Saturday 5 December 2009

The Works Do - A Cultural Phenomenon, or Just a Good Night Out?

It's my works do tonight, that's what we call it, a 'do'. It's a generally accepted part of our organisational calendar that there will be a Xmas do of some sort. And it is an Xmas do, rather than Christmas, it having its own format and elements that are essential, but little to do with the Christian celebration.
Here is my checklist of essentials - feel free to add your own:

Getting ready:

1. Men should get by with as little effort as possible, if it takes longer than twenty minutes to get ready, it's taking too long.

2. Women should treat the event like a royal ball or gala dinner (which invariably won't be)

3. Women must spot which of the men are wearing the same clothes as last year

4. Men should at least make a token pretence at discretion when assessing their female colleagues' frocks

Food:

1. Turkey. That's it. Any deviation from this rule should be presented in such a manner as to be barely edible

2. Food of whatever type should make every effort to remind the diners of school dinners

3. Place settings must include crackers containing barely recognisable plastic novelties of no value whatsoever

4. Hat wearing is compulsory.

Disco must include any of the following:

Merry Christmas Everybody - Slade

Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Wizard

Stop The Cavalry - Jonah Louis (spelling?)

Wombling Merry Christmas

Fairy Tale of New York - Pogues and Kirsty McColl (bless her)

The one by Gregg Lake

In Dulci Jubilo - Mike Oldfield

(These are my essentials - the rule is that they should all be from the era when you got your first Christmas snog... Ahem...I was very young)

The final rule is that the remainder of the evening should disappear in a blur only to reappear the following week as office myth and legend.

I'm on my way to ours, on a bus as I write this. I intend to try and capture the mood via Twitter using hash tag #worksdo
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Posted via email from stevencroft's posterous

5 comments:

©gloop said...

Crofty it's ours next week and your instructions are spot on. Can I just add...I'M A GRANDAD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crofty said...

Congratulations Steve!...can I just add, in case my two sons are reading this, I'm in no hurry!!!!

Faye said...

Hey Crofty,

This is a bit belated, but thanks so much for your nice comment. It's always nice to have new readers out of the blue.

What is exactly is Experience My Culture about? Is it a blog with regular posters, or is it more of a community of travelers and such? Looks like an interesting project.

Faye

Faye said...

Crofty,

This is a bit belated, but thanks for your nice comments. It's always nice to get a new reader.

What exactly is Experience My Culture about? Is it a blog with regular posters, or is more of a community of travelers and such? It looks like an interesting project.

Faye

Crofty said...

Hi Faye,

Experience My Culture is a networking site to give people the opportunity to share their experiences of different cultures and also talk about there own.

It's also a place where people can explore facets of cultures they seek to understand without the usual social awkwardness of having a face-to-face conversation.

Ultimately though it's aimed at the understanding that whoever we are, the things we have in common are far more important than our differences.

That's a bit long - does it answer your question?