Sorry for the inelegant way this link posted. If you don’t want to continue reading, I can summarize some KEY FINDINGS:
63% say there’s always one family member who goes a little too far. Who is that family member? An uncle (1/3 of respondents).
Even when there’s no booze involved, 31% say Mom and 30% say Dad when asked if someone will bring up an uncomfortable subject.
Workplace parties are no better.
62% say they dread returning to work after a corporate holiday party.
64% revealed that they couldn’t look at a coworker(s) the same way after the party.
A whopping 56% fear they’re going to be fired after attending an office party.
So…anyone have any stories to share? I have a good one. At one office party I attended a young woman got very drunk, exuberantly embraced her boss, and the two of them almost toppled out of an open window the boss was standing in front of. The boss grabbed my arm and I almost went out with them but luckily I managed to stay in place and I served as their anchor until more help arrived.
First floor window or fifty first?
I almost always skip work parties, although knocking off early to go to a place around the corner for a couple of drinks or a burger is fine. Expecting people to give up free time, get babysitters and drag spouses around, especially at a time when there are bound to be conflicts, is ridiculous.
I had one boss who was a cheapskate who tried to hold parties for coworkers at her house way out in the sticks and it was always awkward whether anyone would go through the hassle of driving an hour and a half one way to go. I never did.
It was a 12th-floor window but this was an old industrial loft building, a former sweatshop, so probably the equivalent of the 16th or 17th floor. This was the Creative Director’s art studio, so sort of like a home holiday party, but much, much better. It was also in Manhattan, so no driving through the sticks involved. The Creative Director rented it but this was in the 90s in what was then a sort of unappealing area but now red-hot; God knows what that space is worth now.
I have no stories to share, as the statute of limitations has not been reached? Drinking during mass family gatherings is a survival skill.
The big problem with drinking is it interferes with another major coping mechanism — getting in the car to drive to, uh, the supermarket because we need, um, cabbage for dinner. Yeah, and I can’t go to the close supermarket because they’re always low on broccoli. I mean cabbage. Really no option but to leave the house for a couple of hours.
That’s the stuff! My large family mostly doesn’t drink but some of the in-laws do so I serve as an emissary from the Drys to the Court of the Wets. I really like those in-laws (there are many) but I only see them once a year, if that. If they were siblings and nieces and nephews of the Better Half I may not embrace them so warmly.
It will probably come as no surprise that I have been THAT person at a few office parties. One great party was at a place in an old warehouse turned into a bar/restaurant that had gameshow rooms in different sections of the room. We had a great time w/ unlimited bar tab so a coworker & I took it on ourselves to buy a round of shots for the whole place on our bosses tab. He wasn’t overly impressed with our gesture but he got over it & just told us to cut it out.
You embraced the Spirit of Giving, which is what the holiday season is all about.
I’ve never gotten out of hand at an office party, but I’ve seen it happen, and it isn’t pretty.
All the office parties I’ve been to have been tame. Apparently at one place I worked at, the parties used to be wild till a VP was caught banging his secretary in the coat room. The CEO who was a bit of a high and mighty type frowned on throwing Roman Orgies and stopped it.
My dad was the Korean answer to Frank Costanza if he were more passive than aggressive. When I saw the Seinfeld Festivus episode, I half laughed/cried because there was my dad as acted by Jerry Stiller. Like Frank he would store up his anger at all the wrongs we/anyone did and then unload it all on a holiday dinner. I hated it then. Still do. However, as my dad has become more and more affected with Alzheimer’s/dementia, he’s gotten nicer and doesn’t do that kind of stupid shit anymore.
It might explain why I look (hopefully not anywhere near as neurotic) a bit like Korean George.
He did teach me one very important lesson. Don’t store up anger like bullets in a machine gun belt waiting to unload in one long loud burst.
For this reason, I learned not to do stupid shit during the holidays.
Oh man(chu), that would suck. Just waiting for the ax to fall, right? My sympathies.
Yeah. /opens bottle of scotch, chugs Mr Lahey style/
My sisters and I feel that my parents (at that time) could have taught a master class in psychological warfare. I learned a lot about head games as a kid.
Ironically, those lessons were put to good use in adulthood at work and when dealing with the cokehead narcissist. The one thing those shitheads never got was no matter how much they laid the shit on me that I never broke mentally. Cracked and bent from time to time, but never really broke. They discovered on occasion I how much of a mental terror I can be when provoked.
Once at an office party the director of HR got so drunk she fell on her ass. This was probably 15 yrs ago and she’s still there.
At home, i much prefer get togethers with my dad’s side of the family (his siblings & my cousins). It doesn’t matter if someone brings up politics bc we’re all a bunch of agreeing libs.
But my step-mom is a little more conservative and has some weird/racist opinions. Xmas at their house was always stressful for me because she would buy her (adult) kids DOZENS of gifts and me one or two (on more than one occasion they were obviously regifted, too), and I’d have to sit there and watch the unwrapping festival. But no idea what’s going to happen this year what with my step-sis’s passing and all.
TIL that the guy who sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” or whatever that song was, was also the voice of Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes.
That is all. Carry on.
So, Boris Karloff was the grinch & definitely not Tony the Tiger. Although I would have ate more Frosted Flakes if Boris Karloff told me to.
Nope, it was Thurl Ravenscroft;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurl_Ravenscroft
Here’s the recording;
If you listen closely, you can totally hear the same cadence, tone, snd rolling of the “r” sounds that he did as Tony the Tiger saying “They’rrrrre Grrrrrreat!”😉💖
Eta, the singing part was all Ravenscroft in the cartoon.
Karloff WAS in the cartoon, too, but only as the speaking voice of the Gringo.
And just to confuse things even more, apparently Burl Ives also did a famous version of the song, along with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer & Frosty the Snowman!😉💝
Yes, I saw a documentary about the Grinch (the cartoon, not the weird live-action remake movies) and they interviewed Tony the Tiger. He’s uncredited in the cartoon and when Theodor Geisl (Dr. Seuss) realized that he was mortified. He called Tony the Tiger and apologized profusely but Tony (in his words) shrugged it off.
sooo about 2 3rds of people know people that go too far
and about 2 3rds of people fear getting fired after work parties
me finks there might be a sizeable overlap there
anyways…the only time i got drunk enough at an office party to be worried…my boss completely stole the lime light….by getting absolutely plastered…any of my missteps were forgotten by the time he tried to set himself on fire lighting the barbeque…or needed to be escorted home with occasional stops to puke
twas very helpful of him
Years ago, when I was a drunkard and addict, I went to the Humanities Division Christmas Party and got wasted and necked with the chair of Gender Studies and then spilled a bowl of eggnog and finally passed out sitting the hallway propped up against a wall.
Funny part is I wasn’t the worst-behaved guest at the party. The ones everyone was talking about after New Years were from the philosophy and linguistics departments who got into a very loud fist-fight over Hiroshima mon amour and semiotics.
God, I wish I was making that up.
This is really … fantastic? You could pretty much win Reddit with that one.