A table of colleagues, and somebody easy beside you
Some evenings are work with a tablecloth on them. A client dinner in the City, a company night in December, a leaving do at a long table where everybody already knows everybody. Turning up alone to those is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and a slightly wearing one, and this is the booking for the nights when you would rather not. Lengths and figures are the usual ones on rates.
What you are booking is company that holds its own in a room of strangers, asks the right questions of the person on her other side and never once makes the evening about herself. That is a specific skill and not everybody on the board does it, which is why the desk will say plainly who does.
Suited to work dinners
Where these nights happen out here
Mostly around Liverpool Street, where Broadgate empties at six and the December diary is the fullest of the year, and around the hotels on the City edge at Aldgate. The Wharf end of the site takes its share as well, and the towers down by the water are a ten minute run from Limehouse.
Then there are the company evenings that have deliberately gone east: a private room behind a school wall in E2, a long table on Columbia Road, a floor of a warehouse off Curtain Road hired for the night. Those are easier to arrive at than a hotel ballroom and considerably easier to leave.
What she does at the table
Arrives on the hour, remembers names, and talks to the person on her other side for twenty minutes without checking whether you are watching. She asks people about their work and listens to the answer, which at a work dinner makes her the most popular person present within half an hour. She drinks less than the table and never tells anybody so. If you need to talk shop for ten minutes she will simply carry the conversation elsewhere until you are done.
What she will not do is be the entertainment. No anecdotes performed at volume, no opinions offered on your colleagues, no hand on an arm for anybody's benefit. The evening should look exactly like a dinner with somebody you know, because that is the only version of this that survives a room of people paid to notice things.
What she is told, and what she never says
Tell the desk how you would like her introduced and that is exactly how she will be introduced, all evening, to everybody, including the colleague who asks twice. She does not know your company, your job title or your circumstances unless you have told her, and she does not carry a story from one booking into another. Nothing about the evening is repeated afterwards, to anyone, which is the whole of why people book this rather than bring somebody they know.
The room, and what to say about it
A line about the dress of the evening saves everybody trouble. A Broadgate client dinner and a warehouse party in E2 want different clothes, and she would rather be told than guess from the postcode. Say whether there are place cards, whether it is a long table or a standing room, and whether the night ends at eleven or drifts to a bar afterwards. All three change what she wears and none of them changes the figure.
Names for a table of strangers
Karolina is direct, tall and entirely unbothered by a room of people she has never met. Michelle is a listener, which at a long table is worth more than a talker. Vanessa has the straight back and the good eye for where to sit. Sonya is hard to impress and therefore very hard to rattle. Patricia holds a long table better than anybody else on this roster.
Length and notice
Three hours at £700 covers a dinner with drinks either side. Four at £900 is the right length when there are speeches, because speeches always run over. If the night is likely to turn into a late one, book the longer version rather than extending at half past eleven in a corridor. A week of notice is ideal in December and a day is usually enough for the rest of the year.
Two notes worth reading first
Work dinners, in detail
01Will anybody at the table work out what this is?
Not from her. She arrives as whoever you said she is, stays consistent all night and asks other people about themselves, which is the single most effective form of discretion there is.
02What if I have to leave her with colleagues for ten minutes?
She will be fine and so will they. The women listed here are comfortable in a room alone and would rather talk to a stranger than stand about waiting for you to come back.
03Can she come to a company party rather than a dinner?
Yes, standing rooms included. Say how many people, what sort of room and whether anybody is making a speech, and the desk will tell you which names suit that better than a seated table.
Other nights on the book
The trains stop. We do not.
One message with the date, the time and the postcode, and the rest of the night is arranged quietly, anywhere from Hoxton down to the basin at Limehouse.