End-of-the-year holiday parties are a great way to connect with coworkers and celebrate the past year’s accomplishments as a company. They often involve speeches, good food, and an open bar. Unfortunately, some employees let loose a little too much at such events and end up being the talk of the company the following Monday. Employees reveal the most scandalous things that happened at their company holiday parties. This content has been edited for clarity.
Sales Meeting
“I left the company party early because I am not much of a partygoer. I drove home, which was only about five minutes from the office, and went to bed. At about one o’clock in the morning, my phone rang.
It was the VP of sales, ‘Get to the Courtyard, quick!’ he yelled. ‘Hurry!’ and he slammed down the phone.
I was half asleep but got up, brushed my teeth, put on my suit and tie, and jumped into my car. It was pouring rain. As I approached the Norwood Courtyard Marriot, I saw the lights of fire engines and police cars. I couldn’t get up the road so I parked on Route One and hopped out of the car with my umbrella. As I approached the Courtyard, I noticed all the guests in their pajamas and coats standing miserably in the rain, huddling as close to the canopy as they could. The epilepsy-inducing strobe lights in the hotel were going off in every corridor. The honking of the alarms was ear-shattering.
Underneath the carport leading to the front lobby were two large men grappling on the ground while cursing and punching each other. Their white dress shirts were torn and muddy and covered in blood. They were having at it. The firemen ignored them and entered the lobby of the hotel. The soaking, sullen guests were watching the fight with undisguised hatred.
The man on top was our top salesman, a big man out of Texas with a big mouth and a big need to be inebriated and ‘be right.’ The man on the bottom was our top salesman from England, a large-mouthed wasted braggart of the first sort who liked to insult the French – and the Americans, but who made book month after month. As I watched in horror from under my umbrella, the two top salesmen in the country were pounding the living out of each other.
Inside the lobby, the firemen were turning off the alarms. Smashed furniture and broken vases were everywhere. The night clerk was sobbing in the arms of another hotel employee.
The rest of our sales force strode up to me in messed up suits, ties askew, all here for the annual sales meeting. They were all wasted and stood there with me to watch the fight – and cheer it on.
Finally, the cops arrived and came out with their nightsticks to start pulling the two men apart. Neither would have it and fought the cops with snarls and curses as they continued to fight each other. Their faces were a mess of blood and bruises. Their expensive ties were destroyed as each man attempted to grab them and pull the other into his fist. Eventually, the police broke them up and pulled them apart. There was yelling and kicking and pointing and threats as the cops dragged them away.
The salesmen looked at me with smirks and wide smiles. This was the greatest thing that had ever happened at a company sales meeting – ever. They were boisterous and chatty. The guests were still standing silently in the pouring rain until the firemen let them file back into the lobby.
There’s no real bar in a Marriott Courtyard and what serves as a bar closes early. Apparently, a group of salesmen had headed out after the company dinner in search of a bar. There were many bars in the area so they had no trouble finding one. After a night of extremely heavy drinking, feelings were easily hurt. The two most aggressive salesmen in the company had always hated each other. During the day they had cagey smiles and veiled insults for each other. But once the drinks flowed, the gloves came off.
The cops came outside and asked ‘Who’s in charge of these men?’
The salesmen all pointed at me. I was the only one sober with a tie still tight up against his neck. I was 28 years old. I gulped.
‘I’m not in charge,’ I said, ‘I was sent here by the company.’
‘These men are in serious trouble,’ the cop said.
I put up my hands. What the heck was I going to do? I didn’t know jack about stuff like this. Then the VP of Sales strode up. He was in a trench coat with a white shirt but no tie. He had driven from his home at top speed, calling me on the way because I lived so close. I don’t know what he thought I could do.
Meanwhile, the salesmen behind me were all laughing and clapping me on the back. As soon as they saw the grim face of the VP, they shut up and looked down like bad school boys.
The VP looked at me and said, ‘You can go home now’ and then he turned to the cop.
I looked at the salesmen from under my umbrella as they stood there in the rain, wasted, laughing, eyes shining with excitement.
‘What an excellent sales meeting,’ one of them said happily. I walked back to my car and went home.
The next day, both of the men were at the meeting. They looked bad, very bad. I don’t know what the VP said or did. He had to bail them out, and smooth it over. The company had to take responsibility for the damage. I have no idea how the company wasn’t thrown out of the Marriott Courtyard, yet here they all were in the meeting room, silent, hungover, and embarrassed. Some engineer was making a speech. No one was paying attention.
By all accounts, it was the best sales meeting ever.”
Company Policy
“It was one of those yearly offsites with a bunch of people. Presentations and a lot of ‘blah blah’ from the managers through the day and then drinking and a party at night. As the team wasn’t very large, even the support functions like HR and admin had been invited. All in all, it was an ‘everyone knows everyone’ kind of party.
Come 7:30 in the evening and the party started: the drinks flowed like water and everyone was getting sloshed. I am a teetotaler and a complete bore (for my fellow party-philic friends), so by 9:30 p.m., I decided to retire early. As I was walking to the room, I ran into our junior HR lady who had just arrived.
