Hah, Bumbug: The Festive Season and Why it Sucks

I've never been all that big on Christmas. Partly, because I can't find anything that's particularly relevant to me in the while deal. I have no religious beliefs whatsoever, so the whole Christian side of it does nothing for me whatsoever. Besides, we all know it's a myth, and the person who might have been Jesus was born some time in June. The Christians hijacked a major Pagan festival, as they did so many others. For example, Easter was originally a festival of fertility, named after Oestrus. Hence eggs, rabbits and other symbols of reproduction. And Christmas, likewise. Where in the Bible does it mention Jesus swinging from a Spruce or feeding the 5,000 on turkey with sprouts? Nowhere, of course. The tree is a pagan symbol - no, not even a symbol, for the tree was worshipped in its own right - while the turkey, dry bland meat that it is, is anything but bootiful and is some modern-day American bastardisation of, er, food. And what's worse, as a vegetarian, I'm made to feel like I'm being difficult because I won't be partaking of turkey, pigs in blankets and roast potatoes cooked on goose fat which, according to M&S' latest ads is what everyone wants this Christmas. Believe me, it's not. I'm living proof of that. Give me goose fat and I'll return the favour with a smack round the chops. It's this pressure to comply with some cultural, media-driven perception of Christmas that really grits my gizzard. Yes, the 'social' aspect of Christmas is really the pits.

All of this is amplified within the context of the office party. Yes, because I'm not yet in a position to make a 'living' from either my academic work or my writing - far from it - I'm in the unenviable position of having to work for a large corporation, the only upside being that it's on a part-time basis. Now, I'm convinced that offices aren't natural environs for any human being to function in, but somehow our capitalist system has convinced the world at large that to spend every waking hour in extremely close proximity to people you'd not give the time of day to in any context where one exercises one's volition is entirely normal. But why do office workers feel the need to socialise with one another out of hours? It's the sheep mentality, the whole compulsion to follow in order to fit in for fear of ostracism, I suppose. And the fear of feeling like you've missed out, the dread of turning up on Monday morning and having to spend 7 hours listening to co-workers clucking on about their night out after work on Friday and not being able to join in.

But I'm made of sterner stuff, and am able to adhere to my misanthropic principles. Thus, I not only refuse to go on 'team nights out,' but also dare to decline the office Christmas meals... because I just know I'll be wedged between - and opposite - some cunts I only half-know, but half-know enough to abhor to the very bowels. Because I know the food will be gash, and as a vegetarian I'll have the 'option' of dry-as-fuck nut roast or nothing. And because I know there'll be a shit disco or band playing covers or music I otherwise detest, and everyone will get plastered and start fighting / copping off / spewing uncontrollably all over their own and other people's shoes. Same as every other year, same as every other corporate event.

Gazing into my crystal ball - or by switching on Radio 1 for twenty minutes while I take a crap before heading out to work in the morning - I can hear the soundtrack to this year's Christmas party now. Blasting out the new Kylie single, which to my ear sounds like Marilyn Manson's more recent efforts, someone's going to start dancing just that bit too flamboyantly... Booming out the latest atrocities by Sugababes and Girls Allowed... I've got terrible, horrifying, sickening mental images of all the office heifers (and there are plenty), together, dancing around their handbags, drunk, singing along to 'Big Girls' by Mika. I'd rather fucking die. And I just know they'll dredge out all the usual party shit; sackloads of ABBA, 'Aga-fucking-doo' by Black Lace and there's every chance they'll wheel out a few of the Christmas 'classics' by Wizard and Slade, just in case everyone wasn't already sick to the back teeth of these stinkers after any shopping excursions made in the last three weeks. Finally, for those who haven't got a room or passed out in the outside smoking area, there'll be the inaugural smoocher to close for those couples who aren't quite couples yet to suck face to while they decide on your place or mine, even though it's abundantly clear that it's a mistake, that they don't actually like one another anyway and are only together out of mutual desperation and lack of self-control and self-respect. Either that, or there's a punch-up going down to the soundtrack of 'Careless Whisper' because someone's been putting the moves on someone else's bird, or there's serious tension building after someone's drunkenly let the cat out of the bag and told the boss he's a cunt. And thus begins the cycle of embarrassment and whispers on the rumour mill, pregnancies and sackings, etc., etc.

Is this really anyone's idea of fun? Must be, because so many people do it, year after year... but wait. I believe it's all part of the corporate conspiracy. The big companies are in the business of selling things, convincing people they need things that they probably don't even want, let alone need. And it's not just the public they're conning, but their workers as well. They spend the year telling the staff that their salary is actually quite competitive within the market place, that there will be even better perks in the new tax year - moving forward - that they appreciate their hard work, that the requests to work longer hours aren't actually compulsory, but that if you want to progress, then it looks so much better.... Then at the end of the year, they hand out paltry 2% bonuses (and 2% of not very much is really not very much at all, especially after deductions) (while the managers and executives get megabucks for sitting on their arses or strolling round the golf course while the drones do the real work) and lay on a Christmas party. And everyone buys it, or at least goes along because well, there's free food and drink... and so, ultimately, the Christmas party is as much an instrument of corporate oppression - a pacifier, if you will - as the threat of sacking for misuse of company e-mail for personal use is.

Office Christmas parties: just say no.