How to get out of your work's depressing Zoom party

[FestiveZoom]

Mine will involve Karaoke. 😶 How are your annual "rewards" coming along? Got anything to beat that?

YABU: Awww, this is a fabulous idea, more festive Zoom, more more more! 🥳

YANBU: Cringe, vomit, avoid. 🤮

www.wired.co.uk/article/christmas-zoom-party-work-excuses

I'm organising ours with quizzes and silly awards. It's not mandatory though.

We’re doing an online escape room thing. I’m quite looking forward to it though!

A Zoom Christmas party?!

Ours is within work hours to ensure maximum compulsory attendance. It's almost like they know. 🤔

Oh, no, my internet has gone down

I mean it sounds awful to me.
But at least make plans to escape after an hour or whatever.
If you do enjoy it you can stay on!

Ahh no, isn't that the day Virgin are digging up the road outside your house and accidentally taking out everyone's Internet access for a few hours?

Sounds absolutely awful...think my internet connection would have a fault 😳

Can the internet not go down? Power cut at home?

I don’t think karaoke is suited to zoom

Ours is going to be - Christmas themed quiz, informal chat that people can stay for or not, and bring along festive snack/ drink/ whatever, optional Christmas jumpers and Christmas background with the option (again) to donate to save the children if you want.

This is another good reason I'm self employed

Yanbu. My idea of hell
Our boss has said sod it, let's put it back to summer and we can all have a giant pub crawl and some food when it's sunny and places are open. So we are just doing secret Santa and getting an extra two days off work. Win

I put a pudding bowl on my head to trim my fringe and its stuck. It will be stuck until the pandemic and zoom cult is gone.

Oh god I'd settle for a zoom this year over the ones we usually have where it's essentially team building and ALWAYS outside doing some Bear Grylls style nonsense. I was so cold last year I was physically shaking on the train home. Gruesome!

Although knowing my bosses they'll find a way to get us outdoors on zoom... Brrrrr...

Yanbu, ours in mandatory which kind of sucks the fun out of it.

I'm going to try to enjoy it by drinking a few glasses of Prosecco and gorging on chocolate.

Who makes party attendance compulsory, ffs? What's that supposed to achieve?

@TheTempest we are also doing an escape room. I just looked at your other threads to check we don't work together we don't

My DPs zoom drinks things are every month and each 'party room' is 8 people picked at random. There are 700 people in his office so he often doesn't know them well, or at all

Worse still, my boss has decreed we must go to their house and stand in the garden for ours. Apparently it is OK because it is a "work meeting".

They live in an area I would normally never drive to because of ridiculous residents parking restrictions, but I am certainly not going to take the bus then worry if I have CV all over Christmas. I hate work parties at the best of times but everyone else is gushing how lovely it will be to see each other IRL

I think my children might have to be ill on that day and require supervision!

I’m just thinking of mine as something that, for some of my colleagues, is some of the only social contact they get: not everyone has a family at home or nearby friends to call or socially distance walk with and as a workplace wellbeing mentor I know that I have colleagues who are struggling and actually feel grateful for the social Zooms.

Besides that, it’s hardly a hardship for me to sit on my sofa and drink a couple of glasses of wine with some music on in the background whilst chatting to people online.

If you want ideas though, my team has been doing “who would live in a house like this” for our team meetings every week and taking it in turns to do a video tour of our homes and then quiz everyone to see what they remember about it.

My DPs zoom drinks things are every month and each 'party room' is 8 people picked at random. There are 700 people in his office so he often doesn't know them well, or at all

Jesus wept. The horror of being the host...

@toomanydogsandchildren
Please tell me someone is planning to breathe COVID germs though this letterbox! Some people deserve it!
But aren't you self-isolating that week?

@TooManyDogsandChildren

Worse still, my boss has decreed we must go to their house and stand in the garden for ours. Apparently it is OK because it is a "work meeting".

They live in an area I would normally never drive to because of ridiculous residents parking restrictions, but I am certainly not going to take the bus then worry if I have CV all over Christmas. I hate work parties at the best of times but everyone else is gushing how lovely it will be to see each other IRL

And HR have approved this?

Ah the dreaded (now virtual) office party! I'm old and jaded, and hate them with a passion I normally only reserve for flat packed furniture. When I was asked last year why I wasn't attending our shindig my reply was simple. I don't want to go. Followed by a Paddington Long Hard Stare.... Quite like the idea of an online escape room though....

If you want ideas though, my team has been doing “who would live in a house like this” for our team meetings every week and taking it in turns to do a video tour of our homes and then quiz everyone to see what they remember about it.

How awkward for those who wish to conceal how meagre - or how opulantly - they live. Or those in D.V. situations. I can see that backfiring in some teams where there is considerable economic disparity! Especially right now.