The office party

It is a bonding exercise, next in importance to the office picnic and ranked before any of the official planning events, budget workshops, or junkets to Tagaytay. At least that is how it sold to the employees who nowadays increasingly seem to want to exchange collegiality for cash. Fortunately, those wallow in levels where even during office bonding exercises, co-workers are treated like subordinates. Janitors still clean up after, drivers still ferry the drunk home, and secretaries, like nannies, still prepare food for their bosses. Never mind that the party table is self-serve and the celebration was meant to endear regardless of whether one wore blue or white collars to work. Organizational hierarchy remains in office parties. The crisp roasted pork skins go to the boss, the rubbery, to mid-level managers, and the bland and boney to the rank and file. Blue Label is served only inside the managing director’s office, while proletarian beer is open to hoi-polloi in the pantry. Social stratification prevails. Pheasants in the pyramid perpetuate as pheasants. Fortunately, the demands of class benevolence are part of the equation. Rank and file take whatever they win in raffles. Vice presidents and up are obligated to return winnings to the pot. In multinationals, expatriates sit apart and sip the better wines, only occasionally nibbling at the local fare save for the immortal orange spaghetti with bright red slices of hotdogs and the petrified meat skewered on sticks and flavored with burnt dioxins. In American office parties, the come-on is the booze and the dining, and perhaps the unrealistic hope for a mythical liaison. Filipinos bring personal versions of adobo, the stew that has as many variations as there are Filipinos. If there are other expatriates, they too bring local fare and the diversity is a delight for all. Some parties get pretty dicey. The wildest was when a vice-president clambered up a table and, after multiple doubles, obliged a drunken crowd. Fortunately such events are rare. She was in her late fifties. Many regretted the cat-calls when her top eventually came off and the image of old ironsides and pine cones singed and scarred our memories forever. In the Philippines, the party come-on are the prizes to be won from an office party that is either amateur night at the “Improv” or a game show complete with game show hosts and song and dance numbers. Who ever thought Mang Edgar could dance like Adam Lambert, or Prudence from bookkeeping could grind, groove, and gyrate in ways the human body was not meant to move? Where did the purchasing buy those grass skirts and clamshell bras? And who is that with Paloma? Didn’t she say she was single? The P5,000.00 prize for the best number is not half as important as the honor it brings. When we consider the pot will be distributed among the whole department that wins it, psychic distinction suddenly escalates in Maslow’s hierarchy of what are truly important. After all, money is not everything. Notwithstanding accusations of December 25’s pagan origins, recognition is the message in every pre-dawn homily, Christmas carol and Hallmark card. The battle cry is “karangalan ang ipinaglalaban.” We perform for glory. John Wayne could not have said it better as he led the charge up Mount Suribachi in “The Sands of Iwo Jima.” The declaration of profundity is heartwarming at a time when materialism seasonally resurges and the hidden-Scrooge in some resurrects from the accusations of ritualism to the creation of the modern-day Santa from Coca-Cola’s marketing hucksters. Recognition for the unsung is indeed a value. As we leave the church choir singing “Silent Night,” pagan origins or not, the date is less important than what wafts through our hearts in the chilly early dawn as we pass by the Nativity diorama and then the bibingka stand. The philosophical paradigms – honor and distinction for the unsung – are more pronounced among those office staff who remain behind the frontlines for most of the year. No one takes these office party competitions more seriously than the clerical staff or the water-cooler association of secretaries and receptionists often neglected and untouched by profit sharing. None sing “Silent Night” with as much passion. None are merrier with the consolation prize of a set of plastic tumblers, a desk fan, or the grand prize of a Korean-made color TV. Somewhere in there the spirit of Christmas is alive and well. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.