For the first time in eight years, I won’t have a company holiday party to go to, and thank the good lord for that — I tend to wake up from a night of drinking with crushing anxiety about the most minor overstep I made while socializing the night before. However, that means I’ll miss out on all the embarrassing nonsense my colleagues get into when drinking around coworkers, which sucks. So I reached out to the internet to fill my bottomless craving for steamin’-hot office gossip.
Here are the most horrifying holiday party stories I heard…
Justin, 34, Advertising: We had a company holiday happy hour a couple of years ago at a bar near our office. I didn’t even take my things with me because I planned on stopping by for just a drink and going back to the office. It ended up being way more than one drink…
Smash-cut to pissing myself in line to go to the bathroom and having a giant pee spot in the front and down my legs, but cozying up to the bar to continue drinking anyway. Multiple rounds of shots purchased for my co-workers later, I’m blacked out in an Uber someone put me in, but upon getting home, I didn’t have my keys. I got stranded outside in subzero temperature.
I was somehow smart enough to hail another Uber to head back to the office to get my keys. I fell asleep inside the Uber and the driver woke me at my destination. I stumbled out of the Uber and into the office, leaving my iPhone behind.
Once inside and at my desk, I passed out face-down on the floor. I was woken up hours later around 4 a.m. by the cleaning lady who came to take out the trash.
Kyle, 32, Music Production: Last week I had a “families welcome” Xmas brunch for my new job. A former employee of my company was in town the night before and took me and a couple others out for drinks. I was so hungover for the brunch I had to make the decision whether to puke in my boss’ bathroom, their neighbor’s yard or my co-worker’s car. Also just… trying not to shit my pants.
Then the owner came in to introduce us to his 3-week-old baby, and I had to leave in the middle of our conversation to avoid puking on his newborn and to go lie down under a dog blanket. Now my boss jokes that in our company picture, you can’t even tell that I’m hooked up to an IV.
Michael Gorelic, 49, Advertising: About 20 years ago, when [the ad agency] Leagas Delaney was in San Francisco, I spilled my beer on someone’s keyboard. Then as an encore when leaving, I knocked over the Stanford Tree. Not an actual tree, mind you, but the Stanford University mascot, who I think was there because they were doing some Adidas work. Fun times.
Randy, 28, Chemical Engineer: I’m a chemical engineer for a large corporation that sells batteries. Everyone was invited to the company’s holiday party. I mean, it was huge. We had record-breaking profits that year (2015), and I was a lead operations supervisor. Because of that title I had to make a speech for my team’s great success on the new anti-acid-corrosion material we designed, so I made my speech witty and got great laughs. Everything was going great. When I was done and shook some hands, I walked to get a drink and bite to eat from the buffet.
There she was. Smiling at me. Bright red hair. Simple but lovely blue dress and a smile that could make the devil blush. She came over told me how funny I was, and we talked and flirted for a bit. Then she grabbed my hand and took me to a part of the building we thought was quiet…
Fifteen mins into the fellatio, in comes the boss red-faced and yelling. Turns out she was his niece. I was getting blown by my boss’ niece, and he was standing right there. I immediately walk out without saying anything.
The next day I came to the office expecting to be fired. I apologized and even offered to resign, but my boss said no. Because I walked in and owned it, he let me keep my job. But I’m no longer invited to parties.
Aaron, 23, Accountant: I was interning at one of the “Big 4” accounting firms in Chicago. I didn’t really have the nicest holiday-themed clothes, but I had a tie I thought would be funny to wear because it had these spooky ghosts on it. Well, at least in my brain they were spooky ghosts. When I got to work and showed everyone the tie, they made me realize the “spooky ghosts” were actually condoms. I got really defensive and embarrassed because it was my dad’s tie, so maybe my childhood brain thought they were ghosts because he would wear it all the time.
This is the tie:
Sam Dworkin, MEL Senior Designer: I was working at my first job — a startup in L.A. — and during their holiday party I was drunk enough to think stealing an entire bottle of whiskey from the open bar was a good idea. It was one of those giant bottles of Bulleit whiskey, and I hid it under my blazer.
On the way out, however, I dropped it, and it shattered everywhere. Everyone probably saw it, but I don’t quite remember, because I just kept walking and acted like nothing happened. I never got in trouble for it, but I was later “let go” for other reasons.
Charlie S, 26, Writer, Chicago: My first job out of college was a company where almost all employees were in their 20s and drinking, and drinking games were common for parties and team bonding. At our first team holiday party, we decided to play slap cup. I hadn’t played it before and I’d only had beer a couple times before, and I’m not a fan of it. As we played, it got to where I had to drink a few of the cups within about 90 seconds. I ended up choking on the beer and spitting it all over the table, stopping the game and making everyone awkwardly have to help clean it up. I stopped playing that game after that.
David, 44, Financial Adviser: It was my analyst’s first holiday party, and he didn’t know how to quite control his bourbon intake at the open bar. Even though I was kind of supposed to keep an eye on him, he proceeded to get totally blacked out and approach the attractive, middle-aged executive assistant of our CFO. I believe his exact quote to her was, “I would pull out, blow it all over you, and you would ask for more.” I spent the next day making amends between him and the assistant so that she wouldn’t issue a formal complaint with HR and get him canned.
Quinn Myers
Quinn Myers is a staff writer at MEL. He reports on internet culture, technology, health, masculinity and the communities that flourish within.
