• Home
  • Ask Didi
  • FAQs
  • How Tos
  • Be Your Best
  • Meet The Challenge
  • About Didi
  • “NEWPORT ETIQUETTE”
  • Home
  • Ask Didi
  • FAQs
  • How Tos
  • Be Your Best
  • Meet The Challenge
  • About Didi
  • “NEWPORT ETIQUETTE”
  • 3 Simple Guidelines for Office Parties
  • Creative Etiquette Solutions

You may also be interested in:

Romanticizing and Revitalizing A Forgotten Charming Crush
Houseguest Gifts — Entertaining
Engagement Party Dress Code Festive Fête
3 Simple Guidelines for Office Parties

What are the guidelines for an office party? This year we’ve been told employees are not getting a year-end bonus because repairs have to be made to the building. However, we suspect that some people are secretly getting bonuses. To improve morale the company is hosting a holiday party with a buffet dinner and open-bar in an Italian restaurant, which is several steps up from our usual holiday party.

Honestly, most of us would rather have the cash than the party. In the past the office party was only for employees. Would it be bad etiquette to ask if we can invite our spouse, or partner, since this is a night out rather than a BYO — consisting of a couple of glasses of warm plonk wine or beer and cold, greasy pigs-in-the-blanket held in the main conference room?

–KW, Providence

What you need to keep in mind is that before the year-end bonus there were only rowdy holiday office parties where it was sporting to sweet talk a secretary into a wet kiss while the ‘male room boy’ puked in the men’s room.

Then the office party plus the year-end bonus, which caused jealousies, became the norm. Now both are too much, everybody’s pulling back and simplifying.

Since the wheels are already in place for the holiday office party, you don’t want to mess with that. Nonetheless, there are three beneficial things you can do.

  • Early next fall organize a couple of your coworkers to lobby for a year-end bonus instead of a party for next December — even if the bonus isn’t as hefty as in the past.
  • In the meantime, you can definitely ask if the dinner invitation for this year is for you and your spouse/partner, because it is a night out away from your partner. Look at it this way, if the boss were inviting you for dinner at his house, your partner would be included in the invitation.
  • Lastly, since you’re not receiving a bonus this year, why not request a year-end performance review; if the review is good or better, ask for a raise.

3 simple office party guidelines everybody knows:

Don’t get drunk.
Don’t say embarrassing things to your boss’s partner.
Don’t get caught kissing in the utilities closet.

~Didi

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

Please give us a try and subscribe to the NewportManners.com newsletter!

As you’ve shown an interest in Newport Manners & Etiquette, Didi Lorillard thought you may wish to subscribe. You can easily unsubscribe at any time. Thank you ever so much!

* indicates required

 

more_topics

Featured
"Party Chic"
Accepting A Compliment
Acknowledgements
Addressing
Addressing
Adult Child
Adult Children

see more…
Wedding
Who To Invite
Welcoming Dinner
Weddings
Wedding Shower
Wedding Registry
Wedding Reception Dinner

see more…
Relationships
Adult Child
After the Break Up
Allergies
Breaking Up
Bullies
Children

see more…
Office/Business
Cubicle Etiquette
Dress Code & Grooming
E-Mail Etiquette
Employer-Employee
Interview Tips
Office Parties

see more…
Ask Didi
your étiquette question
Explore
Didi’s collection of responses
discover
How To...
POPULAR TOPICS
  • Codes + Conduct
  • Awkward Situations
  • Dilemmas
  • Entertaining
  • Wedding
  • Relationships
  • Manners
  • Tricky Conversations
  • Sticky Social Situations
  • Family
  • Dress Code
  • Conversation Etiquette
To recall a name, free your mind and focus on the color of their tie.

Our Newsletter

As you've shown an interest in Newport Manners & Etiquette, Didi Lorillard thought you may wish to subscribe. You can easily unsubscribe at any time. Thank you ever so much!

* indicates required



 

  • Home
  • FAQs
  • How Tos
  • Be Your Best
  • Meet The Challenge
  • About Didi
  • “NEWPORT ETIQUETTE”
  • Sitemap
© 2014 All rights reserved. For permission to reprint, contact didi@newportmanners.com site design AtlanticGraphicDesign.com