Political Fix presents: How to survive the office Christmas party

Political Fix

Financial Times

News, Politics, News & Politics

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While Lucy Fisher and the Political Fix team take a break over the Christmas period, we’re sharing an episode of Working It, the FT’s workplace podcast hosted by Isabel Berwick.

Here’s what it’s about: It's the work Christmas party season: you're out of the office, and the alcohol is flowing. How can you make sure you don't embarrass yourself (or derail your career)? And how can you bounce back if you do go wrong? Isabel Berwick speaks to FT columnist and veteran party-goer Stephen Bush, author and comedian Viv Groskop and party-shy FT columnist Emma Jacobs to find out. Warning: contains drunken secret Santas, dancefloor embarrassment and toe-curling apologies.

You can raise money for the FT's charity, the Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign, by bidding to have lunch with Political Fix regulars Miranda Green, Stephen Bush, George Parker or one of their colleagues at top restaurants that are donating meals for an excellent cause.

Want more? Free links:

Workers and bosses opt for Christmas payments over parties

The office grinch may have a point — it’s not fun if it’s forced

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, it's Lucy Fisher here. Political Fix is taking a break over Christmas, but we didn't want to leave our
0:06.7	listeners bereft, so I'm taking the opportunity to introduce another podcast from our
0:11.3	FT stable. It's called Working It, a show about workplace issues,
0:16.0	and the episode that follows might just turn out to be handy at this particular time of year.
0:21.0	It's essential listening if, like me me you've been swept up in a whirlwind
0:25.2	of Christmas parties in the run-up to the holidays so sit back and enjoy as political
0:29.9	fix regular Stephen Bush reveals his own Westminster Christmas Party faux-par and offers to The store throughout 2024. Hello and welcome to working it from the Financial Times.
0:49.0	I'm Isabelle Berrick.
0:51.0	It's the office Christmas party. You're feeling good. You've got a glass of warm white wine in your hand. No one's embarrassed themselves.
1:00.0	Wait, is that Charlie from accounts, twirking on the dance floor?
1:07.0	We'd all like to have fun at our office party, but the risk of embarrassing yourself is very real. Lucky for you, I've brought together three seasoned
1:15.9	survivors of workplace embarrassment to help you stay out of trouble. Viv Groskop is an author, comedian and journalist.
1:23.4	Emma Jacobs is work and careers writer at the FT,
1:26.4	and Stephen Bush is an FT columnist and associate editor.
1:30.2	They shared some tips on how to enjoy your workplace Christmas events while
1:34.4	making sure you can still look your colleagues in the eye come January.
1:40.0	Stephen, you're a professional party goer, I might say. Have you ever had a party mishap?
1:45.4	Oh God, too many to count. I actually, I recently did a new one. So in Westminster, which is my main beat, a lot of people, it does have to be said, broadly do look the same.
1:59.7	I would also actually include myself in this at the moment and I've currently got the kind of default black man in Westminster haircut and I had this awful moment where I not only did I mistake someone for someone else but it was at a certain stage in the evening and so instead of having the good sense to just
2:17.2	Apologize without any caveat I said well I'm sorry the problem is you do all kind of look alike.
2:25.0	And what was the response?
2:30.0	Fortunately, they took it in good, they said, yeah, I have got the the government's bad stubble an
	...

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