Holiday Mayhem at Work

Today's episode is all about holidays at work. We've got questions from people about office parties and gift giving, and we've got some funny stories from people about ways that their office holiday celebrations went terribly wrong. Let's start with one of the questions that I get asked the most at this time of year, about getting a gift for your boss. Hi, Allison, I started a new job a few months ago and I reported to my manager, but

I also work a lot with his manager. I want to get them both small holiday gifts, but I don't know either of them super well yet, so I'm not sure what to get them. Is it too impersonal to get them boxes of Goodiva chocolates? Also, I tried to answer this question myself by looking at articles online, and I found some that set is actually inappropriate to gift up so I was wondering if I should even be

getting them holiday gifts at all. Thank you. So, in general, the etiquette rule about giving gifts at work is that gifts can flow downward, not upward, meaning that your boss can give you a gift, but you and your co workers shouldn't give presents to your boss, and that is because of the power dynamics and the paid discrepancies that

are inherent in that boss employee relationship. The idea is that otherwise an employee might feel pressured to purchase gifts for a manager, and it's pretty unseemly for managers to benefit from power dynamics that way. Now that said, there are definitely offices that ignore that rule and where gifts to the boss are pretty common, but you'd want to

find out what the culture is in your office. You definitely don't want to be the person who starts giving gifts to your manager if that's not a thing that's done there, because it's going to put pressure on other people to do it too, and once you start, it can feel awkward. Stopping in later years. But really, in most offices, there's zero obligation to give a gift to your boss. If you want to bring in baked goods for everyone to share, that's totally fine. If you want

to do cards, that's fine. But if you can stay away from doing an individual gift to your manager, because even if you are totally fine with it, it's bad for your coworkers, and it's bad for your boss too, because it can put them in an awkward position. Your gift to your boss can just be doing a great job throughout the year and being easy to manage, and that really is enough. But okay, that's where your boss is concerned. What about gifts for coworkers who are not

your boss? Hi, Alison, I worked in an officer about thirty people. I would say that I'm of various levels ofspense with different people, and with the holidays coming up, I would like to get my friends gifts. UM. Now, I know that obviously it's not a good idea to do public gift gifting if you don't have something to

give everybody, um. But my greater concern is said of the people and friends, with some of them I can afford to get gifts who are closer to me and others who I would doesn't sider my friends myself friends with I can't. Um No, I'm happy to see my friends gifts on private time. However, I still feel that there might be some residual awkwardness by them saying, oh, Stacy got me this gift to somebody else who also thinks they have friends with me, and then thinking why

didn't Stacy get me a gift? Did I just lay off the gift giving altogether? Yeah. In general, if you are going to give gifts to coworkers, you should either do it for everyone who's in a similar circle, meaning everyone on your team or everyone you work closely with, or all the assistants. It's the same advice that you often hear about who to invite to your wedding, that people will say treat people who are in the same

circle the same meaning with your wedding. If you're inviting a couple of cousins, you should invite all the cousins so that people aren't offended or hurt. It's the same thing here. Don't pick and choose among people who are sort of similarly situated to you. That said, if you're just going to give one or two or maybe three gifts to people who you're especially close with. That's fine as long as it's not like three people in a

four person department, so you're leaving one person out. In other words, just think about how it's likely to land with the people who are not getting gifts, and don't leave out just a couple of people. And if that is all feeling just too complicated, then I think that is a sign to skip the gifts, stick with cards,

stick with baked goods for everyone, or something like that. Ultimately, though, these are work relationships rather than social relationships, and so you've got to consider the way it could impact other work relationships too. So even if you might like to give a gift to your coworker who you're pretty good friends with, that potentially could be trumped by the weirdness or the awkwardness or her feelings that it could create with other people. So just look at the whole landscape.

