Wednesday? Burn it.

Our office did a little test online to see if we could be classified into one of four groups.

You were one of the following by the end of the test:

• Geek - Takes an interest in a specific subject.
  
• Nerd - Takes an interest in all things educational.
  
• Dork - A socially retarded inept member of society that's better off as part of a genocide.
  
• Joe Normal - What it says on the tin.
  

I came out of this as a nerd.

Relatively unscathed really, although there is a catch.

You have to dress as your personality for the office Christmas party.

All day.

Our Christmas party would consist of ice-skating in the early afternoon, and then copious amounts of the beverage of your choice.

So at 6:45 this morning, I set off for work dressed as a nerd.

I got about three quarters of my way into my journey when I got to a slip road that joins a two-lane road. Not quite a dual carriageway, but it's quite fast, and the way that the sliproad's designed causes you to stop and give way to traffic, rather than merge with it.

So third in line, I waited for the cars to go, and then pulled out. Without looking.

I crashed straight into the back of the guy in front.

Mortified, I dashed out of the car and ran over to the guy to see if he (and a female passenger) were okay. Both were shaken up, but okay. We exchanged insurance information in my car when I suddenly realised what was transpiring, and why in fact, this chap was being so friendly about the fact that I went straight up his ass.

Fair enough, it was a company car so he wasn't too concerned about the damage, as it was out of his hands.

Also, I had the shocking realisation that I was dressed like a socially inept moron.

More to the point, I had a side-parting, dodgy trainers, a shirt buttoned up to the collar and tucked into my tight-fitting jeans and was only missing a greasy, spotty complexion.

So here I am out of nerd dress having just phoned the insurance company to get things sorted out.

I'm struggling to find something to smile about this morning, but I'm hoping this post cheered you up a bit.

The party-goer of death

There are plenty of them.

Most of them are staff party related, and most of them are your partner's staff party related.

Those who've been in that situation have been met with at least one person they didn't get on with. What would make it worse is if that person is sat on your table for the majority of the night.

This brings me to describe the kind of staff party person that I simply don't get on with.

I'm not saying that others don't get on with this sort of person, I'm saying that I don't get on with them.

You greet the person, and they seem perfectly normal. You engage them in a bit of chatter to get friendly, and ease them up. I usually find that after the alcohol's been flowing for about an hour, most of the participants of the conversation tend to loosen up anyway.

After the alcohol starts to loosen their tongue as well as their brain, they begin their butterfly-like transformation into the person that people at parties hope sits somewhere else.

For the sake of argument, and as I have done in the past, we will refer to this particular party-goer as B.

B gets a few drinks in, and begins talking to other people on the table.

Someone else tells a story about their life experience, and about a quarter of the way through with an audience listening intently, B decides that this is a perfect opportunity to tell their story a bit louder, so as to shift the focus of conversation onto themselves. The story is usually either unfunny or unflattering, or both.

A new person visits the table in a bid to mingle with the rest of the crowd. B sees this as an opportunity to say something entirely innappropriate and usually sexual to make the person laugh. This usually makes the table-mingler uncomfortable, and they leave the table, B and the other attendees along with B, flagging and losing patience.

The laugh.

My god, the laugh. It's loud, it's obnoxious and it's happening only when B says something that B finds amusing. Nobody else. In fact, the probable reason that B isn't laughing at anybody else is because B doesn't give them a chance to finish whatever it was that they were trying to say.

The entire evening becomes about B. Half the table can't stand B, and the other half are like B and are therefore loving every minute of it.

The evening comes to an end, and B essentially snatches at the chance of a lift home instead of flagging a cab. B is either unaware or doesn't care whether it's out of the lift-giver's way or not. Only that it gets B home.

I know that you know this person, and whether you like this person or not, they actually drive me insane.