Keller @ Large: Office Holiday Party Advice For You
BOSTON (CBS) - Here we go into the final week before Christmas, prime time for the office holiday party.
And you know what that means – time for my annual unsolicited advice on how to navigate this festive get-together without doing serious damage to your workplace relationships and employment status.
Listen To Jon's commentary:
Podcast
First, the most important advice – while there will likely be alcohol served at the affair, perhaps even an open bar, drinking to any level of excess is definitely not a good idea.
In fact, if you're the kind of person who is significantly affected by even one drink, you might want to consider sticking with tonic.
Why?
Because your workplace relationships are exactly that, relationships with bosses and co-workers, and the office party is not a good place to be breaking new ground on those.
Even for you single workers, if that cute guy or girl in accounting was really a suitable potential romantic partner, you'd know it by now.
If you start picking up signs that there might be something there during the party, do yourself a favor and postpone any further action until next week or so, and reality may have been restored to your judgement.
The office holiday party is a great opportunity to wish your boss a Happy New Year, thank him or her for any support they've given you over the past year, and perhaps exchange brief seasonal pleasantries.
It is not a good time to inject a new level of candor into your relationship with the boss, especially not negative candor.
Trust me on this, the boss is looking to see who handles the office party with dignity and grace, and who makes a jerk of themselves.
These are not the best of times to be thrust into the job market with "holiday party jerk" as your most recent resume entry.
I don't mean to make the office party sound like some sort of ultra-dangerous torture chamber.
Handled correctly, it can be a great opportunity to share some relaxed fun with colleagues you don't often get to socialize with.
But please, do yourself a favor – lay off the booze, avoid drama, and remember that you're really not off-duty.
You will wake up without a hangover or difficult complications at work, but with a job to go back to.
And won't that make it a very Merry Christmas after all?
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