Make sure you're not creating a situation where people are going to feel left out if you think they might alter your plans. Okay. In addition to holiday gift giving at work, there are a lot of office parties at this time of year, and they can be full of weirdness. Here is one color story about her office Christmas party. Hi, Allison, I wanted to share a funny and awkward company Christmas party story with you. My organization hosts an annual Christmas party. Work, staff, spouses, volunteers,

and board members are all invited. We get an email sent out with tickets are available so that we know when to go ahead and get them. A few years ago, one of the board members accidentally hit reply all to the ticket announced an email and asked the organizer to ensure that he wasn't suated with our volunteer firefighters since he was stuck at their table the year before and

none of them wanted to talk to him. Within a minute, someone else had hit reply all again, saying that you would be honored to be seated with those firefighters, as they're willing to restore their lives to keep our community safe. A few other emails went flying back and forth, congratulating the firefighters for their hard work, and the board members

soon set out an apology email. To make things even more awkward, one of the people making a speech at the company Christmas party did take a few minutes to commend or volunteer firefighters. I'm sure the board member couldn't have looked any more comfortable as the rest of the room posted them. I'm looking forward to seeing what our party has is were for us this year, and thank you so much for compiling news. There's going to be fun to read anything and here thank you bye. Oh

my goodness. Accidental use of reply all has caused so many problems, and yet I would never want to get rid of it because I cherish these stories. Well. Companies do a lot of weird things with their holiday parties, and one of those weird things is making employees pay to attend. Now. To be fair, there are some employers

that have no choice in that regard. If you work for the government, you're generally not allowed to pay for parties with taxpayers money, for example, But private employers who don't have those same restrictions sometimes do it to you, and that is this color situation. I'm a care worker for adults learning disabilities from the UK. It is approaching Christmas and my manager has organized a Christmas meal at a restaurant which will be for both staff and the adults.

We support. All of the people we support will be attending, along with their support workers who are on shift that day. There is also the expectation that those who are not on shift will be attending as well. This is not a well paying job, and our management team will not be subsidizing this meal. Those on shift who attend are expected to eat the restaurant with the people we support, to be social, and we'll pay it their own expense.

Practically speaking, all those attending, whether on the clock or not, will unavoidably end up taking care of the people we support, so all the stuff will effectively be doing work, only some won't be getting paid for their time. I don't have a huge income and normally meals out and not within my budget. Am I right in thinking that this is an unfair expectation. Yeah, it's one thing to say, hey, our Christmas party is really more for our clients than

it is for staff. That's totally fine. But in that case, it's a work expense and the company should be covering it. Asking people to pay for their meal when they're expected to do work that is contributing to the company's mission really isn't okay. The company should be covering those costs. Let's go to a break and then we'll come back

with some office holiday party stories. All right, My hubbins is as a medium un people send people remote um size tech company and they are having a Thanksgiving pot luck. I volunteered to help out. And on the sign up sheets, you know, many people had sign up for stuffing potatoes, cranberry sauce, et cetera, and the three spots for a whole cooked turkey or blank. I love cooking turkey, so

I signed up immediately. But personally, I think asking the employees to bring in whole cooked turkeys is a bit much. Should I point out to him that whole cook turkeys are a thing that it is possible for the company to purchase from a restaurant or whatever, and that the company should just provide these while employees provide the other items. Uh, he got a decent amount of sway in the company, so he would be an appropriate person to raise this issue.

Or should I just say, okay, well, this is possibly an employee planting employees suggested they bring their own turkeys. This is fine. I don't know what should I do. Who should provide the whole cook turkeys for the company potluck? Is the question. Yeah, it's one thing to ask people to contribute to a potluck with the usual kind of thing that you mentioned, cranberry, sauce, soda, napkins, etcetera. But asking employees to cook an entire turkey is a pretty

big deal. And ideally, if there is a particularly expensive component of the meal like that, the company would provide it. That said, because it's your husband's company and not yours, I mean you might point out to him this is kind of weird. It's it's surprising that your employer isn't providing this, but I don't think you really need to push it. It's kind of his thing to handle. I actually got an update from this collar the next day,

and here is how her situation turned out. I have got an update for the should co workers bring turkey to a potluck question? The next day after I asked the question, hr stime an email saying they would be providing they Um, the company did provide a bunch of food for the potluck. It was an only potluck, which is great because it's a big company and I am an example of you shouldn't have employees bring turkeys because I was funny. I'm still making one bread in the oven.

