Office holiday party!
A phrase that strikes fear into the hearts of mild-mannered workers everywhere. All one has to think of is The Office, or the hundreds of sitcom episodes featuring some drunken, antler-wearing boss, too much spinach dip, unbridled lechery, raging idle chatter, gossip, divisive speech, and breathtakingly unskillful means of telling one’s co-workers what one REALLY thinks. The office Christmas party — think of it as a playground for nonvirtuous actions. Can we get all 10 of them in one evening?
Well, I don’t have an office holiday party, but my husband does. And what a party it is — it’s the News Corp holiday party, thrown by Rupert Murdoch for his thousands of workers and their guests each year.
Mr. Murdoch is mentioned in One City the book, I believe (and certainly in the podcasts), as an astoundingly rich man whose astounding riches and media monopolies raise thought-provoking issues in an interdependent world. And he is an astoundingly rich man. And yet while the concept “office holiday party” may bring the 10 nonvirtuous actions to mind, what the astoundingly rich Mr. Murdoch’s holiday party brought to mind was a paramita. For Mr. Murdoch is not only astoundingly rich but also astoundingly generous.
News Corp furnished the employees with two full-size discos and four djs, six themed rooms of all-you-can-eat food ranging from ribs and coconut cakes to full buffets with paella, cranberry-walnut-roquefort salad, arrays of dumplings, sliced meats, pasta — and more, all of it quite good. Not to mention the full stage for employees to do karaoke in one room, a full stage with video screen and stacks of Marshall amps for would-be stars of the game Rockband in another room, an entire bank of full-size arcade video games, and yards and yards of coffee and pastry stations. Oh, and an indoor re-creation of Central Park in the main ballroom, which featured an indoor ice-skating rink with professionally trained skaters, a guitar player performing John Lennon (!) songs in a re-creation of CP’s Strawberry Fields, and a dozen chess board stations, just like in the Dairy at CP.
But the generosity was not the only interdependent virtue in evidence. The invitations were printed with vegetable-based ink on 30% post-consumer-waste paper, and they arrived in clear envelopes made not of plastic but of a biodegradable film made from corn stalks.
Why? Because the theme of the holiday party was Cool Change — part of News Corp’s commitment to responsible energy and consumption. A field of pinwheels set up like a wind farm greeted partygoers, along with sculptures made of recycled cans, paper cups, and exhortations to reuse, reduce, and recycle. Window dressing? Lip service? Perhaps. But those invites actually didn’t use plastic. And the indoor ice-skating rink was not refrigerated — well, that was made out of some sort of plastic, actually.
One friend said he thought the theme was actually mocking the global warming crowd, or was cleverly designed to be taken both ways, but I don’t think so. I think that bizarre as it is, News Corp is supporting conservation and (somewhat) responsible consumption.
And none of those initiatives exist independently, of course. The generosity in evidence at the holiday party is a tax write-off; the responsible consumption saves money. Both support profit. However, lots of other very profitable corporations throw very stingy holiday parties (most banks won’t let employees bring guests, for instance) and lots of energy-wasting lights blaze from the brokerage windows of Manhattan every night.
The News Corp party felt like a conundrum, a paradox, an oxymoron at first. That’s what interdependence feels like a lot of the time in New York, actually. Party on.