December 19, 2018 • 29 mins
Questions about office holiday parties and gift-giving, and stories of times that office holiday celebrations went terribly wrong.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My colleagues. We'll stop commenting on everything I get at
people and meeting. Why does my coworker keep taking credit
for all my ideas? Have any wisdom for me? Hi?
I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Asking Manager podcast. Right
answer questions from listeners about life at work. Everything from
what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers perfume
to what to do if you drink too much at
(00:23):
the company party. Let's get started. Welcome to the show.
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
(00:44):
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
(01:04):
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
(01:27):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:15):
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,
(02:35):
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
(02:58):
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
(03:20):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:05):
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
(04:26):
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,
(04:46):
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.
(05:07):
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,
(05:30):
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
(05:53):
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
(06:14):
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
(06:34):
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
(06:56):
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
(07:18):
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
(07:40):
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
(08:00):
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.
(08:21):
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
(08:48):
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
(09:09):
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
(09:31):
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.
(09:53):
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
(10:14):
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
(10:37):
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
(10:58):
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
(11:20):
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,
(11:41):
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
(12:02):
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.
(12:24):
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
(12:45):
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
(13:05):
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,
(13:25):
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
(13:46):
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
(14:07):
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
(14:30):
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,
(14:50):
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
(15:11):
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.
(15:32):
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
(15:54):
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
(16:15):
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
(16:37):
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
(16:58):
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
(17:21):
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
(17:44):
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,
(18:06):
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
(18:28):
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
(18:53):
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,
(19:17):
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
(19:38):
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,
(20:00):
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
(20:21):
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.
(20:41):
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
(21:02):
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
(21:25):
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
(21:46):
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
(22:10):
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.
(22:34):
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
(22:55):
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
(23:17):
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.
(23:38):
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
(24:00):
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
(24:21):
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,
(24:43):
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
(25:05):
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
(25:27):
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.
(25:50):
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
(26:12):
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
(26:33):
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
(26:54):
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,
(27:15):
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.
(27:36):
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
(27:59):
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,
(28:20):
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
(28:42):
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
(29:04):
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
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(29:25):
I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with
another one of your questions.
My colleagues. We'll stop commenting on everything I get at
people and meeting. Why does my coworker keep taking credit
for all my ideas? Have any wisdom for me? Hi?
I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Asking Manager podcast. Right
answer questions from listeners about life at work. Everything from
what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers perfume
to what to do if you drink too much at
(00:23):
the company party. Let's get started. Welcome to the show.
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
(00:44):
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
(01:04):
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
(01:27):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:15):
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,
(02:35):
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
(02:58):
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
(03:20):
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
(03:44):
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
(04:05):
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
(04:26):
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,
(04:46):
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.
(05:07):
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,
(05:30):
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
(05:53):
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
(06:14):
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
(06:34):
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
(06:56):
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
(07:18):
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
(07:40):
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
(08:00):
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.
(08:21):
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
(08:48):
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
(09:09):
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
(09:31):
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.
(09:53):
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
(10:14):
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
(10:37):
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
(10:58):
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
(11:20):
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,
(11:41):
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
(12:02):
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.
(12:24):
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
(12:45):
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
(13:05):
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,
(13:25):
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
(13:46):
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
(14:07):
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
(14:30):
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,
(14:50):
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
(15:11):
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.
(15:32):
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
(15:54):
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
(16:15):
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
(16:37):
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
(16:58):
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
(17:21):
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
(17:44):
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,
(18:06):
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
(18:28):
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
(18:53):
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,
(19:17):
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
(19:38):
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,
(20:00):
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
(20:21):
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.
(20:41):
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
(21:02):
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
(21:25):
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
(21:46):
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
(22:10):
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.
(22:34):
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
(22:55):
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
(23:17):
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.
(23:38):
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
(24:00):
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
(24:21):
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,
(24:43):
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
(25:05):
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
(25:27):
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.
(25:50):
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
(26:12):
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
(26:33):
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
(26:54):
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,
(27:15):
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.
(27:36):
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
(27:59):
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,
(28:20):
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
(28:42):
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
(29:04):
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.
(29:25):
I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with
another one of your questions.
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