I was planning these ended up not working. I de saw the wrong turkey, so it was too big and didn't defall in time. And yeah, Thanksgiving potluck could have been ruined if co workers were in charge of all this and the company wasn't just providing things. So my vote is the company should have the turkey as they did, and it worked out and it was delicious. Speaking of enormous meat dishes at the company party, Here is a

color who has a thing or two to say about that. Hi, Alison, So I worked for a small company that prided itself on their holiday parties. I mean these things were big for an under company renting out an entire high end restaurant in d C and open bar and limited food nearly black tie. Honestly, the company was very concerned with this imagery and wanted to present a super slick, downtown savvy sort of vibe. This was evident in everything that

they did. After I'd been there for a little while, the owners decided to sell it to a new company that was more laid back in casual, less concerned with the image, and hadn't really done the whole holiday party thing before, especially because the acquiring company was spread out in different offices around the country. Anyway, I corresponded with the social to confirm that they would have food for vegetarians. It had never been a problem before. They always had

one or two items, and the restaurants were always willing. Actually, at one party, a restaurant custom made me something to eat because I was the only vegetarian at the time. So the new company through their holiday party. There's you had to rs up to come and uh there were drink tickets that you had to pick up. You got two free drinks, and then everything else you had to paper out of bucket. And there was food. They did run out a bar. It was a very very small bar.

It had two floors and a capacity of probably I would say maybe come to believe fifty people. Over a hundred and twenty people were crammed into this place. And not only that, but there was all meat. Everything that they had to eat was meat. And when you walked up the stairs to get to where the meat was, there was just a whole pig sitting on a table and a cooked pig. But it was a little nauseating.

I'm sure that you know some people are really into that, but um, if you're not expecting it, it's really off footing. But there was literally nothing for vegetarians to eat, or anyone you know who might be hallal or kosher, or you know, had any sort of dietary restrictions. My partner and I went and we had a horrible time. We could not move around, we could not have anything to eat, and we ended up leaving after about twenty minutes or so. It was probably the worst and most isolating then I'd

ever been to. Companies really have to think about this. You know, you probably have vegetarians on your staff, you might have people who aren't eating meat for religious or ethical or dietary reasons, and you've got to provide a range of options. A meat only meal is not cool, and in this day and age, it's just silly. Had to take that into account. The same thing goes actually

for companies that still do that traditional thing. If giving employees a turkey or a ham for a Christmas gift, that is not going to be an inclusive gift for a lot of your employees and really give people what they want, which is money or more time off. Here's another color with another question about a company holiday party. Hi, Alison, um,

So my question is this. For several decades, my employer held a holiday party in the office on the December Friday evening and employees were allowed to bring anyone they liked, friends, families, smitticant others. It was sort of a casual, open house type of event for all ages. They were drinks, lots of food, caroling, some holiday themed activities with the kids. We have a warm and collegial company culture, so former

employees often returned for the party as well. It was a nice time for everyone to catch up with each other. As a childless and usually single person, I would often invite my my sister or a friend to join me, so I was an alone at the party. Two years ago, some minor property damage occurred in the waning hours of the party. One of the glass doors in the office was cracked and had to be replaced. I don't know the exact details of what went down, but the damage

was done by a former employee. He had returned to the party after we'd gotten to an argument with someone. In response to this, the party was moved off site the following year and employees were restricted to only bringing significant others and children. I understand that they want to maintain more control over the guest list in light of what happened, but as a single person, I feel that this is not an inclusive policy. I'd like the opportunity to bring a guest and not have it assumed that

that guest is my romantic partner. Do I have a leg to stand on here? And if so, how do I address this with my employer? Well, I it's definitely not unusual for companies to restrict plus ones to significant others and sometimes to kids. The idea behind it is that etiquette has long treated married couples and and now other significant others as well as a social unit. So they're invited to social events as a unit. The idea

isn't bring any plus one you want. The idea is supposed to be, we're not going to ask you to leave out a spouse or a spouse equivalent during this non work hours social event, and in your company's case, they're expanding that to include kids as well. So I don't think it's terribly offensive. There's a logic to what they're doing, and it is grounded in traditional etiquette, but that doesn't mean that you can't suggest that they rethink it.

You could point out that it would be nice for people without partners and kids to be able to bring a guest as well and ask if they would be open to reconsidering. They might budge, they might not, but it's a reasonable thing to ask about, and if you get some of your co workers to make the request along with you, that might put a little more pressure

on them to say yes. I will say though, that company parties are generally not a ton of fun for the plus ones who don't work there, and ultimately they are intended to be events that build your social bonds with your coworkers. So if your company doesn't budge, I don't think they're being monsters, but I do think it's definitely a reasonable thing that you could ask about. Here is a color with a story about some memorable bad behavior at a company holiday party. I was my excess

date SS Christmas party a lifetime ago. One of the middle aged talk shot sales team members showed up at the party with a scantily clad young woman who was obviously not his wife, and this couple made a spectacle of themselves by drinking to excess, being obnoxiously loud, and displaying horrifying graphic levels of p d A. Someone did say something to the sales guy and he managed to bring things down a few notches and we moved on

