Over here, it’s mentioned that in some professions at some levels, one entertains bosses and colleagues (and their SOs) at one’s home, in a formal capacity.
Do you do this? What general profession are you in? What is the party like? Who is invited? Has it helped you get ahead?
My dad was a VP in the company, and he never had his bosses over to dinner, nor do I recall him ever being invited to dinner by his underlings.
My brother is the Prez where he works, and the only ones who entertain him are vendors who want his business, and they always take him out.
My husband was a mid-level manager and he never entertained any of his bosses, altho we did go to the movies with his immediate boss and his wife one time.
I was a federal employee, and I would never have considered entertaining my bosses as a means to get ahead. In fact, the only time I had an ex-boss over to my house was after I retired.
I don’t know anyone who ever played this game, and apart from an episode of The Flintstones, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of it. 
My parents did it all the time in the sixties and seventies. My dad was an engineering manager. I’ve held similar jobs to his, but the practice seems non-existent in my generation.
I go to work events that are in the evening occasionally. They usually are at a restaurant but have been at people’s houses.
I was unaware that this happened since the 70s. I don’t even remember it being a common sitcom trope in the 80s (certainly it was prior to that).
So we’re clear I’m not talking about all fancy dress cocktail parties but pool parties, Christmas Parties, informal dinners, big game parties or possibly being host to a charity event. This is done regularly by mid-upper management types for their peers and employees where you have teams that your rely on for your success. When you get to certain echelon in team based performance driven professional businesses doing this is common place.
The local Denny’s manager is not going to do this, nor is a small accountant or government worker or even a large business manager with unionized workforce. Real estate brokers, stock brokers, financial services, people in advertising, talent agency reps. some law firms, creatives etc. that’s where you see this.
I’ve learned to stop doing this, because my wife is a witch, and her magical hijinks get me into all sorts of trouble with my boss Mr. Tate, as well as our advertising clients.
In my life, I can probably count them on my fingers.
When you say “formally entertain,” I’m thinking fancy sit-down, full service, multi-course dinner. I have hosted colleagues, including my boss, for dinners at my home. But I’m talking about cookout style events, not formal entertainment. The best description for my current profession is sales. I did this when I was in engineering, too, though.
Nope. I always thought it was just a '50s sitcom trope.
It’s the “formal” part that leads me to say “no”, either as a host or a guest. In my experience, which goes back to the time when dinosaurs had each other over for dinner, social gatherings of business colleagues are either small gatherings of people who are genuinely friends, or occasionally a senior executive (e.g.- a department head or academic department chairman) will have everyone over to their house or to a restaurant dinner, but those affairs are never anything that anyone would call “formal”. In fact most of the time they are what I would call “fun”. What I have specifically never experienced is the “red alert” syndrome: “The boss and his wife are coming to dinner! Bring out the best china and let’s start rehearsals right now!” What a stressful drag that would be.
I had a headhunter contact me about 8 years ago for a position. S,he said it paid very well(which it did) but the big boss was in his 80’s and stuck in a 60’s sitcom and ran his company like that. I declined to pursue, and she said that’s why she warned me because they had a lot of turnover from interviews and new hires who quit when they realized it was that kind of environment, and didn’t want to waste more people’s time.
Bewitched was the first thing that popped into my mind as well.
Absolutely no one at my current job of 8 years has even been to my house at all or vice versa. Some of them would be welcome in an informal capacity but we live far apart and there certainly wouldn’t be any formal entertaining. In previous jobs, I have been things like keg parties at someone’s house where some of the more partying inclined managers and VP’s showed up but there certainly wasn’t anything formal about that either.
The modern incarnation of that type of thing is to go to a restaurant as a group. Either the company or the senior person pays as a general rule. I have been to a bunch of those with many execs while travelling and sometimes in the local area. That is a much easier way to do it and it puts the burdens in the right places.
We have had functions at our home that would qualify, if you aren’t too strict with the term “formal.”
We’ve entertained clients on several occasions, and various members of my firm have been invited to dinner from time to time. We have also hosted the office Christmas party once, and fundraisers, and board meetings/retreats.
I’ve been to a few workplace meetups (and briefly worked at one place where attendance was pretty much required; that place had a lot worse issues, believe me) but never anything formal.
I knew I had started a thread about this but didn’t realize it was this long ago.
This is definitely still a “thing.”
In my last several companies this was part of the culture. The managers/upper level folks all regularly hosted their direct reports and any people they considered up and comers. Lower level folks who entertained were more highly regarded. Silicon Valley/Tech.
Several jobs back I had all of my peers engineers over to my house almost every weekend until a couple of them moved into the same town as me then we rotated between the three resort towns. I still talk to most of them. That was all young engineers in our later 20s the bosses didn’t drink or they would have been invited as well.
Once my then girlfriend now wife move in together I had a annual pig roast but again to it was mainly peers with a couple of secretaries. We invited the bosses but they didn’t come. I did have a dinner out with my division vp and our wives. That went poorly. Then my boss recommended that I get a promotion and when I was turned down the boss told me I need to start golfing with the vp at least monthly. I left that company shortly afterwards. Then next job I got a lecture at my first annual review for not being friendlier with my coworkers and that I needed to socialize with them more. It’s definitely a thing.
Now I work in a totally different industry and for a small company it wouldn’t be weird for me to take my boss and his wife out to dinner at all in fact we’re going on a full day distillery tour in 3 weeks and will be boozing it up on the company dime. Of course we design distilleries for a living, my boss owns the company, we were friends and co-owners of a different company before he hired me and there is no possibility of promotion unless I create a department to run or I take one of these distilleries job offers.
I’m a professor. We’ve had colleagues, both junior and at my level to our house. On occasion they’ve been sit down dinners. More commonly, we’ve had make your own home-made pizza, cook-outs or Easter Egg hunts, when we all had young children. We did that last regularly for about 10 years.
Engineer here, married to Sr Mgr (banker). I don’t think we’ve ever had co-workers to our house specifically for a party. 20 years ago we had a regular Wednesday evening meetup for water skiing. Occasionally my boss would attend just to get in a few runs, but that’s the closest thing to a work gathering in my career. My wife occasionally gets roped into a formal event at her work, but it’s always at a country club, or in the company skybox at sporting events (I like to tag along at the NASCAR race, but not the ballgames).
I have worked for investment banks for the past 15 years and it has been fairly common for the “big boss” (for various values of “big”) to host a party at home for all of his or her underlings. Usually it’s in the form of a Christmas party, but one high-level boss would host an annual summer party at his house with entertainment, open bar, oyster bar, buffet supper, a pool tournament, etc.
But it’s probably more common for the boss to have a Christmas dinner for the team at a restaurant instead (in addition to an official office Christmas party for the larger group).