The Rooms · 11 of 12
The Holiday Party
A work event dressed as a social event. It is still a work event.
What they’re reading
Whether you know that.
What to wear
A jacket, dark, slightly more interesting than what you wear to the office. A knit tie or no tie. Velvet if you can carry it, and be honest with yourself about whether you can.
More interesting than the office. Not a costume. There's a wide gap between those two and men fall into it every December.
What to bring
Nothing. Leave the laptop bag at your desk. Carrying it says you're not really here.
When to arrive
About an hour after the start time. Never first.
The first sixty seconds
Find someone senior early, while you're both sober and the room is still quiet enough to hear each other. Five good minutes at 7pm is worth more than an hour at 10pm, and that conversation is the actual reason to attend.
How to act
Listen for
who's drinking and how fast, because that's your clock. And listen for the senior people starting to leave, because the room becomes a different room within fifteen minutes of the last one going.
When you speak
early, and with the people who matter. Nothing said after nine o'clock counts, and by ten nobody will remember what you said at all, only how you were.
How you speak
lighter than the office, still recognizably yourself. Do not tell the story you'd tell your friends. Do not give anyone feedback. Do not tell anybody what you really think about anything, including when they ask, and especially when they ask twice.
Your body
circulate. Twenty minutes with any one group is the ceiling. Hold your drink in your left hand so your right one is dry and warm when somebody puts theirs out.
The thing you can't fake
being sober. Whatever your limit is, tonight it's two under it. Every regretted moment at every office party in history happened after the third drink.
The mistake
Staying past the moment it turns. There is always a moment. Somebody's dancing, somebody's crying, somebody's telling their manager what they really think.
Leave twenty minutes before it. You will always be glad you did and nobody has ever regretted going home early from the office party.
The guide
All twelve rooms,
with the drawings.
Fifty-eight pages. Free, and there is no email field.