Taking A Ride On The “Vomit Comet”
No, it isn't a new amusement park ride. That is what paramedics call the special medical vehicle that prowls the streets of London at this time of year, looking for drunken refugees from the traditional British office party. Or maybe notorious is the right word. The Washington Post reports on how amazingly out of hand the tradition is, which at least one commenter at The Guardian has vigorously defended with the words, "Projectile vomiting is our birthright."
LONDON — Just before midnight, the well-dressed, 25-year-old financial trader arrived by ambulance at the makeshift hospital tent pitched at a train station in central London. Blood oozed from his scalp, staining his elegant pink-striped shirt.
"What happened to your head?" asked Dixie Dean, an emergency care specialist with the London Ambulance Service, as she wrapped gauze around his head and checked for a skull fracture.
"I don't remember," said the dazed man. He was the latest injured drunk this busy night in the medical tent set up to care for casualties of the infamous British office party.
In many parts of the world, companies hold Christmas parties — or holiday, year-end bashes — for employees. But in Britain, the gatherings have become a particularly potent institution, legendary for massive booze consumption that leads to fistfights, firings and spur-of-the-blurry-moment indiscretions in boardrooms and parking lots.
Dean compared the Christmas season in Britain to New Year's Eve in New York — except that here, the binges run nightly for two solid weeks leading up to Dec. 25.
The spike in alcohol-related emergency calls from office parties is so predictable that the ambulance service has a special medical vehicle to patrol the streets. With room for five people, it's known as the "Booze Bus" or "Vomit Comet."
One power station I worked at had an annual Christmas party that was always put together by volunteers. It was the highlight of the holiday season for just about everyone. But it never got out of hand the way these British parties seem to. They also shut down the bars fairly early, so they avoided the worst kinds of excess, I suppose.
World news | Gaius Sunday, 23 December , 2007
By NortonPete, Sunday, 23 December , 2007 @ 8:24 am
After many years of attending Christmas parties thrown by various Wall St firms, I learned that it was too dangerous to mix alcohol and employees, especially on the day they received their bonuses. I stopped attending them. I can’t remember a party where someone wasn’t fired the next day.
By feeblemind, Sunday, 23 December , 2007 @ 8:59 am
Wow. I had no idea. Boy have I lived a sheltered life.