The WellDoneFillet Guide to Surviving The Office Christmas Party Part III

another Christmas fairy tale.....

This is the last installment of The WellDoneFillet guide to Surviving The Office Christmas Party. After this you are on your own. This is without a doubt the most important section, it requires strict adherence and absolutely no deviation. If you fail to follow my advice on how to avoid the walking Kleenex that is the Christmas Crier or the bag of badgers that is the Christmas Mentalist I don't really care. On your own head be it. But if you fail to follow the advice (laws) listed below you are in danger, mortal danger. My patience wears easily in December, my attitude is borderline psychotic, and I haven't got time to pick the cranberries out of your gravy.

So if you want your meal to go well stick to the rules!!! And keep this in mind, the restaurant you booked in June for your Christmas party doesn't exist any more. It has been replaced by a turkey and ham factory. Chefs are now robots (drunk robots) and waiters are now a strange cross breed between school dinner ladies and army majors.

The WellDoneFillet Guide to Not Pissing the Waiter Off Causing Him To Spill Cranberry Jus over Your Nice New Suit/Dress

Be on time. I know you were working all day and have to go home and get your Simpsons Christmas tie/little black dress (size 16) on. I know this, but I don't care. If you are booked for 5pm be there for 5pm, not 4.45pm, not 5.15pm, 5pm on the button. Time is the one thing we don't have enough of at Christmas. There are sprouts and crackers to spare. Turkey is stored in every possible fridge. We have more Champagne than your average drug dealer. Time though is in short supply. We get 15 minutes between sittings to get our sections stripped down cleaned and reset. If you are late getting on to your table you fuck everything else up for the rest of the shift. If the first table is late then every other table is late there after. Not this year friends, not this year. The clock starts from the moment your table was booked. If you ain't eating I ain't waiting. If you are late and I have to rush you off in order to get the next table in on time don't get mouthy with me. You have been warned!!!

Remember what you ordered. This is a real pain in the fat waiters ass. It slows service down to the point where you have 4 waiters standing in the middle of a section with plates of food, that's not getting any hotter, whilst half drunk civil servants try to figure out wether they ordered the turkey or the beef. I know that you were ambushed in the office one day by the party organiser whilst you were working/on facebook. They stuffed the pre-order sheet under your nose and in the style of the VC soldier in The Deer Hunter shouted "Choose Choose You must choose." I know that you ticked the boxes beside your name without paying any real attention, you just wanted the excitable lady to go away. But now you must remember what you ordered. You must clear your mind of everything and focus. There are only five options, it really shouldn't be that hard. I'm not asking to to recite War and Peace just the 3 things you ordered for Christmas dinner. And no, you cant change your mind. If you take the beef but ordered the turkey don't be getting all bitchy and whiney when I take it off you and swap it for a cold portion of turkey with a dried up cranberry jus. Deal with it Mr No Memory. I thoroughly recommend that you print individual mini menus for each person in your party. It's a nice project for the office tea boy. If you want your food hot and accurate remember what you ordered.

For God sake you are 42 years old, act like it! You are in a restaurant not a Chuck E Cheese! It is not acceptable to shout and scream at the top of your voice. "Here, here Mickey, Mickey, Mickey here, pull my cracker big fella..." Good God it's so utterly depressing. It's also not acceptable to throw food at your mate on the other table. It's not acceptable to wolf whistle at the ladies. It's so very not acceptable to wolf whistle at me and my work colleagues. Although if you are wolf whistling at me you need to stop drinking. I know it is your Christmas party and you have worked hard all year blah blah blah but that is still no excuse to act like a 5 year old. When I come to your table with food you need to shut the fuck up for a minute so we can get your food to where it needs to go. Sit down and stay seated. It's very hard to navigate my way through the restaurant if you are leading a conga around my section. If you want a cigarette and God knows I will be needing one, go outside for one. The toilets don't count. Oh and if I bring your food and you aren't there I'm just gonna leave it. I don't have time to bring it back to the kitchen to get it re heated so suck it up smokey. Be warned if you act like a five year old I will treat you like a five year old. I have a naughty step too.....

Don't believe the whiskey adverts. Or the brandy ones either. The people in those adverts look cool and relaxed as they pour glass after glass of hard liquor down their necks. THEY ARE ACTORS! And they are probably drinking cold tea. You on the other hand are not an actor, you are a mid level bank employee and as such do not have the ability to drink large undiluted quantities of Bushmills, Jamesons, Hennessy, Stoli, or any other spirit. For the love of your liver, work colleagues, and me please don't do it. You will just ruin your night. Saying that once you leave the restaurant you can get as pickled as you want. Oh and if I catch you with booze in your handbag, man bag, or pocket I will chuck your cheap ass out.

And then there's the matter of the bill. Remember when you booked your table? Remember when I quoted all the prices? Remember when I asked you if were clear on all of that and you said yes? Good. So why are you bitching now? I told you there would be a service charge, I didn't "sneak" it on. Stop being a cheap SOB and pay the fucking bill. If you want to know why it's more than you budgeted for just ask the 3 drunk chaps over there with their ties round their heads. It ain't my problem. If there was a problem with the food or service (unlikely) trust me I will sort it for you, I will make the reduction when needed. And if you stiff me I will get you back. KARMA people KARMA. It's real and I have the power......So just pay, say thank you, and take you and your lovely work colleagues and go dance the night away to The Pogues and Kirsty McColl.

To summarise, arrive on time, remember what you ordered, don't get bladdered before the soup arrives, and pay the bill with good grace and don't be cheap. And when I ask you to leave I'm doing so to get my next table in, not because I didn't love you and your rendition of "The Fairy Tale of New York."

Christmas is the hardest time of the year for waiters. It's 14 hour days with little to no breaks. It's hard graft and very pressured. But you know what I can't wait........tis the season to be jolly....