Party Fears Two – Sandra 36

 

[For back story go here: Story so far at 30 Nov 2020 and more recent Sandra episodes especially this one.]

[Other back story through in-links.]

Sandra thought this was OK, but it wasn't a patch on what they would be doing at Together... Apart. A Christmas video call at Epstein's was in progress. The idea was to spread cheer around the place, but in reality it was proving to be just another source of frustration.

Naturally the business was far too big to include everyone at once on one video. David had regaled Sandra with tales of fantastic Christmas parties of yore, when entire warehouses had been decked out, when the CEO himself had appeared and addressed everyone and handed out awards to workers who had done particularly well. One year they actually had a record breaking lorry driver who accepted the award in tears as it had meant so much to him (he'd gone through a rough year otherwise with a marriage breakdown and Sandra was a little concerned that David wasn't putting two and two together here).

This year Sandra's department had teamed up with some of the leadership team from logistics. They got on well enough on the whole although logistics eyed marketing with suspicion believing deep down that they were the ones who really did the work round here. Even via a few computer screens the two departments seemed to be more talking among themselves than together.

"Am I a man or a woman?" asked Janice, sounding bored, sat in her home office. Bill had devised an online version of Who am I – the game where competitors usually stick names on their foreheads and ask questions to discover who they are. The obvious challenge for playing this game had been met by emailing everyone else with who a particular person would be and then having that person ask questions. 

"A man," said a few voices, overlapping and becoming slightly incoherent.

"A what?" said Janice.

"A man," someone repeated.

“Some say…” drawled Bill, a tinge of drunken derision in his voice.

"Oh, am I Boris Johnson?" 

"Too easy!" called someone.

"How? How did you get it from that?" said Bill, his speech becoming more slurred the longer the sentence he tried to get out.

"You came up with the names and we know how you feel about him," said Janice. "Pretty straight-forward."

Everyone had some form of drink in front of them but Bill was clearly the worst for wear. He explained that this was actually his third Christmas party video call today, having had mid-morning egg-nog with a driver's association and liquid lunch with one of the company's biggest suppliers. He would be over apologetic for his condition and then rise to be enthusiastic about the next game before subsiding back into regret and sadness over where the world was going and what would happen in the New Year. A couple of times Sandra contacted him directly to check he was OK and to see if there was anyone else at home for him. He said he was fine and yes his partner was home and he would go to bed as soon as this was over.

Sandra gave up at the point when they started drawing the raffle. Another Bill created escapade where everyone had been allotted numbers at random and he would now call on David to pick the winning numbers. Prizes would simply be vouchers this year, continued Bill, voice slightly cracking."It's not that we don't care any less this year," he said. "Honestly, it isn’t. The monetary value is still then same – the CEO was insistent about that, it's just – well you all know. It's just everything and we really love you people, we really do, we love you and everything you do. 

“Everything you do," he said, finally breaking into song, "You do it for us..."

Bill had said he was OK but as she left Sandra sent him another direct message of support saying she was around if he needed to talk.

She stared at the computer screen, now unsure what to do. In some ways, there was nothing left to do. The company had signed off for Christmas, questions still hung in the air over Brexit and what the business would do in the New Year but there was nothing they could do or say at the moment.

Sandra sighed and decided it was finally time to start making some mince pies and maybe even write some Christmas cards, although she wasn't convinced they'd get posted.