10 Do's and Don'ts for Company Parties

Company parties are a strange animal that happens with companies great and small.  They are strange bits of society that live within the beating heart of the corporate body.  Once people work together long enough it seems the owner will designate some kind of party to show they aren't all work but are in fact some play, thereby alleviating Jack of the burden of being a dull boy.  I wanted to post this when we were a good enough distance away from holiday parties that my thoughts might be considered for the next party.  If you are in charge of putting together the company party, or are going to attend one here are some observations...

- Work talk?  Are you kidding?? - Don't Talk shop - If you are going to the company party, it should be a rule that anyone talking about work should be deemed unfit for the party and thrown out on his or her brown nose.  If you are among the curmudgeons that think that parties are a waste of time and not to be indulged in, I've got news for you Oscar...People actually are more productive with fun breaks like that.  If you are going to have a party, have a party.  That includes upper management palling around together talking semi business in hushed tones.  Gives people the creeps.

- Sit at the Presidents Table - He's more afraid of you than you are of him.  Company parties should be the great equalizer between the royalty and the subjects.  If your company CEO will deign to sit with his subjects, then this is a really good time to get noticed by the boss.  This of course is NOT the time to play your rendition of Beethoven's Sonata for Armpit.  Then again, it can't hurt.  He is not going to pay much more attention to you than to make polite chitchat and give you the dumb animal look.  If you don't know what that is, just remember that phrase then next time you are talking to your dog, then quickly look in the mirror.  THERE, that's the look.  yeah, he's totally giving you that look.

- Bring your kids?!?  Are you INSANE? - Don't bring kids Don't invite kids.  I understand that in many cases finding a sitter is hard etc.  But do not bring your kids.  If you are organizing a party remember, every outing into the wild with children is just a fresh slice of Hell for the parents.  They have lost all hope of enjoying themselves, and only hope to survive.  You want them to show up?  Well, maybe you should have a different sitting service that will provide fun and games in a safe environment for the kids.  This of course includes the CEO's kids.  With all due respect sir, we don't want to see your little jewel give her rendition of the Hallelujah chorus for the tenor tuba.

- Start Drinkin - DON'T get sloshed.  Better yet, stay away from the sauce.  Drinking is for doing around people that don't mind you with your guard down.  People that don't know you that well, don't WANT to know you that well.  Save the drinking for home or the bar.  If you are a company that still offers an open bar, well that's surprising first and second, check to see if your insurance will cover that.

- Best foot forward - No arguing with your spouse.  Spouse, no sitting and moping or shooting eye daggers at your other half.  Since you are all there together, it's time to act like a team.  Yes I'm sure he/she doesn't deserve it, but you will reap the benefits of looking like a cohesive unit in front of other people.  This gives your employed spouse an aura of stability no matter what you really know about them.  This is assuming that spouses are invited.  If they aren't, then bully for you.  Company parties suck anyway.

- Hey wait, is this the 3rd degree? - If someone is telling an amusing anecdote about work or about home, don't call them on the facts.  If you know some detail about their story couldn't possibly be correct, then you need to just keep your know-it-all trap shut.  Let them tell their story.  Asking for all of the corroborating evidence as to the voracity of someones otherwise lighthearted story is a real buzzkill.

- Worlds Colliding!  -  Ultimately you shouldn't invite spouses to a company party.  It's not that we don't like spouses, but they just don't know much about what is going on at work and all of the conversation will be about strange things that happen at work.  With spouses, conversation is reduced to 'I've heard a lot about you'  and 'Is he/she always like this at home too?'.  Ugh.

- Time to PARTY! - Don't make your employees take ANOTHER piece of their time and give it to you.  do it during work. If you are organizing a company party, make it on company time.  I know this really sounds revolutionary, but there is no reason to make people take MORE time out of their busy schedule so you can tell them how well the company has done or how much you appreciate them.  It's much better to appreciate them on YOUR time.

- Pot luck = Bad luck - There should be more laws about this.  There aren't.  I'm sure the only law that makes sense at this point is Darwin's.  There is no reason to invite everyone to bring some covered dish of something.  If things are strained at the office, there is no telling what's in that crock pot.

- Talent show Oh no. - Yes people have talents.  Most of the time when you think of talent, you are thinking of Singing or Playing an instrument (80% piano, 15% violin, 5% something horrible).  Talent shows with people you know are similar to just asking them to take off their clothes for everyone to look at.  Don't do this.









