Settle This Argument, Please.

Coffee’s work Christmas party is tomorrow night. I think he should NOT go. He thinks he SHOULD go.

First, the details: the party takes place at the home of the company’s owner. It is a semi-formal event with food and drinks, but it’s not a dinner party. There would have been approximately 40 to 80 guests invited (local office, 2 slightly distant offices, and an open invite to international guests). Guests (employees and spouses) were asked to RSVP about a month ago. Coffee and I said we would be attending. Last year we said we’d be attending but had to cancel because we didn’t have a babysitter.

My argument: Coffee was off sick from work for two days – totally unheard of for him – because he was ridiculously sick. He returned to work today still significantly, and visibly, under the weather with a running nose, cough, plugged ears, and other flu-like symptoms. He’s had these symptoms since Sunday, with a few occurring as early as last Thursday. While there are other people in his office (employees) who have been, or are, sick, I maintain that it’s not fair to attend to a party where you could potentially infect not just your coworkers, but their spouses, with the flu or a nasty cold one week before Christmas. I also think that there’s a difference between going to work (where you don’t interact with many people and mostly keep to yourself) and the hand-shaking, face-to-face conversations, food-eating that goes on in a party situation. To me, the short-notice cancellation is less rude than the showing up sick (coughing and sniffling) situation. I told Coffee to ask the owner’s assistant (who arranged the party) for her thoughts and I also suggested he talk to his boss about what would be more appropriate; he did not do either of those things.

Coffee’s argument: we didn’t go last year (after saying we would – though we did provide more than a day’s notice of our changed plans, approximately 2 or 3 days’ notice) and we have already RSVP’d this year that we will attend. He does not want to look like he’s “permanently wiggling out of it” or “doesn’t live up to expectations” since his boss and the company owner will, of course, be at the party. He also says since there was RSVP required of guests, it clearly means there was ordering or preparations made that are number-dependent to some extent or another. The main issue, in his words, is that “we RSVPd twice and short cancellation wouldn’t be polite” and “there are probably going to be people there who are as sick, or more sick, than I am” and “last year, despite a huge snow storm, pretty much most people went.”

So. Go ahead, pick sides. I cancelled our babysitter, but Coffee maintains that he will go without me anyway. I think he’s insane. (I can say that, because this is my blog and he has his own if he feels like rebutting that.) Also, for the record, I wrote the above part, from Coffee’s perspective, having asked him what he’d like to present as his argument here – so what I’ve written isn’t my interpretation, it’s his words. I read it back to him. I also read him my side of things.

What are your thoughts? What would you do? What would be the more polite thing to do, in your opinion?