Dressed in a red, shorter than usual dress, she asked me, ‘Why so early, god you are such a bore!” I smiled and went to my room anyways.
A week later I was at the coffee machine at work with a friend of mine who had just returned after a week off. As the conversation shifted to the off-site, he casually mentioned that the junior HR lady (let’s call her Anita) got super wasted and did some stuff. He said it was all that was talked about the next day at breakfast. I had to prep for a presentation that morning so I missed the story completely.
Apparently, the lady drank a lot and then found a wasted, fully perverted manager (let’s call him Jim). He had already tried to hit on two women and in the process had been slapped publicly. His objective peaked when he found a wasted and more than willing Anita on the dance floor. Obviously, both decided to do a provocative dance in front of everyone. After that, they further went ahead and did the recreational procreation in the common area of the shared villa.
They didn’t put clothes on or clean up after, just passed out. Another lady manager woke up in the morning to find Anita and Jim on the sofa.
Of course, the lady who discovered Romeo and Juliet freaked out and shouted, so her roommate also came upon this piece of deviant art. By that time, Romeo and Juliet were completely awake and ran off into their respective villas. In the car on the way back, Anita decided to mount a counter-offense to claw back some dignity and asked,
‘Hey, did anyone hear about the guy and girl (from some other branch) who apparently had been seen doing the naughty last night?’
The only problem was the ladies who discovered the lovers in their glory were in the same car and let out a huge laugh. The topic wasn’t discussed further.
Since then, Jim has always maintained that he fornicated with the first lady who discovered ‘him and Anita.’ Of course, this version came out only after that lady left the company and moved outside the country (she was also the person who had slapped Jim publicly). As for Anita, she kept insisting on corridor conversations about how people from the other office couldn’t keep their pants on at such offsites.
Did I mention that Jim had an infant son and that Anita was a happily married woman with a husband who traveled a lot? Sorry if I didn’t, but even if I did, they were two consenting adults who participated in an act by mutual consent. Barring the altered version of events propagated by Jim, there was no wrong per the company policy at least!”
Just A Little Pinch
“In the late 1980′s, my spouse and I attended his company’s formal Christmas party at a large event hall. Everyone received two free drink tickets followed by a cash bar. Most people were aware that this was a corporate affair and behaved accordingly.
One couple had a serious ongoing drinking problem, which was an issue at every event until the husband was laid off. At this particular party, the wife drank so much that her behavior for the evening was like watching a train crash in slow motion. She was ‘feeling no pain’ when she made a pass at my husband in the lobby, in full view of everyone. She went up behind him and pinched his bottom, offering to share her charms. Sadly, I missed it as I was in the lady’s room.
Two other wives came rushing to find me and started the conversation with, ‘There you are! You are going to be SOOO mad!’
‘Why, what happened?’ I asked.
When they told me that the wife had pinched my husband and awaited my explosion, I surprised them by bursting out laughing! They could not believe I was not mad. I told them to give me a real threat and then we could talk.
I went and found my husband, sneaked up behind him, leaned into his shoulder, and whispered, ‘Heard you got your butt pinched!’ I laughed.
He immediately shuddered and said, ‘Ugh, yes,’ and I laughed some more.
As this exchange took place, I glanced up and saw the wife sitting in a chair in the lobby. As I watched, she lost her balance while sitting down and fell out of the chair. She was wearing her teenage daughter’s gold lame halter mini dress and it slid up around her waist! Her legs were spread wide in a V shape, her dress bunched around her waist, and her upper body weaved back and forth. Thank goodness she had on pantyhose, or who knows what we would have seen.
I was trying to tell my husband, but I was speechless. I kept nudging him with the back of my hand and pointing. Not my best moment. The head of HR and another person picked the wife up and took her to the lady’s room to get her straightened up. I lost track of her after that and had no idea where her husband was during all of this. Our night continued and we eventually went home somewhat early at 10:30 p.m.
The following Monday, my husband heard the rest of the story at work. Apparently, The husband was almost as wasted as his wife. He was stumbling around hitting on women and making a nuisance of himself. Meanwhile, the wife continued to drink and eventually was unable to walk. She passed out in a stall in the lady’s room. The head of HR had to get her brother-in-law, the senior VP of the office, to help her carry the wife out to a waiting limo and ship the couple off to their hotel.
This couple’s behavior did not limit itself to Christmas parties. The following summer at the company’s Summer Pool Party (at a swanky Country Club), they again got so wasted that they were hitting on other couples (by then we had found out they were swingers) and pouring drinks into the pool.
My husband and I helped load them into cars along with their wasted friends. As they were driven away, the husband was hanging out the window yelling,
‘Dougie! You and Susan meet us at Joe’s house. The party’s not over!’
As we stood in the parking lot waving them off, I said to my husband, ‘I have had enough of that crew to last me until the Christmas party.’
He agreed and we turned around to the senior VP was right behind us. I was embarrassed that he had heard my comment until he spoke.
He looked at me and said, ‘Me too. But I have to see them on Monday.’
All of those who had to be driven home were called into the VP’s office on Monday and reprimanded. They were indignant and wanted to know why my husband was not in trouble. The VP informed them because not only was Doug not inebriated, he helped take care of them, then returned to help clean up. When layoffs started, they were the first to go. They had no idea that social behavior affects professional advancement.
