Explorations in Policing, Faith and Life (With a hint of humor, product reviews, news and whatever catches my attention)

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Christmas Work Party.

Been posting this a lot but here we go again...been neglecting the blog. Well I hope to end this year with a ton of posts to put a better cap on the blog for 2010 than how I started it. Plus I need to start using “you are” when appropriate.


Anyway I am in the midst of the office Christmas party season as is everyone else.  It’s a strange dance between drinking enough to appear social and not so much that you say or do something antisocial.  Think drunk guy stumbling through the different circles of conversations and knocking over the gift table to get back to the bar or worse.

The open bar has been the death of many a career and the ascendant of very few. What I always find interesting is that what was said that I am sure will cause a painful career backlash for the parties involved comes to nothing, but the off hand iniquitous remark becomes the ball affixed to the leg of ones career.  Then add to the fun that everyone in the room is a cop and trained to notice the smallest detail and commit them to memory...the party may be for one night but the legend lives forever.

So, be careful, not only to avoid the drunken driving crash but the drunken career crash as well.

Cheers.

P.S. stay with beer, the others are killers.  Or well...moderation but that seems to run away before I could ever have a chance to catch it.

1 comment:

Adoro said...

I used to work in a place where the people at the top loved to get schnockered.

One manager did drunken donuts in the parking lot after a happy hour...glad I wasn't there that evening. Not my cuppa tea.

But I do recall hanging out with the top guy for our region, and he bought everyone at that hotel bar (where the party was held) a drink - he just verified first our employment & our dates for the evening. Sure, he could afford it and many had opted to stay there that night (and I had a ride home so no worries..and my driver was fine and refused the drink)...but still...that was company culture.

It never sat right with me, still doesn't. Was an inherently dysfunctional place to work.

One thing, though...I don't think anyone drove drunk. I'm thankful for that. No one took that risk. We worked in Insurance and all of us knew the aftermath of those kinds of wrecks.