the rigged bake-off, the truth-telling child, and other tales of holidays at work

It’s 12 more holiday stories!

1. The elves

Our office did Elf on a Shelf last year to determine who worked the holidays and who didn’t. The office had always closed for a week at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year with pay but the brass had decided they wanted people working in office during the holidays. Instead of telling us months in advance so we could mitigate our plans and come up with a fair way to distribute work and time off, they told us the week after Thanksgiving and thought it would be fun to get a bunch of those creepy Elf on a Shelf things, put them in every department and have the “Elf” decide who works.

Every morning we’d get a company wide email from different department “Elves” narcing on people and whoever has the most Elf  “demerits” had to come in over the holidays. Technically the managers were the “elves” in this scenario so as a manager I got stuck with a lot of rightly angry staff.

Demerits had nothing to do with performance. Other managers chose things like “being late,” “not enough holiday cheer,” or “Sara wore blue and Elfie hates blue!” Deadass serious. We’d get dinged as a department for not having the most creative elf scene. Other departments made a huge mess with powdered sugar and ketchup of all things trying to make an “elf scene” so after maintenance gave us all a slap on the wrist I told HR I wasn’t making my staff participate because they all had plans in place for months and that this whole thing was weird and exclusionary to our staff who didn’t celebrate the holiday and I was not making my staff come in unless they volunteered. To be honest, I was very angry about the whole thing. I had people in tears in my office daily, and one of my best employees came to me and very politely and professionally explained that this was a final straw for her and she would be looking elsewhere.

Apparently I wasn’t the only manager to protest this because HR sheepishly admitted everyone was getting the holidays off anyway and that “Santa” was going to email us all with the surprise later in December but it was such a disaster they were going to pull the plug on it. They just wanted to raise morale, I guess.

They nixed it, to everyone’s relief. My best employee stayed for a while but left on much better terms. Our department kept the Elf. They named him F*ckface (which I allow so long as we keep it chill) and blame him for errors and system outages. This year FF lives in a tissue box turned outhouse in the supply closet and comes out on staff work anniversaries. So it did raise morale, just not how they thought. (2022)

2. The mushroom casserole

My first ever work holiday party (for a small elementary school, at the principal’s house) was crazy. I had gone back and forth over whether or not it was appropriate to bring a bottle of wine along with our potluck contribution. I decided not to. Our admin was already drunk when we arrived. Throughout the night several people got very drunk, another teacher hit on my partner in front of everyone, and my coworker’s spouse got into a weird argument about dogs with the principal. One guest had brought a mushroom casserole, which he admitted was entirely foraged from the woods by the school- after everyone had eaten it. The highlight of the night was a preschool teacher’s husband dropping his pants to show off an almost life-size, full color tattoo of the cast of a certain Netflix original scifi 80’s show. The inebriated admin disappeared halfway through the party and from what I heard spent the night in the principal’s daughter’s bed (she was away at college). If anyone from said school is reading this, I’m sorry for spilling the beans, and I had a GREAT time. (2020)

3. The surly coworker

I’ve been through my share of great and not-great potlucks, but my most extreme office food story is the moment I learned to appreciate my surly coworker.

My surly coworker and I were tasked with providing light refreshments for an all-staff meeting (more than 200 people) on an extremely tight budget (less than $1 per person). My coworker went to great lengths to talk (badger) local vendors into deals so we could get the best spread possible, and she did a great job. It was nothing fancy, but fresh fruits, mini pastries, crackers, spreads, and coffee–enough for everyone to have some of everything.

During the opening address (by a senior manager), before the refreshments were officially served, someone standing near the refreshments at the back of the room was sneaking food off the tables and putting them into a plastic bag she had brought. A few of us noticed but were so appalled (and trying to stay quiet) that we just watched, silently aghast, the collective “who *does* that??” on hold in our minds, waiting for the speech to end. That is until my surly coworker saw her take an entire bunch of bananas. “EXCUSE ME,” she shouted from the front of the room, ‘THIS IS NOT A GROCERY STORE, AND YOU DO NOT DO YOUR FOOD SHOPPING HERE. PLEASE PUT THOSE BANANAS BACK ON THE TABLE.”

One beat of silence, bananas go back on the table, speech resumes. I’ve never been so impressed. (2017)

4. The light apps

My worst story is a Friday night holiday party with one round of light apps (at dinnertime) and an open martini bar. People got blackout drunk whether they meant to or not. Nobody could look at each other the following Monday.

