Drinking with work

There is a leaving do, for, umm, whats-her-name, in Publishing. It's a drizzly Wednesday and Francesca likes the outfit she's wearing. She's also thirsty.

She pouts in the mirror of the ladies toilet a few minutes before everyone plans to leave, and dry-shampoos her hair for one last time. The powder remains floating around in the room as she leaves, eventually settling on the windowsill and the toilet seat, and some on the sink. There's also a smattering of it on the floor. 

How does one drink with one's colleagues? Francesca hasn't been there that long, and she's super parched.

The trick is to get on to two rounds, Francesca goes to the bar with one person, and they order, she then drinks that first elixir within ten minutes - tops. It’s a thirst, and it’s unquenchable. There’s nothing worse than trying to chat to colleagues when all you can think about is how soon you're going to have the next drink in your hands. Am I right? Well, Francesca thinks so... She gets fidgety and she can’t look them in the eye, her attention darts to other people’s drinks; how are they drinking so slowly? Her colleague has barely sipped her way through a finger of her G&T, whilst Fran's Bloody Mary is finished, done. It’s warm glow is coursing through her limbs, and she's in need of another instalment. She eyes the bar. So close. But to go alone attracts attention, raised eyebrows... 

Yes! Francesca gives too many fucks people! But she drank earnestly with two male colleagues a month or so back, and they keep reminding her, and the rest of the office, about her uncanny ability to surge through double the booze they did. She wonders, do they remind Craig, from Sales, about that time he got a handjob under the table at the office Christmas party (from Alan, also in Sales)? Or Lara, in HR about the email she accidentally sent as a 'Reply to all', with a picture of someone's tattooed butt-hole. Not hers though! She swears! Apparently Francesca's ability to neck a few pints after a long, hard Monday is more important to share out loud; in the cafeteria, in the lift, in meetings (internal and external).

She is pigeon-holed in a conversation right now - she's nodding - she thinks it's about the database, but she's not so sure... She can’t just stop everything mid-sentence and leave for a lonely bar trip? Can she? 

A late-comer turns up: ‘drinks anyone?’ They scan the drinks and their eyes come to rest on Francesca's glass, hosting a straw, celery stick and some melting ice, tarnished with the gritty red remnants of a thirsty, thirsty girl. 

"Same again, Fran?" 

"Oh!" She looks at her glass, surprised, "go on then!"

Meanwhile, her initial bar partner is further down the table, only three fingers in. When they glance over fifteen minutes later Francesca has just polished off what is in fact her second Bloody Mary, disguised as her first. And now it’s her round and they move on to G&T’s.