Something that gives people fodder for next-day gossip. “She got too close to a candle on the buffet table,” he explains.
People especially love to talk about the time one employee’s hair caught fire. “So there’s usually a lot of reminiscing about last year,” says Barron, 35. Because the firm’s employees work at different locations, this is often one of the few times of the year that they’re all together. There’s always good food and an open bar and a white elephant gift exchange. “You can tell by their body language - their feet slowly start to shift in the other direction.”Ĭlay Barron of Woodbridge, Virginia, works for a government contractor that rents out a boat for a holiday sail along the Potomac every year. That night one colleague taught her a lesson in “how to tell when someone is no longer interested in having a conversation with you,” she says. You might as well be a newborn horse fresh out of its mama’s womb trying to simultaneously learn to walk and go shopping at Bloomingdale’s.” “I should add,” she wrote in an email, “that literally nothing is more awkward than someone who’s three weeks sober. She had recently stopped drinking and shared her news with everyone she spoke to. And that she was the source of the awkwardness. Christina Tkacik, a journalist who now lives in Beirut, says that her most awkward holiday party happened in Washington. Usually it’s too much alcohol that causes strained moments, but occasionally it’s the lack thereof. “Everyone was just looking at each other going, ‘This is so weird.’ ” ‘Literally nothing is more awkward than someone who’s three weeks sober’ “Everyone felt extremely uncomfortable, awkward and a little violated,” he says. Everything was fine until a favourite professor - who was married with kids, but known to be having an affair - brought his mistress to the party. Because, he says, “the reality is that it’s hard for someone to go back to work after everyone has seen some crazy situation that they’re all talking about.”Ī.B., a former student who also asked to go by his initials, said that his worst moment came at an undergraduate department party at his old college. It’s Lescht’s job to help clean up the mess and make things right with the employee - whether that means an apology, a transfer or more severe remedial action. There’s always going to be someone who drinks too much.” A man has had too much to drink and a supervisor has done something they shouldn’t. “Then they call us or come in and more likely than not it’s a woman. “Alcohol and men and women working together in close quarters is always a problem,” Lescht says. At least not everywhere.Īlan Lescht, a Washington employment lawyer, can usually count on getting a call or two this time of year to deal with tricky post-party situations. There was a sense that the male prerogatives of the office could be exercised with greater looseness.”Īnd though the Mad Men era is over, the licentiousness is not. “Where everyone gets trashed and makes out with each other. “It became legendarily a scene where debauchery took place - people slept with the wrong people,” he says. Saval says that office parties were notorious bastions of bad behaviour in the 1950s. ‘Alcohol and men and women working together in close quarters is always a problem’ An additional 20% admitted to having had too much to drink at such a soiree. “Now there are no more drinks allowed on-site,” says A.T.Ī 2010 poll by human resources consulting firm Adecco found that 40% of American workers had either done something inappropriate at a work holiday party or knew someone who had. and asked to be identified only by her initials so that she won’t get fired, said that the legend around her office is that a woman once got so drunk at the holiday party, she stripped naked and ran through the fountains in the building atrium.
#AWKWARD OFFICE CHITCHAT NYT PROFESSIONAL#
Gawd, why did I say that? Did I really have to dance that way in front of him? Why don’t I remember how I got home?Ī.T., an education policy professional who works in D.C.
Hence that other annual tradition: the office holiday party hangover. You go out with work friends and start talking about things you wouldn’t normally talk about with them - all your worldly troubles.” “Having had a drink - people don’t have any inhibitions. “Oh, they always get awkward,” says Jo Rhodes, who works for a British defence contractor and was visiting Washington last week.
When else would you get to meet, in person, the spouse your cube-mate fights with on the phone every afternoon? Or watch as your colleague’s demon child steals food off other people’s plates? It’s informative, if nothing else. Article content Watching as your colleague’s demon child steals food? It’s informative, if nothing else
0 kommentar(er)