So It looks like I've poo poo'ed all possible company party ideas right?  Wrong.  This is the one true company party.  The catered lunch.  Possible white elephants purchased by company issued gift certificates in advance by all attending the party.  Everyone gets to have fun and eat and go home with something goofy they will probably remember.  You don't have to worry about doing something wrong and you will likely get the rest of the day off.  Sure this is done during Christmas normally, but who said it has to happen then?  Maybe you have a Christmas in July party and don't have ANY party for the holidays thereby giving your employees their time that is probably already spoken for.

top 10 ways we LOOK like we are working

Ok, let me start of by saying, if you are management, this is all just satire and YOUR employees don't do this at all. YOUR employees are practically perfect in every way. They take your assignments and work just a little bit over their daily time completely and in a single minded fashion complete the tasks you have given them. I think I can hear them whistle while they work as well.

Are they gone yet? ok. According to studies, the AVERAGE productive time out of an 8 hour day in an office is roughly 5 hours. (It's actually lower, but I'm rounding up). This means we spend 3 hours a day doing something that isn't work, but is easily mistaken for it. This is just in case you've missed on some methods of loafing.

10. Meeting gone wrong. This one might not even count, and yet it's not productive. First. Meetings as they are are usually a waste of time. They are typically 10% planning and 90% finger pointing. This depends on the corporate culture. At the end of the meeting, the conversation can turn to the weekends events, and the funny thing is, it can come from management. Usually we want to get out of there and talk to our friends about stuff. Since management doesn't have a lot of friends, they do it at the end of meetings.



9. 5 minute question - A great time waster. You have a work buddy that you would like to talk to, but you don't have a reason. well, you build up some kind of question to 'verify' of 'get your ducks in a row' and ask this buddy. the answer is 5 minutes, of course the BS afterwards takes about 35 minutes and is usually capped off by a reiteration of what was said in the first 5 minutes.







8. Good old Clip Board - It's an old movie axiom. If you look like you have a sense of purpose and you are walking quickly, nobody will know that you are not going to any meeting at all, but instead you are getting in 5 healthy laps around the office campus. It's even more effective if you have a grumpy look on your face.







7. 2 hour lunch - the key to this time waster is you can't do it often and you can't eat lunch at the same time every day. once in a while you need to work through lunch to show the boss what a dedicated employee you are. your average? 1.43 hours at lunch.










6. Bio-Break - This one is great but it takes timing and experience to use consistently. Just take a good book or magazine to the can. If you time it right, you can miss one of those yawner meetings. Word to the wise, if you fall asleep in the toilet, you will have dead legs and your snores will probably be recorded and put up on U-Tube.






5. Office Supplies / groceries - For the secretary. Secretary's work hard and you know that they are the organizational geniuses behind any good executive. As such, they can certainly go buy some office supplies and while they are at it, the weeks groceries. Of course they can't buy anything perishable unless home is between the store they go to and the office. hmmmm...








4. Solitaire - I put this one in a separate category because it's in a class all it's own. When windows first came on the business scene solitaire was there to make sure that anyone using that machine would be diverted from the buggy microsoft office software. Ahh the memories. Now a days, there are a LOT more diversions than solitaire and microsoft has put bigger numbers on their software.







3. Talk to the Boss - you walk in, you close the door. Boss, I really just wanted an informal how am I doing. This does so many things for you it's amazing 1. you look like a real 'go getter' and you are getting face time with the boss. 2. you are NOT working! 3. This meeting may actually give you some information that you need about your performance. You can only do this once a month or so, and you have to cough up new reasons to talk. If you are not possessed of the gift of gab this won't be one for you.








2. Time - Shaving time in your favor is a real good way to get your share of that 3 hours a day, and this one is Aces. you make sure you come in at about 8:40 then stay till 5:30. you look like you are staying late and yet you are shaving 10 minutes. You can adjust this play to your best benefit depending on when your boss gets in and leaves.










1. Internet "research" - This used to be a lot easier. Back before offices would completely spy on all of your internet activity you could look completely busy clicking and studying the SI Swimsuit issue online or paying your bills or looking up old high school flames, whatever. The moment someone slides by, you just bring up that REAL work window and no one is the wiser. In fact, there is an invention that is made for this, it's a foot pedal screen switcher. you plug it into your computer and when you see someone coming, you don't have to go to that embarrassing alt-tab, you just click your pedal with your feet and viola! you have the hard at work screen up in front of you. SWEET!

