Off the Wall

At this time of year, newspapers are full of stories about how to act – or not act – at office parties. As I skim them, I reflect with satisfaction that I have a good chance of never attending another office party, whether for Christmas or anything else. Off-hand, I can’t think of a more unnatural and contrived effort at celebration.

Even though most of my adult life I’ve been a consultant, I’ve seen my share of them. And most office parties are grim affairs. At best, they’re full of quiet desperation. When you are used to relating to people at work, trying to relate to them socially can be an abrupt switch – except, of course, for those who are at least friendly enough to go out to lunch with.

The awkwardness is compounded by the efforts of supervisors and staff to interact, and, in high-tech by the lack of social skills possessed by the average developer. Most people spend their time standing around uncertainly, staying only because, no matter how dreary the party may be, it’s marginally more interesting than doing their jobs.

And that’s at the best of office parties. I’ve seen companies where the human resources staff literally hunted people through the hallways, dragging them out of their offices and the washrooms where they’ve gone to ground.

Sometimes, the blame for the average office party lies in the hands of company officers or owners. Full of their own magnanimity at giving the staff a treat, they overlook how little people are enjoying themselves. I remember at one company, the owner ordered pizza every Tuesday night, only to find that much of his order was going to waste. Finally, he thought to ask his staff. I’ll never forget his stricken look when he realized that the employees thought of pizza night as a duty, rather than an enjoyable experience.

However, most of the blame belongs to human resources. Somewhere in the last few decades, the idea has taken hold that human resources staff don’t just hire and fire and take care of benefits. No – they also have to be Club Med entertainment directors.

They run around organizing birthday parties and fun events like bowling in the hallway, ring-tosses, and singalongs, and pressganging people into activities that are meant to break the ice (but really only unite people in their common embarrassment). All the while, they have a bounce in their steps and a perky smile on their face because they like organizing people and are in their element.

“You just know she was in the pep club in high school,” one fellow sufferer muttered to me as we endured one HR director’s efforts to organize teams for Pictionary. I remember looking at the director running around and thinking: What’s the use of growing older if you still have to hop around like a demented robin?

By far the worst of these human resources efforts was at a small software company that had been working non-stop for several months to finish a project. The overtime was so constant that, if everyone had been paid by the hour, the cost of the project would easily have doubled. To make matters worse, the project was done during the best weather of the year.

Dimly sensing that the staff had been pushed to its limits, the company officers announced they were renting a night club for the evening. Considering that the lead programmer on the project was a devout Moslem (which everyone knew, because he prayed several times a day in his cubicle), the idea was tactless – he not only didn’t drink, but wouldn’t enter a night club. Yet, without him, the project would never have been finished. You could almost hear the silence as people looked around in embarrassment at the meeting to announce the party.

Then, a voice from the back (mine) asked, “Can I have his drink tickets?”

But even with free drink tickets, nobody wanted to go. They’d had enough and wanted to go home at the end of the day for once. I wouldn’t have cared much myself, since as a consultant I got paid by the hour, except that I didn’t think I could bill for the party.

Embarrassed, the company officers changed the event to a Friday afternoon. Still, nobody signed up, despite repeated emails. Come the day, the human resources manager rounded us up like an obsessive-compulsive sheep dog, and herded us over to the night club. We made a concerted rush for the bar, downed our three free drinks – and, at quitting time, three-quarters of us left in such unison that you would have thought we had planned our escape beforehand.

Every now and again, people ask if I feel lonely working from home. But I only have to think of these situations to realize that, if I occasionally am, there are compensations, too. I’ve done my time pit-lamped like a stunned deer under the gaze of an HR manager determined that I’ll have a good time and be grateful, and I have no intention of being in that situation again.