Tis the Season

I will be interested to see how enjoyable this year’s office Christmas party is. Every year since I’ve been here (and when I started I didn’t have any children, and The Boy is now in university) we’ve had some sort of after hours party with spouses/partners. One year kids were invited too.

And the parties have included things like pool, beer and chicken wings to wine, steak and the hotel Saskatchewan. Always well attended, and usually a great deal of fun, inasmuch as an office group is able to have fun. There is always that sort of weird awkwardness of people socializing not from choice but because they all work in the same place.

I don’t think this year’s party will work. Because the recipe they’re using for this is not a good one. Take a bunch of people whose only thing in common is that they work in the same place, cancel the evening Christmas party, move it to a business day, set it in the boardroom and tell your staff that they are being given time off to attend the party. Finish off with an email that says “please note that as the party is being held during office hours if you do not plan on attending you will be expected to work”. Yeah, this should be fun.