with our evening. Sales guy in his day were obviously pouting after being told off, and they eventually brought their any two levels back up as the night went on. The lights turned on as the night was winding down, and people were milling about waiting for their various methods of transportation, and sales guy said something to his date

that upset her greatly. She then cornered the sales guy and loudly began issuing threats and almost ending each statement with gems like I think your boss would like to know this, wouldn't he? Mr? Nose Candy? And they sure would like to find out how you got dirty knees and a dusty lit, wouldn't they Mr? And insert homosexual slur here. There wasn't a single head that wasn't turned in their direction, and almost everybody was standing there an

open math stiff belief. We left before the end of this garade, and I was told sales guy was fired the following week when he finally showed up for work, shocking Wow. Yes, it is weird how often people forget that work parties are still work events and you need to exercise some judgment about what you do there, and that extends to your date too. It is generally not a good idea to bring a date who you don't trust to not have him meltdown and cause a scene.

I would love to hear sometime from someone who was the date to someone else's company holiday party and caused a scene. Why do I never get those calls? Okay, after the short break, I'm going to be right back with more stories from callers. Hi, ask a manager. I'm calling about a scene from an amazing Christmas polock. A few years ago, I was working at an academic department

where there was just really low morale. One thing that had really got my goat is that my boss often brought in her middle school aged son and I was expected to help him with his homework, even though I was in not that line of work. He was a good kid, but he was around a lot, and it seems odd to um have him so involved, or have

us so involved in his homework. So at Christmas time, uh, this boss had organized a holiday lunch pot luck and we were all sort of filling about wishing we could go back to our desk when she brought up the karaoke and uh, this wasn't the kind of office where people who were going to sing along except for her son, who was there. And so we all got to stand around and watch this kid saying a little drummer boy and Rudolf the red nosed reindeer and here comes Santa

clause for about an hour. Um. I have to say, Uh, it wasn't the worst holiday party I've ever been to. Like this added element of the child singing added a sort of surreal quality that ended up sort of looping the whole thing back to being kind of fun. Anyway. I ended up meeting my husband at that job. We started dating a few months after this holiday party, and so it's nice to have someone who remembers this experience experience and uh can reflect on it with great nostalgia

with me. That sounds amazing. I don't know about other people, but I think this kind of weirdness at a party makes it all the better. I really wanted a couple of things to go a little bit wrong at my wedding, actually being which no one ever says but I feel like that's where the best stories come from, and that's what people remember. But not all office holiday stories are funny. And here is a caller who had a pretty infuriating

and ridiculous experience with holidays at work. Hi, so this happened to me a couple of jobs ago, maybe about ten years ago. Um, I was working with a guy who was very decidedly Christian, and very obviously Christian. He wore this big giant gold cross around his neck, which he constantly was adjusting to make sure everyone could see it. I'm not Christian, I'm Jewish, but I mean I didn't let it bother me because it didn't affect how I did my job. Um, I could just ignore it when

I interacted with him. So whatever, he could wear whatever he wants. Right. Well, then the holidays ran around, and of course the first thing he does is going over the top decorating his cuble bill. I mean a full size crash, a giant Santa, a medium sized Christmas tree with all the trimmings. And again, you know, this doesn't bother me. It's his qub. I don't have to look at it whatever. But I decided I kind of wanted to get into the spirit too. So I brought into

work two little magnets. One of them was a dradal was about two inches big, and one of them was Hanakia the candelabra for Hanaka that was about one inch. It was really small, and I just put them up on the inside of my wall and you'd have to actually come into my cube to see it. But anyway, he decided that he didn't like this, and he complained to h R that I was making him feel uncomfortable. And so I then received a call directly from HR demanding that I immediately take my magnets down or face

disciplinary action. Now, of course I asked, and they said no, he can keep all the decorations he wants, even if it made me feel uncomfortable. And when I asked why, they didn't give me an explanation. They just said, this is our decree. Basically, it was annoying and discriminatory, but again it didn't matter as much to me. So I just took my magnets down and went along my merry way. And then the day before Christmas rolled around and I

put on my desk two bowls. I put a bowl full of dreadles and a bowl full of guilt, which is those little chocolate coins, and anyone who wanted to have one could just help themselves either or both or whatever. And of course this resulted in another call from HR to go in and talk with them, and he had told them that I had religious items on my desk that I was forcing him to interact with, which made him extremely uncomfortable, which obviously wasn't true. They were discreetly placed.

