Katy Guest: 'Tis the season to be David Brent

It's not really Christmas until the office party season starts; and this year it will be even more disorderly than ever.

It's not really Christmas until the office party season starts; and this year it will be even more disorderly than ever.

Tax exemption for employee parties has increased from £75 to £150 a head, meaning double the amount of plastic mistletoe, twice as many mini-sausages on sticks and even more of that sinister blue cocktail that nobody can identify, but which seems to be slipping down very nicely anyway.

The augurs are not promising. Some 70 per cent of people questioned by That's Life magazine expected to collapse on the dance floor. A quarter of women plan to flirt with the boss "to get on", apparently not realising that's the last they'll see of the boss, who is terrified of a sexual discrimination lawsuit. Some 46 per cent of people in a YouGov poll admitted that they're dreading the office party. But, like death, the Christmas do is a great leveller. It reduces us all to universal types and shows that, underneath, we're all the same.

However grand your profession, for example, you can't avoid the "Early Birds". They finish work hours before everyone else, and have decimated the booze supply and commandeered the dance floor before you're even in your party frock. The "Aggressive Drunk" can be found among them, surrounded by empty bottles, loudly buttonholing "Nice-but-Shy", while "The Scrooge" complains bitterly nearby about the terrible venue/timing/cost while shovelling down enough free canapés to last him until next year.

Fortunately, there's always: "Oh, but Miss Jones, you look lovely when you take off your glasses". That mousy secretary you've never noticed turns out to be stunning, vivacious and endearingly sympathetic, but she'll always leave, unfortunately with her enormous boyfriend. And, like the "Bloke Who Never Talks to Anyone but is a Demon on the Dance Floor", she'll turn back into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.

Beware, meanwhile, "The Sober Boss". He loiters behind the Christmas tree until the moment you do your brilliant impression of him, then emerges, coolly, with that: "It's time to find a new job" expression. And there's enough said about "The Seducer", "The Snoggers" and "The Party Blonde". But the ones who are dreading the office Christmas party are also the ones who haven't learnt the trick of staying one dram more sober than everyone else, and drinking in the gossip. It's currency enough for the next year - which is how long it will take all the others to get the paper clips out of their hair.