Try not to 'shoot' your chief executive on the dance floor
It all happened very quickly: one minute I was standing at the bar, trying to follow a point Alan Beattie, this newspaper's world trade editor, was making about the Doha round and the next minute I was dancing to Wham!'s Young Guns (Go For It!), mouthing the lyrics and playfully shooting the FT chief executive with pistols made out of my hands.
I remember thinking: "My God, I'm an extraordinary singer and dancer - I must be the coolest person at the FT Christmas party by some distance." And I remember examining the look on the chief executive's face and concluding it was one of awe. And then I remember waking up with a tie wrapped around my head.
However, colleagues who witnessed (and photographed) the episode were more than happy to fill in the gaps afterwards. Apparently Alan and I had danced like we were "being electrocuted" for nearly an hour, displaying "a severe rhythm impairment", while the chief executive had occasionally glanced at us, not in awe, but in "abject terror". At one point we had apparently leapt up on to a table and jerked around in an off-tempo manner until we were thrown off it by security guards.
I relate this humiliating tale by way of warning because yesterday was the first day of December, which means - ding dong merrily on high - we have now officially entered the season of the office party. I used to have very definite views on such events. This time last year, I wrote that behaving at them was simple: "You should never have more than three drinks and you should always stay away from spirits."
So what happened? Well, it transpired that I had never really been to a proper office party before - my hectoring advice was based on small, relatively intimate departmental shindigs. In fact, I didn't attend my first company-wide office party until a few weeks afterwards, and little did I realise that these events operate by entirely different rules.
Existing in the nether world between work and home, they require you to rub shoulders with people you might never have seen before, from departments you may have never heard of, while eating food and drinking wine you would not normally choose and listening to music you would never normally listen to.
You have to be friendly to your juniors without being patronising; you have to talk to your boss without being sycophantic; and even if your idea of fun is a good chat about the Doha round and bed by 10pm, you still have to make merry with the work experience person whose idea of a decent night out is downing 10 tequila slammers and vomiting in a recycling bin.
In short, the company Christmas party is more fraught with potential disaster than a stroll through Baghdad and more political than an episode of The West Wing. All in all, it's enough to drive you to the bottle or, in my case, to two gin and tonics, two cocktails, two large glasses of red wine and a dark rum and coke.
So how should one behave at such events? Well, there's no shortage of advice available from business experts. They all say similar things: you have to attend to show you're a team player; you should dress conservatively; you should keep your drink in your left hand so you don't offer people a cold handshake all evening; you should never consider taking your boss's comments about being "one big family" literally and try to go home with a colleague.
All good tips, but not very useful when you find yourself, as I did, unintentionally blind drunk and incapable of thinking straight. If this happens to you over the coming weeks, my advice is to try to remember just three things, which you might want to write on the back of your hand so you can refer to them easily in an emergency.
First thing: don't dance. It is often said that if you can walk, you can boogie. This is not true. But if you do find yourself on the dance floor, keep it subtle - no headbanging, no moshing, no stage-diving, no crowd-surfing and no hand signals to Madonna's Vogue or Wham's Young Guns (Go For It!). And never, ever, slow dance with anyone.
Second, avoid the following phrases: "You're talking crap"; "You're not as bad as I thought"; "I love you"; "You dance like my dad"; "It must be fascinating being a post boy"; "What's your name?"; "I'm not paid enough"; "You're overpaid"; "I resign"; "Wasn't Wham! a fine band?"; "Let's get on the table and dance"; "What does the facilities department actually do?".
The third thing to remember is that if there's one certainty about the office Christmas party, beyond the fact that you will, at some point, walk past a woman sitting on the floor in a flood of tears, being consoled by two colleagues who don't know why she is crying either, it is that at some stage you will think it amusing to take a tie and put it around your head. Even if your intentions are ironic, don't do it. The same applies to lampshades and those undignified flashing Rudolph antlers.
If none of this helps and "ho ho ho" still turns into "oh, no, no, no", I'm afraid the only thing you can do is to have your excuses ready for the morning after. "I didn't realise I was allergic to alcohol" is a good one. As is: "I am on a course of antibiotics"; "I forgot to eat at lunchtime"; "The canapés were off"; and "I thought I was drinking fruit juice". If all else fails, just pray that someone else behaved even worse. Chances are, they will have.
