Stick a fork in me, I'm done

[white_hart]

At 6pm today I decided that anything that I hadn't managed to get round to already could just wait until January, shut down my work laptop and put away all of my office equipment until the new year.

(I did, in fact, have a surprisingly productive day, possibly thanks to having an early night last night and an extra hour and a quarter in bed this morning instead of going for a grey twilight walk, and have even managed to draft the paper I've been noodling vaguely about for most of this week without getting very far, so there isn't actually that much left undone after all.)

Also, prompted by (a) the news and (b) talking to someone today who said they'd cancelled their Christmas lunch in accordance with University guidance but someone had brought in some mince pies and a couple of bottles of Prosecco and they'd all gathered in an office to consume them, a poll about parties:

Poll #26457 Office parties

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43

View Respondents

Which of these count as a work "Christmas party"?

View Answers

Going for a prebooked meal at a restaurant
41 (95.3%)

Going for an impromptu meal at a restaurant
31 (72.1%)

Drinks and a catered buffet in the office
43 (100.0%)

Drinks and nibbles in the office, prearranged
41 (95.3%)

Drinks and mince pies in the office, brought in unofficially by a colleague
22 (51.2%)

Mince pies/chocolates left in the kitchen for people to help themselves
0 (0.0%)

Does a Secret Santa exchange automatically count as a party?

View Answers

Yes
9 (20.9%)

No
30 (69.8%)

SEWIWEIC
4 (9.3%)

Are you going (or have you been) to a work Christmas party this year?

View Answers

Yes
5 (12.8%)

I was going to but it was cancelled due to Covid
8 (20.5%)

There is one, but I'm not going due to Covid
4 (10.3%)

We normally have one, but aren't due to Covid
13 (33.3%)

No, we don't have Christmas parties where I work
9 (23.1%)

Comments

[telophase]

There isn't an option for "the silver lining to COVID is that neither I nor my husband have to go to our departments' Christmas parties" so I chose "not going due to COVID" as the closest option.

[white_hart]

I used to hate work Christmas parties but our team lunches are normally quite enjoyable.

[mountainkiss]

Secret Santa not a party if done asynchronously or remotely, which can be done. Otherwise party.

Missing SEWIEIC for last q: work Christmas parties now fully remote, but I am not going because Christmas party.

[nineveh_uk]

Seconds on Secret Santa.

[white_hart]

Yes, I think I was thinking of in-person swaps.

[white_hart]

I am unconvinced about remote parties. Video meetings are always going to feel like work to me.

[mountainkiss]

That’s another reason I didn’t go.

[white_hart]

I feel that I have to go, because I'm the boss, so try to make sure we have things I'll enjoy.

[mountainkiss]

You are more responsible than I.

[rmc28]

I'm the boss and said "not right now, team" :-)

[white_hart]

That is also the decision I made, about five hours before the VC would have made it for me. (We were already going for something lower-key than our normal meal in a restaurant, because several people still had concerns about indoor dining - we were going to have a buffet lunch in the cafe/seminar room space in our building, which has windows all along one wall that we could open for ventilation, and access to a terrace if anyone preferred to eat outside.)

[coughingbear]

I cancelled my team's planned Christmas lunch, and did not substitute a virtual party. I did manage to take them out for afternoon tea a few weeks ago when things were better, and that has had to do for this year.

[rmc28]

I cannot stand the idea of a virtual party, tbh, so I'll substitute a lunch in March/April once we can sit outside.

[caulkhead]

mountainkiss explains this much more succinctly than I could have.

[joyeuce]

I am a sole employee, and always work from home in this job, so the work Christmas party thing doesn't arise. I suppose I could drink mulled wine and eat mince pies and designate that my work party, but it hardly seems worth the effort.

Both my choir and a clergy spouses' Facebook group I belong to have had enjoyable Zoom parties. The FB group has also done a secret Santa, by post.

[white_hart]

No, I can see that a solo party wouldn't be much fun!

[clanwilliam]

Mine went from "I'm not going due to Covid", when I had to cancel my trip to London, so for a while there, I was cancelled due to Covid, but then the party (team lunch, actually) was too.

