Funny Business with Jane Wells

Holiday Parties From Hell

Wine glass

The office holiday party has a long tradition of good intentions gone bad.

That's exactly why attending provides must-see entertainment.

Who wants to miss the guy who drinks too much and invariably ends up being called into HR the following Monday?

I don't!

Embassy Suites just announced the winners of an essay contest it held titled Office Holiday Party Regrets. Competing for a prize of a free office party, people wrote in about their worst experiences.

Worthy nominees included: ?

"I had a department head that I would regularly have discussions with. Well, as our Christmas party approached, I was telling him of girl I was dating and how she wanted to get married and that I had no intentions of marrying her and was ultimately going to break it off after the New Year and that he would meet her at our upcoming Christmas party. While all this was going on, he kept telling me about his wife's niece and how she was in love with some bum that kept stringing her along and that I should meet her at our upcoming Christmas party..."

One guess as to what happened when they all "met" at the Christmas party. ?

Here's another gem:

"As a supervisor, there I was sitting in the middle of the room as my employees presented me with a lottery scratch-off ticket. As they set me up, I scratched the ticket only to find it to be a $10,000.00 winner. As I shouted and danced around the room shouting: 'I won $10,000.00,' one of my employees leaned over and said: 'Don't get too excited and hurt yourself...it's a fake ticket.' Well, you can imagine my face when I realized that it was a gag gift from my employees!"

Three entries have been named winners , and here they are:

Maria Braswell of Atlanta writes: "Several years back, the restaurant I worked at had a holiday party for its employees and their guests. I had brought a guest who lived about thirty minutes away, so when he was ready to head home, he turned on the car to warm it up. In the meantime, he stepped out to hug me goodbye and we were chatting away. The car was manual and apparently when he got in, he accidentally put the car in reverse and didn't realize it. Before we even had time to react, his car was rolling down the parking lot in reverse toward the restaurant. The car went through the wall and ended up in the main dining room of the restaurant. It seemed like the entire fire and police department came out when they got the call. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but needless to say, my boss was not thrilled, and I have since never brought guests to company events!"

Frank Galinsky of Kansas City had this tale: "After enjoying myself at our office holiday party, I was feeling very tired and had to go outside and lay down in the back seat of a co-worker's car. Turns out it was my boss's car and he didn't realize I was asleep in the back seat until he had driven all the way home! So, I went inside to call a cab, much to his wife's disapproval!"

But my favorite story, mostly because I HAVE DONE THIS VERY SAME THING, comes from Janet Kruse, of Portland, OR: "I was pregnant at our office party when I met my boss's wife for the first time. She looked very pregnant too, so I said, 'When is your due date?' Her answer was delivered with plenty of Frosty the Snowman chill: 'I'm not pregnant.'"

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