AWKWARD ENCOUNTER WITH SOMEONE IN THE KITCHEN

You’ve somehow dragged yourself in for a 9AM start – bruise-like bags under your eyes, massive bottle of Evian, metabolised alcohol smell coming off your skin and hair despite the shower you had earlier, crusted lips – and, irritatingly, everyone else seems quite fresh-eyed and sober.

"Big heavy night, was it?" someone says, and like: yeah, that’s the point. "Feeling it this morning, are you?" Fucking yes, how are you not?

And then you wobble up from your desk – you basically hunkered down at your computer with a fleece blanket wrapped around you and watched soothing YouTube videos until you felt ready enough to get up and go get a drink – and some lad from accounts with a pink bald scalp is making a monstrous instant coffee with a special dessertspoon he keeps in his desk and quietly chuckling. “Heh heh heh,” he’s saying. “Feeling a bit sore this morning, are you?” and, briefly, you consider: take the kettle, pull it from the wall, wrap the chord around his neck and scald him with the limed-up water, burn the boy in his TM Lewin shirt, watch him convulse with your rage – but instead you think: 'It is not worth getting fired just to assault this man.'

"I’m going to the shops," you say, and you go to a newsagent and spend an inexplicable 25 minutes slowly choosing a bottle of Vanilla Coke and a big-sized Double Decker. You embarrassed yourself and you feel like death and you didn’t do a murder.

YOU HAVE WON THE OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY.