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

@baubling

Sellotape a Quality Street wrapper over the camera, and once everyone has oohed and aahed over what a funny green / purple / orange colour you are, you will be able to say that they all look a really weird colour too, and there must be something wrong with the connection... hello?... hello??? and then just switch the thing off.

If its karaoke by zoom can you not just find someone else singing the song on Youtube, put it on in the background then lip synch. I couldn't be doing with having to sing to my colleagues!

I realised this morning that the day that I need to book as annual leave because we're having work done and I'll have no power/internet is the day of our Zoom party. Which is brilliant on the one hand, but on the other no one will believe me that we really are having work done...

I'm going on mat leave mid-Jan and I think they'll try and organise a virtual send off - I know this is so ungrateful but I so hope they don't!

@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

This is absolutely mad on so many different levels

I don't go to the in person ones and no way am a attending a zoom one.

I just decline the invites.

House rabbit chewed through wires and you have no power?

For our whole-department do, we are being posted a gift of some kind and had to select if we wanted alcoholic/non and standard/vegan&gluten free, so I feel like that's quite hopeful... but there's apparently going to be a magician!
There is mingling afterwards, which I might skip - they did this for a virtual party in the summer, and it was pretty awkward having to make virtual small talk with people I didn't know!

my team one, we are just drinking and doing a quiz, but that'll probably be quite fun!

We’re having Drag Bingo, wine deliveries and Just Eat voucher codes. Employers can’t win sometimes, If they organised nothing there’d be cries of
‘We’ve had the year from hell and nobody has even organised anything for a bit of fun’.
I’m pleased I don’t work with some of the miseries on here.

I think the one bonus of all this is that Zoom connections are notoriously and quite randomly unreliable.

Click the invite and then accidentally switch off your internet with a willing accomplice creating a dramatic banging noise or something.

Then go have a cup of tea and watch Tipping Point.

‘We’ve had the year from hell and nobody has even organised anything for a bit of fun’.

The one thing an employer could do that nobody would moan about is a nice fat bonus in their employees’ pay packet?

Just had an email reminder that ours is the last Friday before Christmas and in the afternoon so we have to attend. It's an award ceremony which is essentially a popularity contest and the same few people win every year. Very tempted to try and book the afternoon off but I know my manager won't accept it so I'll be stuck with a fake grin on my face while the same people gush about how much they love the company when in reality they complain behind the bosses back at every opportunity!

YANBU

You win worst office party too. Kareoke AND compulsory AND Zoom. shudder

Upload a screen shot of yourself in festive jumper and mute your mic.

Ignore any messages telling you that your screen has frozen.

Enjoy a nice quiet cup of tea.

We have a plethora of activities to choose from. Some folk from our office are putting on a virtual panto. There will be a quiz and awards ceremony (silly awards nominated by us) and there is a crafting session each week in December. I usually cringe at the holiday season parties but I think this is actually a decent offering. I will probably join in the panto and possibly the quiz.

I have a child self isolating after a bubble burst at school. What with me, DC home schooling and DH sharing bandwidth, my internet is really struggling......sincere apologies.

At least I won't have to do the walk of shame into the office the following morning, after having one too many Prosecco's and telling all my colleagues and boss how much I love them and promptly falling over the step when I leave

Not in 10 squillion years

I'm dreading it. We have work friends quizzes. They seem to always involve having to have a drink and as there is a small group of us if I say I can't make one date I get asked for another. Dh is not terribly well, I'm up to my eyes in stress at work and purposefully avoiding the WhatsApp group for inevitable back and forth with dates

If your workplace is one that worries about never breaking rules, mention performing rights about using music. May cover the workplace but not if you have a Zoom call.

a virtual panto

Aaaargh. Who'll be Widow Twankey? Controversial 😂

@maddiemookins16mum

We’re having Drag Bingo, wine deliveries and Just Eat voucher codes. Employers can’t win sometimes, If they organised nothing there’d be cries of ‘We’ve had the year from hell and nobody has even organised anything for a bit of fun’. I’m pleased I don’t work with some of the miseries on here.

I'd be a bit more delighted about mine if it came with food and wine... Though we have to pay for that ourselves in a normal year, too.

Incidentally they've also given us an extra 1.5 days off at Christmas and everyone is genuinely very happy about this, so it definitely is possible to win! I just wish they'd done it instead of the Christmas party rather than as well as

Jeeeez this thread is horrific. Just say no guys. Seriously. I am channeling the no in me. it's so liberating

Didn't turn up for a mandatory meeting last week. Didn't send apologies. Didn't care. Neither did anyone else. It's great when you step off the work bullshit ride

Drink prosecco out of a coffee mug. That might help. Compulsory fun is no fun at all. Far better to just have a 30 mins chat

You’re not in psych are you op...

A zoom karaoke party sounds dreadful. I agree that the easiet option is the internet has gone kaput.

I think we are just going to do a Teams quiz. We did that every Friday during the first lockdown, but as we have been getting busier and busier at work the quizzes have dropped by the wayside.

We all get on really well with each other and have a great boss so I doubt that many people will not want to join in.

@Eryouwhat

You’re not in psych are you op...

Not in psych - are you all full of the joys of festive Zoom also? So heart warming that we're all in it together, across all fields, hand in hand, cringing 😂