All I want this Christmas is for the office virtual party to be cancelled

After a year of meetings on Google Meet, quizzes on Zoom, inductions on Microsoft Teams – nobody wants a virtual Christmas office party.

I know exactly what would make me and most staff happy: if every virtual Christmas office party was cancelled immediately. No one wants to spend yet another evening online. Picture: istock

The news that at least one vaccine might eventually be available for coronavirus has, it seems, provoked as many questions as it has answered. Will the low temperature at which it needs to be stored make distribution difficult? Will enough people have been vaccinated by late December to make family Christmases possible? What will those of us who have enjoyed not socialising now use as an excuse to get out of things?

As for HR departments, the uncertain timing of the potential jab means they are still wrestling with the question of what to do about Christmas office parties this year. An issue that has in recent days troubled every business publication from Forbes, which published an article bearing the headline “How to save the office Christmas party”, to This Week in Facilities Management ("What will the office Xmas party look like this year?"), Fast Company, looking at how to plan a virtual office party that doesn’t suck, HR News, reporting that according to one survey 30 per cent of British office workers will not have a Christmas party this year, and The HR Director, saying that nine out of ten Christmas parties will be virtual.

At the same time a communications agency called Moneypenny has conducted a survey of a thousand office workers and discovered that 26 per cent expect their employers to host virtual parties but only 11 per cent are excited about the prospect. Breaking this number down, in Scotland and Wales only 4 per cent can muster anything resembling enthusiasm and when you take a closer look at what virtual Christmas office parties might involve you can totally understand why.

A PR company proffering unsolicited “Tips For Throwing The Ultimate Virtual Office Christmas Party” suggests that employees could dress up for a Zoom gathering ("Encourage the team to dress up in their finest clothes, favourite Christmas jumpers or set a fancy dress theme to get everyone in the mood") and/or hold a virtual Christmas talent show ("Every office has one person who loves karaoke, so that’s them sorted; every office also has a multitude of people with hidden party tricks, from being able to lick their elbow to impressive and accurate impersonations"). If you are not worried enough by the prospect of a Zoom call where the head of facilities murders Lady In Red, the chief marketing officer does an impression of Donald Duck, the head of security touches the end of his nose with his tongue and the finance director, dressed as Kylie Minogue, breaks an apple in half with her bare hands, take a look at the nightmare virtual activities that are being sold to companies, according to Forbes and Fast Company.

They include online burlesque, online bingo, online bespoke wine tastings, online escape rooms, online ramen and sake tastings, online tours of European Christmas markets, online dog-sledding through the snow in Switzerland, online live skydives, online shark dives, online tours of family-owned coffee farms in Costa Rica, online competitive gingerbread-house-making, online whisky tasting, online conversations with volcanologists at the mouths of volcanoes, online calligraphy classes, online comedy and online scavenger hunts where people “show and tell” something “that makes them happy”.

Dog sledding through hilly plateaus is a popular outdoor sport in 🇨🇭.
Take a tour with the huskies as they pull the dog sled through snow-clad mountains! pic.twitter.com/MJcYh7eCKz

— House of Switzerland (@HofSwitzerland) February 24, 2020

As it happens I know exactly what would make me and most staff happy: if every virtual Christmas office party was cancelled immediately. Let’s face it, no one wants to spend yet another evening online after a year of work meetings on Google Meet, quizzes on Zoom, family gatherings on Facebook Messenger, job inductions on Microsoft Teams, theatre trips on Skype, dates on WhatsApp, networking on Facetime and ordering endless shopping and entertainment on the web. Give us a break!

If you are an HR director who somehow feels the need to persist, let me remind you of some of the events that have been cancelled this year. The Tokyo Olympics. Expo 2020. The 21st British Soap Awards. The 15th Canadian Folk Music Awards. India Fashion Week. The 2020 American College of Cardiology Annual Meeting. My family’s Diwali celebrations. My niece’s and nephew’s graduation ceremonies. Trust me, your employees will be able to handle the cancellation of an office party in a year when they might not even get a family Christmas.

Besides, even Christmas office parties of the non-virtual kind are not much fun. As my colleague David Aaronovitch put it to me on Twitter this week: “There is only one thing in this world worse than a virtual Christmas office party. And that is a real Christmas office party.”

There is only one thing in this world worse than a virtual Christmas office party. And that is a real Christmas office party.

— David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) November 2, 2020

Why? Well, as I have put it elsewhere, they exist in the grey area between work and home life, obliging you to rub shoulders with people you might never have seen before, from departments you have probably never heard of, while eating food and drinking alcohol you would normally never consider and “enjoying” music you would never normally endure. They require you to somehow be friendly to juniors without being condescending, talk to your boss without being ingratiating, and, even if you resist the temptation to drink, you will end up having a nightmare conversation with a colleague who has downed four more martinis than they can handle.

A real Christmas office party is more fraught with danger than a packed Tube carriage in a pandemic and more difficult to navigate, politically, than Brexit. Picture: istock

In summary, the traditional company Christmas party is more fraught with danger than a packed Tube carriage in a pandemic and more difficult to navigate, politically, than Brexit. A handful of young people might enjoy them enough to want an online alternative, but I suspect that even they could be bought off. What with? Well, given that one recent survey found that the average spend per head is $70, it could be a John Lewis voucher, a bottle of gin, the suggestion of a donation to charity in their name – or yet another bloody online takeaway order.

The Times