Ways to Avoid Keeping that Less-Than-Loved Career

Ways to Avoid Keeping that Less-Than-Loved Career
Review this List of Absolute Musts for Screwing Up at Company Functions

adapted by LaToya Prater

Even if an office party winds down with you having made an "ally" of the boss's husband or a "friend" of the customer's wife, you less-than-love your job, and screwing up royally at any professional event where you can both ingest (and then later blame) booze is a great way to get rid of said job.
Positively horrific blunders that can't bear the light of "mornings after" are typically caused by getting too soused or suggestive. Strive for this at all costs.

Now get set, on your mark. And before you actually go, review this list of absolute musts for screwing up at company functions. Aside from the obvious of making a pass and/or just passing out, the seven best things you can do at a business holiday (or other) party to really louse it up are:

1. BYOB. Bring your own baby, that is. Strap on the Snuggly and bring the baby to the ball. Everyone will be so annoyed at your stories, pictures, and having to hold the damn thing every time you hit the commode, you'll be hated and talked about for weeks. Be sure to feed lactose-intolerant babies plenty of milk products to add that special touch of kid vomit to the festivities (and the boss's shoes).

2. Complain about the food, décor, entertainment or venue. Be tacky and sub-par. Obviously, someone (with power over you) is attempting to say thanks and/or show off. Equally obvious is the fact he/she had done it poorly and clearly has no taste. If you cannot be gracious, be a raging asshole.

3. Pull rank. Continuously ask a subordinate to get you a drink, give up a seat or let you break into the buffet line. This will inevitably come back to haunt you and hopefully lead to your being asked to leave the company (say the subordinate takes over the company, or the hotshot you're recruiting next week noticed and is now convinced you have no class at all) Losing personnel by the boatload is a great way to get canned.

4. Criticize your partner or spouse in front of co-workers. Before showing up, make a pact with each other. Or just surprise your loved one with a barrage of insults in front of anyone who will listen. Good choices include mentioning personal hygiene issues or pointing out your significant other's sexual shortcomings. Business parties are the perfect occasion on which to joke about such things - it makes everyone uncomfortable, and you become the bitch/bastard of the ball.

5. Gossip. This means about anyone or anything. If you indulge, you will discover - without fail - that the guy you've been ignoring on your left is actually the brother of the woman on the dance floor you've been taking apart. What's more, he was at the rear of the elevator on the way up and heard your news about the interview you have scheduled next week at his nephew's Fortune 500 company. Guess who really just got dished -probably saving you from another potentially miserable foray into the corporate nightmare.

6. Bring up your championship season. Push aside the tables to perform the tango routine that - amazingly - you still remember. Send the bread barreling across the room to reproduce that record-breaking pass. Demonstrate your prowess at spelling eight-syllable words. Be as arrogant, rude and annoying as possible.

7. Run your ideology up the flagpole. No one cares that you're a vegetarian, libertarian, Rotarian or Scientologist. No one wants to hear an evangelical lecture about gardening, macrobiotic diets, Broadway musicals or whatever happened to Jimmy Hoffa. It's a party. The more you blather about interests no one else shares (throwing in plenty of self-righteous lectures in the mix), the more everyone will hate you.

AND OF COURSE, GET AS WASTED AS POSSIBLE. This goes without saying, of course, particularly if it's an open bar. If it's a cash bar, go back to #3 and pull rank, forcing subordinates to keep you well lubed all night long.

LaToya "GfV" Prater is a free-lance drinker and writer. A native of New Jersey, she got hammered in Hoboken one night a few years back and woke up in Kansas City tied to the passenger seat of a '77 El Dorado with Ed Asner wearing nothing but the hand puppet Lambchop. Now a resident of Kansas City, Prater deals fecal diagnostic kits and rectal temps for cats, dogs and lemurs to earn a paycheck and spends the rest of her time focusing on her three dearest passions: Alcohol, writing fiction, and acting (Japanese balloon fetish porn flicks).