They nobody had to touch them. I didn't give them to anybody. You could come and get them, but of course that's what he told they are, so I was immediately written up. They didn't even give me a chance to give my side of the story or say, hey, what is the company policy or anything. They just said, you're getting written up. Uh, you have to remove them immediately, And I got a lecture about not being a team player,

and uh yeah. By the time I got back to my desk, he had given his Christmas presents to everyone on a team in mind was on my desk, which just happened to be this giant mug with Christian symbols all over it, So that I really didn't hang around for very long, and the business was a secular business, no ties to any type of religious organization like say Catholics, social Services would or something, so it I don't know. It to me felt very inappropriate, and yeah, I didn't

I didn't stay there very long. I'm now I realized that it was religious discrimination and it was probably a really bad move on HRS part. And I know what I would do, but back then I really didn't do and do as much as I think I should have. And to this day, I mean it's been ten years, but to this day, every time the holidays will roll around, I get really tense at work because I am concerned about this happening. Again. Thanks, I'm so sorry you have that experience that is not okay at all and not

legal either. Something year here in the US. It's weird that HR didn't talk to you about your side of the story and wasn't concerned about what this guy was doing himself. Just to be clear for people listening, employers don't have to let people decorate their workspaces, but if they do allow it, they can't pick and choose and say it's okay for this religious holiday but not for this other religion, because that is religious discrimination and it's illegal.

Under federal law, and so it's crazy that they handled it this way. If anyone is ever in a situation like that, point out to your employer that they are running a foul of federal laws like enster legious discrimination at work. It should be obvious to people who work in HR, you would think, but it isn't. Always speaking of things that are inappropriate for work, here is our next collar. Hi, Alison, Um, it's coming up on the holiday season and I wanted to get your advice on

something that happened last week. I was in a colleagues's office and we were chatting about picking at the Christmas tree and other holiday decorations that we normally put up around the office. She and another coworker brought up kissing balls. They said that the place that they normally go to get the office Christmas tree those gorgeous kissing balls made out of missiletel and they wanted to get one for

the office. I stayed silent on the subject, but I feel like kissing balls in missiletoe in general are inappropriate in the workplace. Should I have have pointed out, and I just being apprud I tend to be more chip re laced than my coworkers, and they are both members of the executive team, and I'm not how should I have

handled this? You are not being a prude. Things like missiletoe or kissing ball calls, where the whole point is that now you're supposed to kiss are totally inappropriate for work, And I would think that at this particular time in our history, companies would be especially attuned to that, but

apparently not so. Yeah, Ideally when your coworker brought it up, you could have said something like, you know, I think that would be fine for a social party outside of work, but for a work party, it's going to look inappropriate to have missiletoe. Now, that assumes that they were hanging it the way that you hang missiletoe, and it's intended to be like a kissing station. God, even just saying that really highlights how weird that tradition is, doesn't it.

But if they were just using it as a non kissing or related part of the decor, like as part of a larger garland or something, I wouldn't worry about that. But if they're using it as like kissing happens here, then yeah, speak up. Here's one more color, this one sharing the best thing they've ever seen their company do for the holidays, and the worst. I am calling with my best worst for Christmas parties. My worst is for

our Christmas party. This year. Our boss gave us tickets to a local production of a Christmas play with a small cocktail party beforehand. Come to find out he's in the play, not the tickets for free, and the cocktail hour is hosted by the theater. Most of the stars declined, My best is not actually a party for the company I worked for for almost a decade, David, Christmas bonus equivalent to one patron, whether you were salary or hourly. I've never worked for a company before or sent that

was that generous. That is the way to celebrate holidays at work. Everyone likes money and it tends to give people a lot of holiday cheer. Well, that is our show for today. Happy holidays, whatever you celebrate. Thanks for listening to the Ask a Manager podcast. If you'd like to come on the show to talk through your own question, email it to you podcast at Asking manager dot org, or you can leave a recording of your question by calling eight five five six work. That's eight five five

six nine seven five. You can get more ask a Manager at ask a manager dot org or in my book Ask a Manager How to navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the rest of your life at work. The Ask a Manager Show is a partnership with How Stuff Works and is produced by Paul Deckett. If you liked what you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.

I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with another one of your questions.