[white_hart]

I suppose at least that way you're not missing out any more...

[melannen]

Answer for that last one: was going (catered buffet in office, after-hours), was cancelled for reasons unrelated to Covid. I am thinking it's fairly likely I will not be attending the January reschedule due to Covid though.

[white_hart]

January seems rather too soon to be rescheduling for in the current circumstances.

[cmcmck]

Retired so I no longer have to deal with this stuff.

I have to admit that I always loathed workplace 'compulsory jollification parades' and always found ways to avoid them.

[white_hart]

We are a small team so mostly just have team lunches which are quite low-key and definitely more enjoyable than the larger events I had to endure in previous jobs.

[lnr]

"Drinks and mince pies in the office, brought in unofficially by a colleague" is a "maybe" really, not a 100% no. If you all gather together to eat/drink at a particular time then it probably has become an impromptu party, if the colleague drops in on you in ones and twos, or just gets them out during a coffee break, then much less so.

[white_hart]

Yes, I think it was the all getting together to consume them that felt against the spirit of things to me.

[serriadh]

Anything with drinks other than the usual tea or coffee feels “partyish” to me.

[adaeze]

Putting out mince pies for people to help themselves is suitably distanced. The problem with adding a bottle is that it encourages mingling while lowering inhibitions.

[white_hart]

Exactly, and even more so gathering together to consume them.

[girlyswot]

In normal times we maybe have two or three in-person staff meetings in a year, one of which is in December and includes a meal in a restaurant. This year we met in early December and went to a Turkish restaurant which was excellent. We did not meet at all from March 2020 until May? June? 2021. There are 8 of us if everyone comes.

As far as I know, everything we did was completely legal and I regret not a single strawberry ginger mocktail.

[white_hart]

I think Christmas parties of any size are still perfectly legal. We were told to cancel everything because we're an Omicron hotspot...

[girlyswot]

Ah, yes.

[chiasmata]

All of our work Christmas parties were cancelled (thank goodness), with the exception of my PI taking five of us out for dinner at the start of the month. That sneaked in before omicron.

[white_hart]

I wish we'd managed to sneak something in before omicron. We did have a team catch-up sitting round the newly installed Christmas tree in our foyer with two lots of home baking the Monday before last, which ended up lasting for twice the scheduled time, so maybe that counted a bit.

[julian]

We are in theory having a "Secret Santa and Team building" thing on Jan 11th, for the 15 person clinical team. I sssuspect events may intervene.

[white_hart]

That does seem possible! We have locked away the secret santa presents which had already been brought in and told everyone else to hang on to theirs, and we'll do the exchange whenever we're in a position to be back in the office. Which could be spring...

[caulkhead]

We were supposed to have our Christmas party yesterday, but it was cancelled last week; instead* I got an unexpected hamper delivered yesterday with biscuits, tea and other nibbles that I reckon comes out to about the value of the meal - which is a really nice gesture. No alcohol, no meat, so inclusive for everyone. Nice box, too.

*They haven't actually *said* it's instead, but it looks very like it.

[white_hart]

That is a nice gesture. (We tried to do that last year but the logistics proved to be an utter nightmare; I think this year we'll just try to do something at a later date.)

[muninnhuginn]

We've had really nice hampers for the second-year now, in place of the cancelled Xmas and summer events. Two bottles of wine and a host of nice snacks, some of which are dairy free (and I'll pretend the rest are too). I assume that were there to be non-drinkers, a variant would be offered.

The box from laast year is no the box for storing Xmas decorations. This year's may become a w.i.p. box for some knitting and embroidery projects.

[jinty]

Oh, that is rather good! Well done whoever did that.

[jinty]

For that last question I wasn't quite sure what to put: our small team did have a pre-booked Christmas meal in a restaurant, which was paid for by work & definitely counts, but I couldn't go because other medical things. It wasn't cancelled but only because it was scheduled for *just before* everything came down - other parties for other teams in our overall area were cancelled.

[andrewducker]

Same. We had a meal in a Thai place, where there was nobody else in, and we all took lateral flows in advance.

I wouldn't do that *this* week. But a few weeks back it felt reasonable.