The office Christmas party is a time for hardworking people to let their hair down and start a fight with their boss. Stick a load of people who work together into a small venue, ply them with alcohol, and before you know it Dave from accounts is letting Dave from marketing know why he hates his guts. Well, let today’s example be a lesson to you all.

Party Time

Professional Moron. We just had our work Christmas do and... I'm not sure the business can even function anymore. I either have to fire everyone or shut down so that no one can speak of this again. Here's a list of everything that went wrong:

1 - Mike from accounts arrived drunk, immediately started a fight with his line manager, broke the line manager's jaw, punched a hole in a wall with his fist, and rugby tackled the janitor. 
2 - A full scale riot erupted due to Mike's provocative actions, with everyone hurling themselves into the mass of bodies. Subsequent arrivals either thought everyone was breakdancing or having an orgy, so left or joined in according to their personality type. 
3 - Nigel from HR, being a sensible sort, called the police upon sight of Mike throttling Doreen from customer services with his bare hands. Mike was also very naked by this point and roaring Nazi propaganda. 
4 - The police arrived and Mike stormed them wielding a mince pie and a glass of cheap red wine. He was tazered upon sight, where he dropped to the floor and fouled himself.
5 - Seeing their comrade dropped, the remainder of accounts charged "the pigs" with an assortment of mini-quiches and Ferrero Rocher. A bloodbath was only averted by the arrival of the army, whose use of water cannons and trugdens were more than a match for Fred throwing a bonbon at a riot officer's helmet. 
6 - As the mass brawl raged on, it was soon apparent the British armed services were getting overwhelmed by the drink fuelled accounts department. 
7 - Dismembered army corpses began flying out of open windows in the office. Cries of, "We've taken the bridge!" went up and out into the streets flooded my drunken, enraged employees. 
8 - My staff members were soon ram raiding stores across the nearby town with any vehicles they could break into. As ambulances started arriving, along with an air rescue helicopter, Fred commandeered the helicopter by faking a severe head wound (he poured ketchup over his head). As he was loaded onto the chopper, he burst free from his restraints, knocked the crew unconscious with a bag of bonbons, and began erratically flying the helicopter in circles. He was last seen plunging in a ball of flames into a local pond. 
9 - The janitor, having regained consciousness, began mopping up the pools of blood - with everybody gone, apart from the dead and severely injured, I called the Christmas party off and rang my lawyer.

The survivors sheepishly began arriving on the next working day - Monday morning. But no one has come forward to apologise. Fred was there missing a limb and suffering third-degree burns, but when I quizzed him about this he muttered something about spilling his afternoon tea over himself. That's a bold faced lie!

And the stench of death reeks in the office. Plus, one police officer's corpse is still impaled on the company sign out front with a kind of, "Oh God, the horror and agony!" expression on his face. 

Needless to say, my disappointment with my staff is palpable. Legally, from an employment law perspective, can I fire them all? Or is my business doomed? Cheers, Mildred.

Hi, Mildred! That’s a fairly standard office Christmas party, so we suggest you don’t worry about it too much. One Christmas do at Professional Moron involved Russian roulette, gangrene, and the loss of a sack of organic potatoes. We never did find the bloody things, either.

One of the punishments we dished out was 50 lashings for the office apprentice. One lashing for each lost potato. We used a rusty chain to administer the lashings. The apprentice was also kicked in the groin for good measure. How’d you like them potatoes?

Grotesque Misconduct

Unfortunately, as so many deaths were involved with your office Christmas party, this constitutes grotesque misconduct. This is a step above gross misconduct as there’s an extra level of, “Eewwwwwww!” involved.

But it’s still a really serious level of misconduct. Not like someone turning up in their slippers by accident. With rotting corpses jammed on company property, you may need to dish out a few P45s. Yes, as sad as it is to have to fire employees, you can’t have them instigating death and destruction at what should be a polite social event.

Clearly, you need to fire Mike and Fred on the spot. But make an example of supergrass Nigel as well. What if you had some illegal black market activity going on? He’d snitch you out in an instant. We suggest you tie him to his chair and punch him in the face until he pleads for mercy. At which point just go, “BWaaahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!” and walk off.

Future Events

Our final suggestion is you hold a more austere event for your 2019 Christmas do. Say a Friday night, just roll out a bottle of cheap red wine and administer a small glass each to your staff. Ensure your janitor is armed with an uzi to gun down anyone who even remotely hints at revelling (i.e. if they try to stand up or engage in gossip).

In the meantime, you can hire a bunch of new staff to replace anyone KIA. Perhaps perform extensive background checks this time around to ensure new starters aren’t Nazi sympathisers or prone to general incitement to riot. Happy hiring!