DOCE/ The Christmas Office Party, Chilean Style

The language institute where Lucy teaches English held an office Christmas party one evening, and we were invited. Since the three of us—Lucy, Jane, and I—had already eaten, we conspired to arrive at a later hour to miss the main part of the meal. When we did arrive a little after 9 o’clock, still early by Chilean standards, we were warmly greeted with hugs and kisses, from all of the fifteen or so staff members in attendance.

This is the standard Chilean greeting ritual: between two women and between women and men, every person stands and hugs and kisses the new arrivals one by one. This happens again upon departure. Male-to-male greetings vary from handshakes among acquaintances to hugs among extended family.

The party tables were laid out end to end in a long hallway on the first floor of the converted two-story house. The remains of the meal still occupied the table, mainly the bones and meat of a lamb, empty wine bottles, and leftover potatoes and salads in serving dishes.

The lamb had been raised by the boss for the occasion, butchered by the assistant jefe of the institute, and then roasted on a spit in the back yard of the institute building that afternoon, using the wood of a dead fruit tree from the yard cut earlier.

Inside, the fluorescent lighting lent a somewhat unfestive air to an otherwise lively gathering. There were three other English teachers besides Lucy, and the two nearest us were fluent and eager to practice their English with us. We in turn were eager to practice our Spanish with the Spanish-speaking teaching and administrative staff. As we talked, we were amply supplied with Chilean wine by the jefe. It seemed like he was getting us up to speed with the rest of the crowd.

The founder and current chief of the institute reminded me of Ricky Gervais in the British version of The Office. Talkative, lively, teasing, and a bit too chummy perhaps, but, unlike Gervais’s character, this guy is a passionate entrepreneur who saw a need and started his own successful business to fill it. When we asked about the origin of the institute, one of the staff pointed to the institute’s seal on the wall. Even though I've forgotten the details, I remember the pride in the jefe's voice as he explained each of the elements in the seal's iconography.

The evening rolled along until the penultimate activity, the giving of the gifts, following the amigo secreto (secret Santa) format. One of the staff pulled gifts from a large bag in the hallway beyond the head of the table and the recipient went to the head, opened the gift, posed for a photo with gift in hand, and then tried to guess the name of the giver.

The first few gifts were innocuous enough, but toward the end, things picked up a bit. The women received soft, feminine things: scented candles, body lotions, etc. The guys got macho gifts culminating in a carved wooden Mapuche joke figure, apparently a standard item in Chile, which, when manipulated properly, displayed a large erection. Not your typical office fare in the United States.

Near the end of the gift opening, the boss’s present to one of the young women was a rather large box with a picture of a DVD player on the outside. There were lots of oohs and aahs from the staff, while at the same time it was clear that the gift was not actually a DVD player. Inside the DVD box was a series of nested, ever-smaller boxes ending in a very small box containing a coffee cup with a photo of the boss on the side. The recipient didn’t know quite what to say, nor did anyone else. There was an awkward silence. Was their boss really this narcissistic? In a piece of fine comedic timing, the boss waited just long enough for the reaction and then, holding up the cup for everyone to see, he removed his photo which, it turned out, had been printed on a piece of paper and taped to the cup. Underneath, on the cup itself, was an attractive photo of the young woman. Everyone laughed with relief. The unfolding humor of the situation was a delicate mixture of embarrassment and familiarity.

The boss broke out the champagne de piña, poured over chirimoya ice cream. Bottoms up. After the champagne course, we excused ourselves along with some of the other staff, followed by the usual departure hugs and kisses. Lucy, our designated driver, took us home. We left with a inside view of a Chilean workplace that is rowdier, warmer, and more sexually explicit than our northern version.

—Michael