The Foolproof Guide to Hooking Up at Your Office Holiday Party

The only reason your company party has an 89-percent attendance rate is because everyone in the office has a proposition wager on who will fly off the rails like a coked-up Real Housewife of Orange County. In that same keynote, no self-respecting career woman is going to let you sully her Ann Taylor LOFT sheer sleeve dress if you smell like Seagram's VO and have the hiccups. Keep it together, Sloshed Hartnett.

With their expansive budgets and khaki-inspired dress codes, many of us assume places of business to be more evolved than junior high cafeterias. They’re not. In fact, they’re a lot worse because backstabbing and political gamesmanship are actually incentivized in the corporate hierarchy. Plus, no one really has to worry about getting popped in the mouth on the playground, so they’re free to smear your name with relative impunity. It doesn’t matter if you share cubicle space with Bonnie Raitt, give those gossiping fools nothing to talk about. Shout out if you got that last reference.

Upper management types are, often times, imprisoned by loveless marriages and red wine dependency, which makes them vulnerable to making poor life decisions when they’re off the clock. That said, banging a higher-up could empty a full clip into your career track. Far be it from us to tell you that you can’t boof your boss like a Lisa Ann porn scene incarnated, but prepare yourself for the prejudicial fallout.

Like any party, you have to be active at the holiday shindig to be noticed. And, no, “active” does not mean miming the lyrics of Lady Gaga’s “Applause” and vomiting Jagermeister into a urinal. Though, that sounds pretty epic. Anyway, try to do a back-and-forth with every person possible and see who clings to your commanding presence. Hopefully it’s that gorgeous girl from sales and not a bunch of clowns from the IT department.

If you’re riddled with anxiety about hitting it off with someone and impressing your boss, then you’ll fail miserably. That’s the only guarantee in this whole thing. You’ll try to small talk your direct supervisor about Callaway brand golf clubs, and he’ll walk away thinking you’re a complete tool. Then, you’ll make your way to shorty from accounting and overcompensate about your passion for finance. This isn’t that complicated; just be cool.

There are a handful of things that, if they go down, you want to keep inconspicuous, like punching that stroke Jason from marketing in the mouth for stealing your out-of-market ad campaign idea. That's something you're going to want to do on an empty subway car or in a back alley. Other potentially devastating acts include overt flirting, touching, and chaotic make-out sessions in front of coworkers. These are things you should do in back alleys or empty subway cars (but preferably in your own apartment).

If possible, you and the beloved should leave the party separately. Coordinating an underhand, SEAL Team Six-style exit isn’t going to be easy after a half dozen Moscow Mules, but anything you can do to hoodwink prying coworkers is a win. Nothing sets miserable people off quite like others getting laid, and office buildings are veritable warehouses of despair. In other words, don’t give the damaged buzzards in middle management or specialized buzzkills from HR anything to hold against you.

Work hookups are funny because they have all the provisional, bodily impulses of a garden-variety one-night stand, except the two of you are stuck sharing the same marketing department printer for the next half-decade. That is a poignant and emotionally challenging scenario, even for a pleated khaki wearing Lothario like yourself. Acknowledge the tryst, laugh it off, and keep it moving.