There you have it. I'm sure there are more, but those are the first best 10 that came into mind. As always, thanks for reading!

Yeah, I know it's not my strongest work, you can't hit a home run every time.

Top ten reasons why you don't like your job.

Hypocrite alert!!! I actually am 80% happy at my current job. The only reason I'm not is because I am woefully inept at the skills that I really need. My prior job on the other hand was truly a distasteful one. My job prior to that was Ok, but I didn't handle it well and got myself fired. That being said...

Alright you glass half full types. I know, I should be thankful for my job etc. The truth is, currently I really like my job, but my dad had a great saying when it came to work: "If you liked it, they wouldn't pay you to do it". Now this bit of conventional wisdom has to be parsed correctly in order to be properly appreciated. What of those lucky souls that get to do exactly what they enjoy and they get paid for it? Well, I've decided that those people are producing something that other people love to consume. This works for artists, writers and other generally creative people. The key to doing what you love, or making what you do something you love to do, is being able to do it at or near your pace. The rest of us poor schlubs have to slog into work and figure out some way to motivate ourselves to come in the next day beyond our paycheck. Well don't come looking here for the bright side. Here are the top ten reasons you don't like your job:

10. 90% of the car damage I've sustained is either in the parking lot of, or traveling to or from work.







9. They are paying you much less than you are worth. This much is obvious. If they didn't, the company wouldn't make any profit because it would be split proportionately between the people producing the most on behalf of the company, which of course would not be 98% of management.










8. Companies think they are your mom and dad. Man I hate this, when they go through and start listing your 'goals' and the things that 'need a little work' I just want to stand up and say 'I've already got a mom and dad, and they are a damn sight better than you (no, this is not them).















7. TIME. 98% of companies will tell you that they expect more than 40 hours a week. This is of course if you are Salaried employees. The rationale for this is that if you are done with your work you can take time off and the company still has to pay you. What a joke. It's just a way for them to take your most valuable resource and make money for them with it. My current company is actually very good about this. But most companies have decided long ago that they own you 24/7 and so telling you to work more for nothing is well within their purview.










6. Annoying Employees. Nearly anywhere you go to work, you gain a certain camaraderie with your fellow employees. A kind of trench friendship if nothing else. But just about everywhere you work, there will be those people that annoy you, not because they are trying to, but because they lack any semblance of social skill. Sometimes there are whole departments that are made up of these misfits. They are usually called I.T.











5. The pointy haired boss. There is only one reason the fellow from the Scott Adams cartoon is funny. It's because it's true. There are no exceptions to the rule that given enough time, a boss will eventually become a clueless jerk. There is of course a reason for this, I went over it in a prior blog.






4. You start realizing that the reason you are where you are is because you aren't smart enough to get out of it. Man oh man is this one depressing. You wake up one day to find out that you are really just as dumb as you were afraid you were. It takes your sucky job to make you realize it.
















3. Stress. It's amazing how much of the quality of your life is linked to stress. Of course a lot of this is by our own doing, but when your job adds stress to your life by telling you to come in and work on weekends and give even more to a company that doesn't care in the slightest if you are put out, it really puts it in contrast.















2. The SECOND they think they don't need you, they will not hesitate to put you out of a job (and pat themselves on the back for doing it). If you get nothing more from this rather windy list, please remember this: Every loyalty in business is perceived, and business's only true loyalty is first and foremost to money. There is nothing you can do to alter this, it's the nature of business.














1. Stinking motivational CRAP. Those black bordered platitudes straight from the anus of hell, you've seen them all, you've probably seen the counterfeit ones that explain a little more realistically how things actually are. This is bigger than those things of course. It's a company that thinks they can manipulate you into producing more simply by spewing some of this pablum in your direction. In fact, for the effort of blowing this fluorescent sunshine up your collective skirts, they EXPECT that you will produce more and be less idle. If you don't provide them with the proper return of their mental investment, see number 2 ;). Top of this crap heap is Good to Great. I could go on, but this actually deserves a whole blog entry for itself.










I've had a few bosses that I've disliked enough to really enjoy the following link. It's a little bloody, but well worth the effort.

Stress Reliever