Highlights: One guy withdrew the max from an ATM and gave it to a stranger. A male supervisor patted a female staffer on the butt. There were martini races. I got a piggyback ride from the IT guy to another bar. Underage interns were served. There was a conference call the next day to try to piece everything together.

And that is the last time we had an event with almost no food. (2023)

5. The rigged bake-off

Many years ago, my company had a bake-off contest. The judges could only be from management (most of whom don’t cook); even if a non-management staffer had a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, they were rebuffed. The winner was, as you might guess, a manager who pulled a recipe off the internet at the last minute.

This enraged another contestant, who from a home computer and an inscrutable email address, wrote a scathing letter proclaiming her recipe was superior and the contest was rigged. The email went viral through the company.

They never held another bake-off again. But they do have softball games. The coaches can only be from management. Even if you were once a three-time All American Div 1 athlete but not in management, you cannot coach. Absolutely ridiculous. (2023)

6. The declining gifts

Many years ago I worked for a household name coffee company. Year one of their operations in Canada, everyone got a turkey. Gradually over the years it ratcheted down to the point where one year we each got a single apple. One year we got nothing, called HQ, and were told that the bags of popcorn our last shipment of decorations was packed in were our gifts. One year the company made a deal for their coffee to be served on a certain airline, and everyone got a $15 gift certificate to that airline, which obviously offers no flights where $15 is even a blip. (2022)

7. The possible eraser

This is such a small thing, but it’s something I think about on occasion and wonder why I’m allowed to manage other people…

At the holidays, one of our vendors sends us a little bag of stuff (pens, snacks, stickers, etc) One year I looked in the bag and saw these little pale green rectangles wrapped in plastic. Out loud, I said (to myself), “Is this food or an eraser?” So I unwrapped one, popped it in my mouth, and said, “Oh good, it’s food!” Unbeknownst to me, one of my coworkers had overheard me and was practically falling out of her chair laughing. (2022)

8. The grill guy

My office has a grill that we drag out on the patio for office parties/potlucks/etc. I have a coworker who considers himself to be the “grill guy” of the office, and always mans the grill for all these parties because he’s “the only one good at it.” (Side note: his grill skills are perfectly adequate but not spectacular.) Once, we had an office potluck that accidentally got scheduled while he was going to be on vacation. This guy cut his vacation (at an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean) short so that he could be back in time to man the grill. Because he’s the grill guy! (2024)

9. The locked bathroom

My husband had a fabulous over-the-top company Christmas party at our house every year for his small company. In our town, the university was famous for their co-op program and the company had several science students. One got really drunk and managed to pass out in our rather small powder room. His immediate manager tried to rouse him by banging on the door and couldn’t, so we got worried. He had fallen forward so even picking the lock didn’t work. The door had to be smashed off its hinges and removed.

All was eventually forgiven and he was hired when he graduated, but never lived it down. (2023)

10. The truth teller

One year, grandboss thought it would be nice if people brought their kids to work for the holiday party, which was immediately after work. This caused some grumbling as a lot of parents had to commute home to pick up their kids, then come back again.

It was all worth it, though, when grandboss asked the young (I’d guess 7-9 years old) son of one of our employees, “What do you think of the holiday cookies?” and junior replied, “They taste like shit!”

Several of my coworkers couldn’t contain themselves and ran off to the break room to laugh. The mother of the kid was, of course, mortified and said “[name], we don’t use that language or say things like that, it’s rude” to which junior replied, “But you told me to always tell the truth!” which elicited even more laughter. (2024)

11. The tree tour

During Covid, our director decided the way to have a Christmas “party” was to Zoom it. So we did. I began drinking early in the evening, because, hey – I’m already home and it seemed like a dumb idea anyway. Our director is kind of wacky so that is why I stayed on Zoom as long as I did, hoping, I don’t know, to hear something … unique? Profound?? I had planned to shut it down early if everyone broke out into singing carols (because this group would do just that) or if it got too boring. While waiting for “the profound moment,” I apparently thought it was boring enough to have SEVERAL adult beverages.

At some point as everyone is chatting about the upcoming season or next year’s events, I took my laptop and staggered into the living room to show everyone my Christmas tree decorated with nuthin’ but penguins. No one had asked to see my tree. No one commented, no one said a word. Found out later my Zoom adventure consisted of 20 minutes of me showing my tummy to a room of 60+ people (staff and board of directors). (2023)

12. The cook-off

We had a chili cook-off and the winner admitted she didn’t make the chili. She got it from Wendy’s. (2022)

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