How to make a fortune from the Christmas Party: A prime City boss reveals the hidden tips to provide your profession a lift – and the behaviour she’d NEVER tolerate

Of all the aspects of my job that fill me with dread – and as a senior woman executive in the sexist world of finance, there are quite a few of them – there is one horror like no other.

It comes around without fail every year and what makes the whole farrago so much harder to endure is that some poor fools actually believe it is fun.

Yes, I am talking about the Office Christmas Party (OCP). Let me tell you, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that even begins to approach the exquisite torture of this event.

Not a dressing down from the chief executive. Not even a failed deal or a lost client. Late nights subsisting on pizza and coke – the soft drink variety – to finish a deal? Not even close. And just to pile a dollop of irony on top, while suffering the whole charade, I have to pretend to be enjoying it.

It wasn’t always this way. As Mail columnist Sarah Vine says, the point of the OCP was to let off steam, cop off with someone you secretly fancied, tell the bosses what you thought of them and generally indulge in bad behaviour. What could be better? It was as guiltily enjoyable as a raunchy episode of Rivals.

Not any more. Apparently half of all UK companies are cancelling Christmas parties because of concerns about the cost and worries about HR. A new Worker Protection law means employers could be liable to unlimited fines if staff get frisky at the festive bash.

How very joyless – but in the finance industry the real glory days of the OCP faded with the great crisis of 2008. Before that, excess was expected, if not encouraged. After that watershed, we had to go around pretending to wear a hair shirt. Covid did the rest.

These days the OCP, if it exists at all, is just another way of climbing or staying on the greasy pole in yet another economic downturn, induced by our Labour masters.

The only reason not to cancel our OCP altogether is the loss of face. In my firm, each department has their own do, and calling it off would be taken as a sign our team had a bad year.

And that would be handing ammunition on a plate to my male competitors. We’re talking about men who talk over me, interrupt before I’ve barely got a word out, or insist on addressing my (admittedly impressive) cleavage rather than having a conversation.

I certainly don’t want that lot speculating and hovering around like vultures. Besides, I may not like the Christmas party season, but I’m good at it. This is not so much the season of goodwill as a time when subtle manoeuvres to get one over on the opposition – in my own firm and outside – come into their own.

Women, in my experience, are much more adept than blunderbuss blokes in the dark art of social calculation. Like many of us, if we are honest, I honed my skills at school. Most of the girls in Form 4A were mistresses of put downs and passive aggression. It all comes in very handy 40 years later.

My job is very social, not just in December. No matter what time of year, if I am at an event, I have a game plan. My aim is always the same – to display as much status and power as possible, and to schmooze for business.

I want to be on the top table, next to the most important man – it nearly always is a man – in the room. That’s where being female is an advantage for once. There are so few of us, the mere fact of my femininity often gets me the best seat even if I am not the most senior. No matter that I might have been put there for decorative reasons or to give an impression of ‘diversity’ – once I’m in, I’ll make capital out of it.

Yes, it’s all a bit silly at the root, but success in my profession depends on knowing the right people as much as mastering the numbers. If I didn’t care about things like the OCP, I’d be in the wrong job.

We all pretend the Christmas do is a chance to relax and bond with colleagues. In reality, every detail, no matter how small, is calibrated to send signals to the team and to the rest of the firm.

It starts with the venue selection. Just picking somewhere really expensive would signal you’ve had a good year, which may or may not be true. But that’s not enough.

The place has to be swanky, yes, and also just edgy enough to show you are au courant, without being in actual Hackney.

Then in my case, there’s the expense and nightmare of the party outfit, a headache reserved for female executives. It has to be glamorous, but professional enough to deter any men drunk or daft enough to fancy their chances.

Then there is the seating plan. This is a work of intricate choreography designed to convey to everyone whether they are in or out of favour.

In other words, it is high stakes political theatre, where everyone is playing a part whether they realise it or not, and the denouement can be explosive.

Failure to grasp these realities can be catastrophic. A few years ago, when I was number two in a different department, my then boss mentioned that the head of a rival team had suggested we host a joint Christmas party.

Instinctively, I bristled and warned against doing any such thing, which I interpreted as the first move in a probable power grab. My former boss thought I was being paranoid.

As soon transpired, my suspicions were totally justified. Muscling in on our party proved to be the opening salvo in an attempted coup. The interloper was ultimately unsuccessful, though he created plenty of angst before heading off to try his tricks again elsewhere.

The outrageous antics that made the OCP a guilty pleasure back in the day are now just gigantic risk factors that make the event nerve-racking for any boss.

These days people are more wary, but there is still the risk of bad behaviour after the fourth or fifth glass, or a surreptitious line of coke – yes, it does still go on.

The only difference between now and the 90s is that back then, people got away with more.

I still remember one party in the mid-90s when a very posh and polite former colleague was wending his unsteady way home. He took a shortcut down a City alleyway, where he stumbled – literally – upon two asset managers, both married, having vigorous al-fresco sex.

In truly British style, he apologised to them, though he couldn’t resist spreading it round the office the next day. Gentlemanliness has its limits after all. Everyone thought it was hugely funny and the couple became an official item.

On one party on a boat on the Thames, also in the 90s, an important client in his early 50s got coked up, started Dad-dancing then pulled down the boob tube of a much younger female guest, who was not wearing a bra underneath. There was a lot of gossip about it, but no repercussions, though actually, there should have been.

At another event, one money-manager got out of his head and decided it would be a good idea to find out what two Scottish guests were wearing under their dress kilts. The answer revealed itself as boxer shorts, which he seemed to find disappointing as he proceeded to spank their bottoms, quite hard. They weren’t amused, but no one complained officially.

Some veterans in our industry don’t seem to have noticed the tide of wokery that has engulfed just about everything.

That includes one of our most senior executives who insists on making a speech at every Christmas event.

Over the years he has managed to upset everyone. His gems have included speculating on who will be the first person to be sacked in the New Year and suggesting one woman was having a shotgun wedding. But it has become an annual ritual where people look forward to being insulted, rather like the hapless guests of the late Dame Edna Everage.

My worst moment personally was in the noughties, when another rather old-school chap who used to be on the team drew my name in the Secret Santa.

Off he went he went to Ann Summers and bought me a merkin. I unwrapped the package, in front of everyone at the OCP to reveal a triangle of nylon fuzz strung on a thong.

Determined not to show embarrassment as everyone roared with laughter, I pretended to be amused.

Yes I was offended. But if you can’t cause offence to your colleagues, friends and family at Christmas, when can you? December in the City is no time for snowflakes. See you at the party…