68 Business The EconomistDecember 7th 2019
2Bartleby Let them eat Christmas cake
Economist.com/blogs/bartlebyE
veryone feelslike winding down in
December. Even if you do not cele-
brate Christmas, the New Year is ap-
proaching and most people take a few
days’ break. In many workplaces this
feeling of “mission accomplished” is
accompanied by an established tradi-
tion: the office party.
In boom times these can be truly
lavish affairs. Robbie Williams sang at
Deutsche Bank’s global-equities party in- A Bloomberg event in 2000, based
on the seven deadly sins, was said to have
cost £1m (then $1.5m). At the “Googlym-
pus” in 2006, the internet group had
tents named after different Greek gods
while staff amused themselves at the
“wine cork shooting gallery”.
Few companies today desire the
publicity that tends to follow such
events. The natural question is, if you are
spending that amount on a party, how
much are you charging clients? Compa-
nies are rightly more sensitive than they
were about the risks involved when
workers lose their inhibitions after
consuming too much alcohol. A survey
of American companies by the suitably
named Challenger Gray & Christmas, an
outplacement firm, found that 59% had
discussed, or planned to discuss, the
dangers of “inappropriate celebrating”
with staff.
To avoid these dangers, the chief
operating officer of bdo, an accountancy
firm, has suggested that two chaperones
attend seasonal celebrations, along with
first-aiders. Other accounting firms have
suggested holding daytime events rather
than after-hours drinks parties.
There is a lot to be said for daytime
celebrations. First, it makes attendance
easier for anyone caring for small chil-
dren, or elderly relatives, and who thus
finds it difficult to stay out late. Second,
people are likely to be a bit more restrained
in their alcohol consumption at lunchtime
than in the evenings. And third, celebrat-
ing during working hours feels like a
genuine break from duties; attending after
work seems more like an obligation.
Most workers don’t expect their sea-
sonal event to turn into a Bacchanal; they
are just hoping to avoid tedium. A survey
of British office workers in 2014 found that
only a quarter looked forward to their
Christmas event and 71% would rather
have a small cash bonus than a knees-up.
In Bartleby’s experience, office parties
come in three types. The first is the sit-
down lunch, in which you are inevitably
seated next to someone whose name you
do not know, even though you have spent
five years politely nodding at them when
you pass in the corridor. Two hours of
social awkwardness ensue. The second
type of do is the evening event with excru-
ciatingly loud music. On the plus side, no
one can hear you speak so it does not
matter if you have forgotten their names;
on the down side, after half an hour every-
one over 30 is so deafened that they wishthey were at home with a nice book or a
box set of “The West Wing”.
The third sort of event is the stand-up
do with drinks and nibbles, when the
food is never enough to absorb the alco-
hol and you are permanently caught in a
state of angst over whether you are bor-
ing the person you are talking to more
than they are boring you.
Naturally, there is an economic an-
swer and it is specialisation. Think of
Adam Smith’s pin factory where every-
one plays their different part; let every-
one have the party they want. Some may
want to down the prosecco but others
may be happier only to gorge on cake.
Seasonal events at The Economistare
highly segregated. The leader writers sit
quietly in a corner, sipping sherry and
discussing structural reform; the Keyne-
sians borrow money off the rest of the
staff to pay for their drinks; believers in
central-bank independence down pints
of beer in feats of “quantitative drink-
ing”; neoclassical economists sip water,
arguing that no rational person would
consume alcohol, given the risks of
hangovers and liver damage; while those
who favour modern monetary theory
guzzle vodka shots on the ground that it
is impossible to get drunk if you control
your own alcohol supply.
In short, it is easier to enjoy yourself if
you can do so in your own fashion. And
that may include not partying at all. If
managers think staff would rather spend
time at home than attend, let them; the
company will save money. Last, but not
least, if managers must make a speech,
keep it short. Something along the lines
of “You’ve all done very well this year,
good luck next.” Save the Churchillian
rhetoric for the annual general meeting.Don’t make seasonal festivities too formalregional capital of Inner Mongolia.
The two firms control about half of Chi-
na’s dairy market. If it wins Lion, Mengniu
stands a chance at surpassing Yili by rev-
enue next year, reckons Song Liang, an in-
dependent dairy analyst (both want to
make sales of 100bn yuan, or $14bn). They
are expanding in South-East Asia, where
Bellamy’s and Lion are already popular.
Last year Yili acquired Thailand’s biggest
ice-cream maker. In August it bought West-
land Milk Products, a New Zealand co-op-
erative. It envisions “a vast dairy bridge
crossing the Pacific Ocean”.In a decade Chinese milk production
will meet only half of domestic demand,
says Terrance Liu of clsa, a broker, down
from around 70% today. And, as Mengniu
and its rival move overseas and upmarket,
they need better ways to keep products
chilled through production and transport,
which rich-world firms can teach them. At
home spending on formula per infant is
rising thanks to declining rates of breast-
feeding in many cities. A deadly tainted-
milk scandal in 2008 has put shoppers off
local products. clsa estimates that four-
fifths of Bellamy’s products have ended upin China thanks to a flourishing informal
trade by so-called daigou, who buy pro-
ducts overseas and resell them online.
New regulations have recently crimped
grey-market sales. But Mengniu is expect-
ed to work out the import-clearance delay
promptly: cofco Dairy, a state-owned
giant, owns 24% of the Hong Kong-listed
firm. China’s $62bn dairy market is still lit-
tle more than a tenth of the world’s by val-
ue. But Euromonitor, a research firm, pre-
dicts that by 2022 it will overtake America
as the globe’s biggest market for dairy. Wel-
come to the land of milk and money. 7