Could it be? Standing in front of the "Go Go" guy, half hidden? Maybe Franz Kafka, instead? This would be the guy who takes an extra-long time in the lav in order to scratch unseemly things onto the stall partitions. Every office has one of these guys and in this office, its either him or else its the nearly invisible guy standing across from him on the other side of the tree. Also, the girl on the far left, standing in front of the door, is unforgivably cute. I'll bet she's told a lot of these guys "NO" and that's why she's way over there.

Of course the bear and the cabin weren't mentioned -- everyone knows the best part of the party is getting well-oiled!

Thank you. I'll be here all week. And don't forget to tip your server.

I noticed the IN basket on the desk to the far right, but where's the OUT basket? I sometimes wonder why I have an OUT basket on my desk at work - it's always less full than the IN one.

The woman sitting on the floor to the far left bears a striking resemblance to the Italian actress Ana Magnani (The Rose Tattoo).

My father worked for Western Electric. The money wasn't very good, so I never figured out why he stayed there. Guess this answers the question.

...hair! I think that's my favorite part of this picture. There's such a great group of hairstyles among the women. A few of those girls were pretty darn good with the curling iron, or whatever they used. I wonder if they're more glammed up than usual for the big party. For some reason, the hairstyles are more striking to me than in other pictures. Anyway, fascinating as always.

P.S. I think the guy that bdgbill thinks looks like the antichrist is actually kind of a hottie. I'm going to go on the assumption that he didn't look that intense all the time. If he did...well, I could see bdgbill's point then.

Mona, the woman on floor, far left (one of the few without the Marcel wave), is probably a Suffragist or at least politically active. Maybe she's trying to organize these party animals into a union and all they want to do is balance traffic signals on their heads and be wildly social.

This must have been just after Phyllis spilled the beans about Dwight and Angela. Poor Andy!

Of the four guys standing in the upper right, the guy who is on the left side, closest to the tree -- which girl is he leering at?

If you flip the picture around, you can sort of read the door sign. I can make out:

504

[Western Elec]tric Com[pany].
[INCORP]ORATED
[?]ION DEPARTMENT

I wonder what the missing part is. Administration?

The boss from Hades has what looks like a goose egg on his forehead and the coatless guy on his right has a black eye and cuts on the nose and eyebrow: maybe the partying started the night before. Looks like a smoking hot curling iron was de rigueur for any well-coifed lady.

Western Electric was the manufacturing and distribution arm of American Telephone and Telegraph. I suppose that this office in Washington was one of their distribution points. At any rate one interesting thing about the photo is the decided separation of men and women as though they might have come from different sections of the business. I also note that the ladies are sitting on a pretty rough floor, which is something I would have thought they would have avoided in those clothes. As to the glasses, I suspect that the photographer cautioned them that the flash might reflect from the lenses, assuming that I can assert that there was flash. Who knows, maybe there's a window somewhere.

Wait -- so the oil can is worth noting, but not the bear statuette or the small house?

Ahhh, the days before every office had a copier, and every office had some joker trying to get the temp to sit on it!

Great pic. And I'm sure there are as many stories as people in this one. But let's admit that the lady sitting on the floor on the left has to have the most interesting one. There is a haunted, post-experimental-therapy look to her that immediately reminded me of the psych-ward scenes in "Changeling."

It would take me all day to write out thought bubbles for what I imagine is going through all those heads, but the lady at dead center seems to be thinking, "What was IN that punch? Did they repeal Prohibition and nobody told me?"

The "dark lady" downstage right is thinking, "I hope they snap that picture before I freeze to death down here on the bare floorboards. You would think the electric company would have better heaters in its own offices, but old man Pennyfarthing won't even spring for a rug to keep the draft out."

The woman with the pearl necklace sitting at the very corner of the desk is a knockout! She looks like a present-day actress whose name escapes me. The guy standing up and glaring into the lens at the extreme top right of the photo may very well be the Antichrist. His stare gives me chills. The guy behind him looks like an "evil character" straight out of Central Casting. This is a great photo.

The corpulent boss, stogie in hand, actually thinks that removing his glasses improves his appearance. He also seems to be playing footsie with the marcel-waved cutie who inexplicably has an oil can in front of her.

The brunette peeking from behind the desk (right above the black purse) has such a 1960's hairstyle!

Could it be that they tapped the power for the Christmas tree lights from the ceiling fixture?

This photo can inspire everyone to write a novel because there is indeed a colorful character with his own personal bio in every set of eyes. The bald guy with the candle on his head particularly stands out as one who has a complex persona but so does everybody else in the picture. Some appear depressed, some look beat up, some seem desperate. Make up your own scenarios. Personally, I used to look forward to the office parties when the most unexpected facets of co-workers' personalities would be revealed, giving us the rest of the year to talk about that until the next one. Stuffy old lady accountants and spinsters turned out to shock us the most when relaxed by a "touch of the grape". Lots of fun, too bad they have mostly been eliminated. Thank you for this blast from the past.

[That's a "GO-GO" traffic signal on Mr. Complex Persona's noggin. - Dave]

Well.....the woman at bottom left certainly catches the eye. Something of a femme fatale, I think. Not generally popular with the more strait-laced ladies, like the woman two to her right who's giving her a very frosty look. The younger woman though, above and slightly to the left, is more sympathetic.

Since it's not uncommon here on Shorpy for unflattering comments to be directed at the olden-days womenfolk, let me be the first to say what a grim bunch the men are. I'll make an exception for the guy under the tree.

Some of the looks on their faces, wouldn't you love to know what they were thinking!