Against fun.

I don't know about you, but I've already been invited to a couple of office holiday parties. And I work at home!

No, I don't mean that the dogs have invited me to our annual office Christmas party, although you'd think they should. Really, after all I do for them.

The fact is, some of my clients, especially the ones that for legal or tax purposes like to pretend I am an employee, have included me on their invite lists, and I'm touched that they did. I'm not going to go, but it's always nice to be asked. Office parties are a drag when you're an outsider, even if you are an employee that happens to work outside the office. You wind up pestering the handful of people you deal with professionally; everyone else wonders who the hell you are. So I'll skip the long schlep to get there and just celebrate with the dogs.

Office parties probably should be avoided anyway. We are in an anti-fun era, and there's almost nothing good that can happen at an office party. Whatever you do, someone's going to get mad, and that's even if you don't see the party invitation as a glowing neon sign that says FREE BOOZE and behave like it's shore leave.

Although if you do, you might have a spectacular story to tell your intake agent at the unemployment office.

Best case scenario

So here are ten things you can do that will cause no end of trouble -- a list that is definitely not all-inclusive:

1) You may get drunk.
Even if you think you're excellent at holding your liquor, that may be when you are either A) paying for drinks and watching your wallet or B) pouring your drinks and watching the liquor content. This could be a whole different ball game. If you drink enough for it to affect your behavior, it will be noticed. The next day your drunken mispronunciation of the name of your head of HR (a man named Chidambaram) will be all over the office. They'll wonder why someone didn't take your car keys, even if you walk to work. It's not like the old days, Charlie.

2) You may insult someone.
You don't have to intend to insult someone. You don't even have to do it by mistake. These days you can insult someone and not even know you did it. You can microagress someone by winking because you got dust in your eye. If you ask Miguel if he brought the enchiladas to the potluck, guess what? You insulted him -- even if he did bring the enchiladas, you still insulted him. And God forbid you ask Jean if her boy is still in college, and she tells you that he is not because she is now identifying as an eight-year-old girl tortoise named Suzie QZ. You’d better have the poker face of Daniel Negreanu or else you insulted her and her boy/girl/reptile. Which brings us to:

3) You may insult something someone likes.
This may be a little more obvious, but the office party is no place to start a "Yankees suck!" or "Star Trek rules! Star Wars drools!" chant. It's easy to get carried away and think everyone just wants to fool around like you do with your old pals. Unlike your old pals, these folks A) don't, and B) are keeping score. You'd better believe they're keeping score.

4) You may hit on the wrong person.
Oh, this is a bad one, and usually is combined with the alcohol thing. Maybe the marijuana thing, if you live in a state where it's legal. Don't hit on your boss, or your boss's boss, or anyone over you. Definitely don't hit on your subordinate or anyone on that level or lower. But what if it's someone on the same level in a different department?

5) You may hit on the right person who later will turn out to be the very wrong person.
Scene: You are not drunk. You dressed nice. You aren't married. You hit it off with someone at your rung on the ladder in a totally different department. No problem, right? WRONG. Aside from the potential for the gossip mill to grind you up, if you hit it off this well one of you if going to be thinking long-term stuff... and odds are, the other will not. Then you have to go to work with this person on the premises. Just don't dip your pen in the company inkwell. It's safer that way.

6) You may hit a person.
Not on purpose. Could be an accident. Could jostle that red wine onto the boss's white blouse. Could whack the senior VP in the nose during a game of charades. Or you might just straight-up punch someone. If you're not there, it can't happen.

7) You may jokingly say something to start an argument.
Similar to #3, but it could be something as simple as, "Boy, these enchiladas sure go a long way toward Making Parties Great Again, huh?" Then someone makes a full-fledged Trump crack, and it's Game On.

8) You may joke about what you do to the wrong person.
"Workin' hard or hardly workin'? Ha ha!" That's funny (okay, not really) when you say it to your coworker. When a manager hears you say that, he or she may smile and pretend to laugh, but remember what I said: You'd better believe they're keeping score.

9) You may look like a pig.
Do you like to eat? Like, you'll have two cookies while everyone else is picking at the fruit salad? Pig. Depends on the workplace, but in a lot of them, three Ferrero Rochers mean you might as well have your face in the trough. What, did you think the food was there to be enjoyed? Don't be silly.

10) You may accidentally tell the truth.
If you divulge something your boss would rather that a rival boss didn't know, the truth will be no defense. In fact, it makes it worse; if it was a lie, it would be you bloviating; if it's the truth, your boss's rival will be using it. And your boss won't forget it.

The office environment has never really been chummy, but these days it is a total minefield, fraught with peril. Even if you're the boss, unless you completely own the company, you can blow yourself to bits. And if you do own the company, it's easy to say something innocuous that will bring a Twitter mob on your head to ruin the company's reputation with lies.

Take my advice: Pretend you're socked in with work. Pretend there's a crisis with a client. Come down with the flu and go home. Just don't go to the office party. Sure, some workplaces really resent when an employee doesn't put in some face time at social events, but will you get fired for missing the party? Probably not. Will you get fired for something you do there? Possibly not, unless you actually hurt someone or, worse, violate the rules of political correctness -- but you may put yourself on notice. I don't want to make anyone paranoid, but now I'm thinking I ought to stay away from the dogs' holiday party.

Remember: There's no such thing as fun anymore. And they're always keeping score, brother.