在公司派对上如何表现
一
切发生得如此迅速，一分钟前，我还站在吧台旁，想努力搞清楚艾伦?贝蒂(Alan Beattie，本报世界贸易栏目编辑)关于多哈回合的一个观点，下一分钟，我已经踏着威猛乐队(Wham!)《年轻的枪手》(Young Guns)的节奏起舞，一边哼唱，一边把手做成手枪状，嬉笑着指向《金融时报》的首席执行官。
我记得当时在想：“天哪，我的歌声和舞蹈都这么棒，我肯定是这么久以来，《金融时报》圣诞派对上最酷的人。”我还记得，当时我看了一下首席执行官的表情，还认定那是敬畏之情。再然后我就记得醒来时，头上围着一条领带。
当然，见证了这一幕的同事(还拍了照)，事后少不了添油加醋一番，加以取笑。我和艾伦明显像“上电刑”般跳了快一个小时，就像患了“严重的节奏损伤”，当时首席执行官不时朝我们这边看，不是充满敬畏，而是充满了“绝望的恐惧”。我俩还一度跳上桌子，毫无节奏的乱舞一通，直到保安把我们扔了下去。
我提起这件丢脸的事是为了提个醒儿，因为昨天是12月的第一天，也就是说，快乐的钟声已经在高空回荡，我们现在正式步入了办公室派对的季节。我曾对这类活动有非常明确的观点。去年的这个时候，我曾经写过，要在派对上表现得体很简单：“喝酒千万别超过三杯，永远别碰烈酒。”
看看都发生了什么？这只能说明，我以前从没真正参加过像样的办公室派对。我那些虚张声势的忠告，仅仅适用于比较亲密的部门内小型狂欢。事实上，直到几个星期后，我才首次参加了全公司的办公室派对，当时我基本上没意识到，此类活动有着完全不同的规矩。
这既不同于工作，也不同于在家休闲，你得同那些可能从未谋面的人打招呼，他们工作的部门你可能听都没听过，你还要吃平时不爱吃的食物，喝平时不喜欢喝的酒，听平时从来不听的音乐。
你必须善待下属，但又不能摆出一副上级的派头，你得和老板攀谈，却不能让人觉得你在奉承他。即使你感兴趣的，是好好聊聊多哈回合问题，然后在10点以前上床睡觉，但你还是得陪着那些实习生，按他们的想法，像样的狂欢夜就得猛灌10杯龙舌兰酒（tequila），然后对着垃圾桶狂吐。
简而言之，参加公司的圣诞派对，其潜在的危险绝不亚于在巴格达街头漫步，政治斗争也绝不亚于《白宫群英》(West Wing)中的情节。总之，你最终无法避免亲近酒瓶，拿我来说，我当时喝了两杯金汤力（gin and tonics），两杯鸡尾酒，两大杯红酒，还有一杯黑朗姆酒（dark rum）加可乐。
那么在这种场合，该怎样做才算得体呢？商务专家不乏有用的忠告。他们的意见都大体相同：你必须参加派对，这样才能显示你是集体的一员；着装应当保守；应当左手持杯，这样就不会整晚用冷冰冰的手和别人握手；可千万别拿老板“我们是个大家庭”之类的话当真；尽量找个同事一块儿回家。
这些都是有用的窍门，但如果你像我一样，无意间喝得烂醉，头脑不清醒，就会发现这些窍门不太管用。今后几周，如果这种情况发生在你身上，我建议你尽量记住三件事，或许你要把它们写在手背上，这样在紧急情况下，你就可以毫不费力地看到它们。
第一：不要跳舞。人们常说，会走路就会跳舞。这可不是真的。但如果你真的跳进了舞池，动作一定不要太大，不要跳摇头舞、不要狂舞、不要从台上跃下、不要玩人海冲浪，还有不要做麦当娜的《Vogue》或威猛乐队的《年轻的枪手(全力以赴)》里的手势。而且，绝不要和任何人慢舞。
第二，不要讲下面这几句话：“你在讲废话
”，“你没有我想象的那么差”，“我爱你”，“你舞跳得像我老爸”，“当邮差肯定很爽吧”，“你叫什么？”，“我工资太低了”，“你工资太高了”，“我要辞职”，“难道威猛乐队不好吗？”，“我们上桌跳吧”，“设备部到底在干些什么？”。
第三件要记住的事是，在办公室圣诞派对上，你有可能碰到某个女人泪流满面地坐在地上，还有两个同事在安慰她，虽然他们也不知道她为什么哭，除此之外，你还会在某个时刻，认为拿条领带包在头上很有趣，可以肯定你会在派对上这么想。即使出于搞笑目的，也千万别这样做。同样，也不要把灯罩和（不庄重的）闪光鹿角头饰带在头上。
如果这些建议都不管用，而且“嗬嗬嗬”仍旧变成了“哦，不不不”的话，恐怕你唯一能做的，就是给第二天找好借口。“我不知道我对酒精过敏”是个不错的借口。其它不错的借口还有：“我正在服用抗生素”，“我忘了吃午餐”，“派对小食很难吃”，“我以为我在喝果汁”。如果所有借口都没用，那只有祈祷还有人表现得更不得体了。这样的人大有人在。
