It’s that time of year – jingle bells, Santa Rampages and politically correct secular winter celebrations for you and your coworkers. Having just survived my own office party, I would like to impart a few tips and tricks for getting through the season – with or without a pink slip.

Offer to serve as HBIC

Your coworkers will admire your leadership skills and selflessness for offering to serve as HBIC, or Head Bitch in Charge. This is a critical tactic for making sure that the evening goes your way. Once I secured the position, I went to work scouring the perfect venue to host the trendy, small design outfit I work for. It would have to be somewhere that perfectly combined style and substance(s). Dolce Vita? So last year. Benjy’s? I’ve had enough flatbread. Zimm’s? Oh, wait, they only serve drinks. I ultimately decided on new gastro-pub, Hearsay, because of its historic architecture and the fact that the bartenders remember me from the opening, and exactly how I like my Manhattan. Secure access to a company credit card so that you can pre-pay for dinner and have a last-minute killer outfit over-nighted from Gilt Groupe.

Strategically plan transportation

It was my original plan to show off my exquisite urbanity by taking the light rail from SoMo to Market Square, but it was a rainy night and I thought it would be unprofessional to soil the Ferragamos I’d just charged to the company’s AmEx. Go green and carpool. Perhaps befriend your company’s religious fundamentalist so that he or she can serve as designated driver. Besides, is there really anything more glamorous than tumbling out of the backseat of a rental Chevy Cobalt in the valet line at Hotel Icon? As close as possible, play out the opening scenes in the music video for R. Kelly’s Remix to Ignition.

Be discerning in your choice of a date

I began interviews for potential dates way too late, and settled on taking a great friend – an art student who’s recently returned from studying in Nepal. There – that’s two easy points of entry into conversation. Bringing a friend who’s lived abroad might be wiser than bringing a friend from abroad, since your coworkers will eventually have limited speaking skills, and it’s important to have a keen familiarity with English, especially pick-up lines. Your date should be culturally seasoned, yet approachable. Nobody was impressed with a coworker’s date, Sonja, a Peruvian model who ordered sparkling water as an entrée and talked about how much more fun she had last week at the Art Basel Miami parties.

Arrange group-building activities

Besides dinner and drinks, holiday office parties are all about fun gift exchanges: White Elephant, Secret Santa, hooking up with the intern, etc. Be gracious during this process. For example, I was gallant enough to take away a Michael Graves flask from a pregnant coworker in exchange for a DVD of the third season of The Biggest Loser. In contrast, Sonja lost even more points when she stormed off to chain smoke after picking a lousy jump rope.

Carefully document the festivities

You are sure to overhear some classic quotes that you’ll want to remind your coworkers of on Monday morning. A few top cuts:
“Steven, would you believe that my husband and I haven’t slept together since our wedding night?”
“You better lose that baby weight real quick after this whole mess is over."
“I am not leaving here with only a jump rope!”

On the other hand, why write a thousand words when you can take a picture? Besides their potential for scrapbooking, incriminating photographs are easy tools for blackmail. The next time I’m up for a raise, I’ll obviously bring up that jpeg of the boss squeezing Sonja’s left butt cheek. This recesh isn’t going anywhere, and you have to be creative to maintain job security.

Plan exclusive after-party fun

I devoted most of dinner to eyeing who I would and wouldn’t invite to let off steam after a night of office politics on ice. Vagabond Swing was playing at notsouH, so I sent a few friends ahead so that a brewskie would be waiting for me upon arrival. Listening to an earthy regional band will remind you that there is life beyond the constraints of work, and if things turn out well, you can set up a coworker with the fiddle/mandolin player. Once the bar shut down, we followed the band to the attic to “chill out.” After an hour, I ended up with a few bad splinters and found Sonja passed out in a rusty old bathtub. It was time to call it a night.

I think everybody woke up the next day feeling a little wary of the previous night’s events. (Wait, did Sonja ever wake up?) I wasn’t necessarily capable of leaving my bed until 4 p.m. the next day, but that’s not especially unusual for a Saturday. To the emerging twenty-something professionals of Houston, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of establishing and maintaining low expectations of professionalism early on.

Wishing you a happy noncommittal winter solstice celebration,
Steven