Christmas parties

[lnr]

Is your work having a christmas do? Are you looking forward to it or dreading it? Is it free or do you have to pay? Are partners invited?

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Mike's christmas party was a proper corporate do, for 25 quid a head with partners invited:

• Meet in hotel, one free drink (mulled wine) then expensive bar
• Move to ballroom where there are lots of big tables, 4 or 5 other companies, large meal, drink too much wine (extra)
• Lights are dimmed and there's a disco at the end of the room

It seemed mad to have a ballroom and then only have a dancefloor the size of a postage stamp, and the music was mostly dreadful (70s disco, ABBA, modern R&B and dance), though kudos to the DJ for playing two Jam tracks back to back. I asked if he could do anything rock and his best suggestion was "Bon Jovi?".

Still, it was fun.

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Our lot aren't inviting partners, but the computing group is having a free buffet christmas lunch next Wednesday which is also the leaving do for one of our long-standing colleagues. And by genuine coincidence it seems the departmental support staff Christmas party is that evening, 5 quid a head for an enormous spread of food and an impressive array of drinks and another bad disco. Since that starts at 5 and the lunch will no doubt be quite long I rather suspect the computing group staff aren't going to get much work done that afternoon.

I'm rather looking forward to it.

Comments

[nja.livejournal.com]

Department do is usually in the university's "posh" restaurant (i.e. not very posh at all, same food as the plebs downstairs are eating but with slightly better crockery). This year it was at a proper restaurant in town, and was too far away from Christmas, too expensive and a leaving do for two people I don't get on with¹, so I didn't go.

School no. 1 I've already described, and was lovely. School no. 2 always clashes, I'd like to go but it's never been possible. School no. 1 is also having a posh do for staff at the Holiday Inn on Monday, which involves dressing up, paying too much for what will (based on my two meals at the Holiday Inn) be crap food, and involves either karaoke or some sort of tribute band cabaret thing, either of which would make me want to chew my own arm off.

¹One I liked a lot while he was an undergrad and a PhD student, but he's been an utter pain in the arse as a lecturer. He's leaving after one year because he doesn't want to do any publishable research. The other's an elderly crotchety prof who has never liked me since I had to break the news to him that his favourite Mac software wouldn't run on the hideously expensive SGI boxes someone had sold him.