We were friends with the VP, his wife, and his sister-in-law for years until they left the area. The swinger/drinking couple was always a source of amazement and amusement between us.”
Hurricane Fanny
My boss called me the morning after our work holiday party and said, ‘Ashley, you were right about Fanny!’
A completely self-righteous ‘Peter Griffin’ giggle escaped my throat as I could hear my boss’s heavy, erratic breathing on the other end of the phone. He had just walked me through the events of the late-night (post) holiday party that I, unfortunately, missed due to overindulgence in the open bar. For weeks, I had warned my superiors that something nefarious was likely going to happen. And for weeks I was told that ‘everything is going to be fine’ and ‘don’t worry about it, it’s a night of celebration anyways.’
Much to his horror and my pure joy, the events were replayed in beautiful melody to my ears early that morning. I had been with my company for over five years and had seen/done almost everything. That is until ‘Fanny’ was hired onto my team. That’s not her name but it’s a good representation of her outward presentation to the world. You know that kind of girl that takes selfies in the bathroom turned around so their butt is facing the mirror and then take a “buttie” while sporting a duck face? You know the type.
This girl CRAVED attention. She had a big personality and came off as a genuine person to the regular Joe. She was also very sensitive and emotional to criticism of any kind (because she’s perfect, why would there be any criticism?). Anyone that complimented or told her that ‘her hair looked adequate’ would receive the most adoration from her.
She ran through a few office ‘relationships’ and started getting tagged as the office bicycle very early. This trend continued on through our customer contacts. Months after the incident, we would learn that she had upwards of five customer ‘boyfriends.’ Many of these boyfriends were married with children and risking it all for a little slice of Fanny heaven. She destroyed at least two families that we know of.
Our management is very accepting and trusting of people so Fanny put the blinders on them both very quickly and with ease. Distracting them with her charm and sensitivity, she could do no wrong! She was the ideal employee and I was just trying to start ‘drama that doesn’t exist.’
Before the party, Fanny announced to the group that she invited Charlie (our customer contact) to be her date. It was all a ruse: he wanted to come up north to go hunting and the dates lined up perfectly for him to attend our party. Sirens were going off in my head. I had my suspicions of those two based on the phone and email conversations flowing back and forth.
I am the face of the account with Fanny working the day-to-day operations. I knew this would not look good if my higher-level company contacts got wind of this. How would I explain it? Can someone say conflict of interest? I alerted both managers to the impending dumpster fire that this inevitably would lead to and was told they’d ‘look into it.’
Take note that Charlie left his young wife and son at home to ‘go hunting.’
When the holiday party arrived, the entire office began getting sloshed because of the open bar. Fanny and her selfie-taking, short dress-wearing tribe strutted in ‘ready to partaaaaaaayyyyyy ohhhemmgeeeee.’
The evening started off pretty well with speeches, awards, food, and a DJ dance party to follow. As soon as the music started, dirty dancing ensued. It was quite clear early on that Charlie was not there for a hunting trip as he grinded all over Fanny. He made his reputation quite known as he had multiple run-ins with co-workers in the bathroom making ‘my wife thinks I’m up here hunting lol’ comments.
Fanny was sure to not leave anyone out of her dirty dancing, grabbing many of her previous coworker flings to grind while Charlie was at the bar. Charlie’s inebriated jealousy increased to a threat level at midnight when the open bar closed.
Management then decided to continue the party at a local bar and reserved the upstairs for us. All employees that were still upright and alive staggered to the bar for afters. This is when the evening really ramped up. Fanny’s flirtation expanded to most every male that was still alive. A former ‘flame’ (let’s call him Tim) started giving her the attention she so desired. Unfortunately for Tim, he came to the party with his own date. Poor girl had no idea what was about to hit her.
Charlie verbally confronted Tim about his flirtation with Fanny and how it was verging on the side of ‘inappropriate.’ Takes one to know one, I guess. Fanny, ignorant of what is going on around her, continued her flirtations. I think she enjoyed the attention she was getting from both men and upped the ante.
Tempers flared and bottles begin exploding on the walls behind everyone. Tim and Charlie were chucking empty drink bottles at each other from across the room while slowly stumbling towards each other for the full frontal altercation. Bystanders have described the scene as similar to monkeys throwing feces at each other due to the general sloppiness of both brawlers.
Those capable intervened and threw themselves in between the two barrel-chested gorilla men beating their chests. Punches were thrown and counterattacks were thwarted until two idiots were pinned to the ground. The entire company was thrown out of the bar with Tim’s date disappearing into the night, alone. I often think of her and how she handled the altercation. Poor girl.
After multiple calls with management and HR the following Sunday, Monday rolled around and the shame was a beautiful thing to witness. Management did not dish out justice as I would have wished but most everything worked out in the end.
By the time Fanny left the company some months later, we learned about the complete devastation left in her wake. Two divorces and multiple lives shattered later, she left unscathed to commit her sluttery at another company. Hide your boyfriends! Hide your husbands! Hurricane Fanny is still brewing.”
Free Spirit
