diets and fussy eaters. That means plenty of leftovers, so I usualy have a queue of plates to work my way through

Cyclists have different priorities, eh?

[Andrij]

No idea what Xmas do will be like, but we have an 'away day (and night)' tomorrow - we're off to sunny Eastbourne.  They did ask for volunteers to come back tomorrw night and be in the office by 9 on Friday, with the benefit of then going home early.  There were more volunteers than needed.  This does not bode well.  At least the company is picking up the tab (well, not sure about drinks in the evening at the 'high school prom' ).

[Clare]

E-mail from Vern to me:

"Do you want to go to my work's Christmas do? It's free for me, but I have to pay £60 for you, it's a black tie do at a hotel in Surrey somewhere."

My reply:

"For £60 we could have a bloody good curry and get wankered mwildly inebriated in Portsmouth in comfortable clothes that we already own and without worrying about how to get home. Anyway, it's your work, you decide."


We're not going