Office parties are the epitome of holiday humbuggery. They provide a platform for management's year-end rhetoric, which is either self-congratulatory or exculpatory with promises of better days to come. Tolerating this sort of bombast via a memo or a meeting may well be unpleasant, but worst of all, is a holiday party with its forced and usually false joviality. It is the most empty conduit for the annual message of good cheer.

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