Office holiday parties get another look as scandals continue

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Marley Jay, Ap Business Writer
 Updated 12:28 pm, Monday, December 4, 2017

NEW YORK (AP) — With a series of high-profile workplace sex scandals on their minds, employers are making sure their holiday office parties don't become part of the problem.

There will be less booze at many. An independent business organization has renewed its annual warning not to hang mistletoe. And some will have party monitors, keeping an eye out for inappropriate behavior.
 
TV and movies often depict office parties as wildly inappropriate bacchanals or excruciatingly awkward fiascoes, if not, horrifyingly, both. But even a regular office party can be complicated because the rules people normally observe at work don't quite apply, which makes it easier for people to accidentally cross a line — or try to get away with serious misbehavior. Especially when too much drinking is involved.
 
According to a survey by Chicago-based consulting company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, only 49 percent of companies plan to serve alcohol at their holiday events. Last year that number was 62 percent, the highest number in the decade the firm has run its survey. The number had been going up each year as the economy improved.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Office-holiday-parties-get-another-look-as-12403011.php

[pnwmom]

1. My husband's corporation took care of this problem a long time ago

with parties held during the day at parks -- with employees, their significant others, and their children.

As far as I could tell, everyone was behaving themselves!

[FSogol]

2. Our office holiday party has always included spouses and signification others. Can't remember any

problems in 20 years.

[B2G]

3. Hot tip:

If your office needs a Party Monitor, you probably shouldn't be having a party in the first place.

[FSogol]

7. Actually, if your office needs a party monitor, you need more professional employees. n/t

[haele]

4. Honestly, I'd rather have a holiday bonus than a holiday party.

Maybe a lunch party on the Friday before Xmas Week with a small gift exchange, but a big "adult date night" dinner party with a DJ put on by the company for $$$ that could just as easily end up being an extra $50 in everyone's paycheck before the holiday period - I hate them with a passion.

Just like the "employee bonus for good work should be an experience they'll remember". My employer just started getting into that - some small offshoot of a travel/event company sold them on the "for a tax-deductible fee, we'll force your employee to take what s/he really wants to spend money on". I looked at the catalog to see those experience packages they were offering - all pretty great for healthy young couples or young families.
Very few things for a worker who might not have the ability to take time off to "experience". Well, a Spa day would be nice - on a weekend. Or a year club membership that might or might not turn around an bite one on the butt when it comes time to renew.
And of course, the last time I looked, experiences like this end up on your taxes as "additional income" taxed at the gift tax level of 25%. Back in the early 2000's, a friend of mine who was a manager got burned badly on his taxes the next year by winning the first prize Alaskan Cruise package that was part of a large corporation's sales incentive program.
He was never informed that there was a tax liability and he was going to get an 1190 on the prize at the end of the year.

"Experiences" like these might work for a quirky millennial (as I was informed by my 26 year old stepdaughter - "millenials prefer to work hard at their passions than get a paycheck..." ) or for networking types or executives, but IME, the rank and file worker is much happier with enough extra that they could pay a bill or put aside into a family entertainment fund and take a bit of pressure off their home life.

One of the many things that discouraged me about this latest tax bill have the requirement that cash and gift cards could no longer be written off as bonuses by employers. Employers will now have to pay either taxes on the bonus as an augmentation of income, or pay significant fees to a "rewards" provider, instead of just dipping into petty cash to write a check or purchase a $100 or so Vanilla Visa on the cheap for a "job well done".

Haele

[klook]

10. Many years ago, the shitty company I worked for at the time

gave all of us just-above-the-poverty-line employees a Christmas "bonus" that was a gift certificate good for a few bucks toward the purchase of a turkey at a grocery store chain the company did business with. In other words, for no cash outlay at all, just some tradeout deal, we got these pathetic certificates that would maybe be enough to buy a Cornish hen, but never a turkey!

I took mine to the grocery store and asked the cashier, "Do I have to spend this on a turkey?" She said, "No, you can spend it on anything you want." Over the next few days, I enjoyed every one of those six beers!

[IronLionZion]

5. I've always wondered what that was like

because I've always worked for companies that don't have such parties. We would have a potluck lunch or a cookie exchange if anything. I'm always one of a handful of Christians/US citizens at every workplace so we also have a potluck lunch or something for Diwali.

For me, it's never been like the movies unless the referenced movies were Outsourced or Green Card Fever or something like that.

[marble falls]

6. The Christmas party from Hell I will remember:

the boss insisted the men go to a "Gentleman's Club', I only went because I heard there were two sets of bonus checks, one for those who went and ones for those who didn't. I ate my steak looking down on plate.

I am afraid I made a bit of a scene when my complimentary lap dancer that I had made clear I did not want, touched me, I said VERY loudly, "No, no, no, no no no.!" and freaked her out and I got laid off by Feb 1st.

We had had discussions about "Gentlemen's Clubs" before. I managed the life safety division and marketed directly to architects to get our product spec'd in at design. My boss told me to take architects to the clubs. I told him that a lot of those architects were women and none of them wanted to go. He said that of course the men and some of the women wanted to go. I told him, OK, that I didn't want to go. I took them or got them tickets to the Roundrock Express games or the Austin IceBats instead.

I never ever got the appeal of jiggle shops. I found I could get rejected by a much better class of women for free, I didn't need to pay for my abuse. I am not knocking dancers. They have a tough life and I believe they all never thought they'd be doing it.

[IronLionZion]

8. Actual footage from what I think office parties must be like for normal people

[Matthew28]

9. The guy that stands in the corner

with his drink was the smart one!

[haele]

11. The guy that sits in the back table smilling with an eye at the front table and on the clock

is even smarter.
As a fellow non-drinking friend of mine said "always take notes, but don't advertise you took them and be sure they're tucked away safe- especially when the lawyers come around asking questions after six months or so."


Haele