Parties are being reorganised from December, but I don’t want to see anyone wearing a Santa hat in the first month of the year
One of the few opinions I have that I’d actually go to war for is that work Christmas parties should not be allowed to be rescheduled for January. The idea should not even be floated. Before a number of people in Crocs send me aggressive messages on every possible platform of communication: I will allow a caveat only for people working in the hospitality industry, whose selfless sacrifice through December to keep me and millions of others fed and watered should be rightly rewarded with a weird early Tuesday lunchtime party, which ends up with at least one person paying the soiling charge for a taxi.
But the rest of us: no. It’s December or nothing. “Oh, but we couldn’t get it booked in time” – sack your HR person, then, whose only actual job is to get that done. “Oh, but it’s slightly cheaper if we book it for January” – no, not allowed. If your staff aren’t worth the £35 a head, then you, simply, cannot afford your staff. I do not want to see a scrap of tinsel in the first month of the year! I don’t want to see anyone wearing a Santa hat and pretending they still want to eat a mince pie! January is for shell shock, sobriety and a weird eight-day period where you tell yourself you’re “getting really into juice, now, actually” before putting the blender away for ever. Nothing else.
Joel Golby is a writer for the Guardian and Vice and the author of Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant
