Damn. I’m an actuary. Some of my female co-workers are sexy in a geek-girl way, but . . . unrestrained? Mmm, not the word that comes to mind!
Foxy40, I empathize with your situation. I started a company with 3 other partners and we made up the rules as we went along. We made plenty of mistakes along the way. But, because you are the managing partner, you have to make unpopular decisions. For me, it would be no problem to lay down the law. I’d just send out an email saying that the invitation stated clearly that only one guest was allowed, and people should adjust their plans accordingly. I would say that I had given away my own personal guest invite to employee X, and do not intend to renege on that deal.
The pit is a brutal place. I remember a couple of posters who made some petty personal attacks against me when I pitted a generic behavior. Just because personal attacks are allowed in the pit, I don’t think it is always appropriate to make them. I still think of some of the posters are assholes. But I guess there are people who disagree with me to the point that they feel a personal attack is justified. That is their prerogative, but I think just as poorly of them as they think of me.
It seems to me that no matter how egregious the behavior that you are pitting, someone will come in and defend it. I figure if I complained about people raping babies at the farmer’s market, someone will come by and say. “That baby was asking for it!”.
People don’t realize how difficult it is to run a small business. You have to spend time and resources dealing with bullshit that regular employees never even think about. It was by far the most stressful time of my life. I disagree with some of the sentiments expressed here in this thread, and it sounds a bit like jealousy to me.
Our Christmas party always had dinner, live music and an open bar. The last year I was there, people were ordering bottles of Cristal at $300 a pop. I assume that the next year bottles of Cristal were not allowed. Since it was a free open bar, people would order rounds of drinks for everyone. People would end up tossing the shots over their shoulder. It’s pretty easy to be magnanimous when you are not paying for it. I would assume that the next year a rule was implemented that you could only order drinks for yourself, and there was a cap on the price of a drink.
It is a shame but itcomes to that. Most companies have bugets and my budget includes the office partys and yearly bonsus.
What I ended up doing was to post a memo stating that we are unable to accommodate more than one guest for the formal affair but friends and relatives are more than welcome to our office pot luck party a few days before.
Hopefully that helped a bit.
We had our work Christmas party last week. It is arranged by the social club at work. The message that went out this year said something along the lines of:
Free for social club members
$20 for member’s partners
$60 for other guests (which includes people at work who don’t contribute to the social club)
Pretty straightforward - invite whoever you want but pay the full weight for everyone but your partner,
I just got in from my company’s holiday gala. We were flown to Dallas, Texas and stayed at the Fairmont Hotel downtown. The company provided transportation to and from the airport, gave the out of towners a beer and wine party on Friday night and had the big blast with open bar on Saturday night.
Despite the amazing generosity, some employees still complained that they weren’t satisfied. I think my company is great and I think you’re (Foxy40) bbeing wonderful in giving your employees a nice party as well as holiday bonuses.
To the complainers:
Good for Foxy40 for achieving success in her business - she seems to be sharing the wealth and I don’t have a problem reading about it. Some Dopers write about their lack of funds - it takes all kinds.
I don’t see how anybody could misconstrue the meaning of “A Guest,” as in one guest, as in one(1) person. Either clearly communicate the rule, and enforce it, or anticipate this behaviour and intentionally over-order food. Better yet, do all of the above.
Work is work.
That company that you work for? Not your friends, not your family, and if the bottom line came to losing your ass, you’re gone. Your job? No, it is not your job - the company and you have a consensual contract, in which you work until you are fired, quit or retire.
That company that you own/operate? Not a pool of friends and family. Your company exists to provide a set of services at a profit. As an owner of the company, those profits are yours. Employ a company culture that encourages professional standards, boundaries, conduct and culture. When the owner blurs things up, the employees are enabled to do so. When the owner tolerates or enables employee conduct that erodes fair play, that conduct will increase.
As for company parties, though, fuck’em. My time is my own, and I get quite enough work at work, without work metastasizing into my personal time. It’s hard enough to get people to understand the value and meaning of personal boundaries without people intentionally blurring them.
I have quite enough going in the way of irritating personal relationships going without work imposing yet more of them upon me. I have no problem with a strictly voluntary, optional party (that I can cheerfully and purposely blow off), but these “official company functions” suck.
I frankly don’t really get people who can’t begrudge a single evening for a holiday event at your employer’s expense. I can see that people want to keep separate home lives, but if you hate the people you work with so much that you can’t bear the sight of them (even with complimentary booze involved) for a few hours a year is pretty unreasonable. I wouldn’t ever demand that such an event is required, but the appropriate response to an unwanted invitation would be “I have other plans, but thank you”, not the open hostility we’ve seen in this thread.
Sure, I guess, they could just give people money. But, then, it’s supposed to be a kind gesture. Do you demand that friends and family give you money and not gifts, or say that instead of those Christmas cookies, please give the cost of the ingredients in cash? It’s an unreasonable standard, and company holiday parties are meant to get people together and have a good time as a group.
I actually quite enjoyed our company’s holiday party last year and the company’s policy of having outstanding, classy (but not stuffy) and generous parties has been mentioned more than once as one of the reasons why our company is a good place to work. Fortunately, we don’t seem to have any impossible-to-please grumps on board, either.
Personally, I’m with D_odds;I wouldn’t bring up budget or space at all in a second message. I’d say something like, “We appreciate the outpouring of enthusiasm for our Christmas party, but due to the overwhelming response, we are compelled to limit attendance to you and one guest, as indicated on the original invitation. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to seeing you and your guest on (insert date here). If you have not already contacted (assistant) to reserve your spot, please do so as soon as you are able. Thank you.”
If need be, someone could call those who already RSVPed and insure that they received the message under the pretense of “avoiding an embarrassing situation at the party.”
I think any mention of a budget is tacky. Asking even uninvited guests to chip in when it wasn’t part of the original invite kind of looks like someone made a mistake… some people did indeed make mistakes, but it wasn’t the host(s).
As the assistant was the one setting the example, I’d make her personally speak with each employee who RSVPd with more than one guest to reiterate the memo. It was her responsibility, as the one taking the RSVPs, to enforce the rules. I’ll bet come party time, you’ll still get an employee or few bringing more than one guest because they didn’t read the memo, or chose to ignore it, or just decided it meant everyone but them. A quick conversation along the lines of “hey did you read the memo? You can only have one guest for the gala” may save you some headaches. Just be prepared to turn away an employee’s extra guests, or you’ll have everyone coming down on you.
Open hostility? In the Pit?! Who knew?
:rolleyes:
As I posted earlier, I don’t object to voluntary company functions - as long as they’re voluntary.
I have problems “begrudging” my personal time to company functions - it’s my time, dammit.
I have problems with company functions disrupting critical, end-of-the-year deadlines.
I have quite enough on my plate this time of year with killing endpoints for my research projects, doing the same for other peoples’ projects, and in finishing off my university stuff for the semester.
What I want at the end of the year at work is to be left alone to do my work. I’m fortunate that my work affords me that. I’m very glad to not work at a place chock full of “holiday fascists,” who are intent on dragging one and all inside their fucking holiday event horizons.
I have no problem with voluntary company functions - I’ll decline them in a benign fashion in most cases. But kindly do not bleed my workday to force my attendance at compulsory events. And leave my personal, off-the-clock time alone.
Work is work. It’s a job, involving work. Leave me to my critical deadlines and end-of-year must-do, must-finish tasks. I can plan my holiday dance card on my own. As for my family holiday dynamics, that’s my business.
If keeping my personal and work areas separate (for the most part) makes me grinch, then I’ll wave my Grinch Flag proudly, and I might even pay my state DOT/DOR for a special Grinch Plate for my car.
I didn’t realize this thread was still on going. I just thought I should update. I took the advice given from the dopers on day one of this post and told the offending parties that due to budget restraints, I could only allow one guest per employee this year. One person stormed over, crossed her name off the list and said if her daughter isn’t welcome, she isn’t coming. The drama ended there.
That’s cool. And you’ll probably be better off without that one gal if she’s going to be that way about it.
Lovely. An employee trying to turn the tables on you to make you feel guilty and Scrooge-like. Let her know that she’ll make a great boss one day when she starts her own company and invites as many people she wants to invite. You may even want to work for a boss like that! :rolleyes:
Her daughter is welcome. But not her daughter’s boyfriend, the dogwalker, and the babysitter as well.
Yeesh. What a drama queen. I agree with scout…she’ll probably bitch about the quality of the (free) food and the (free) drinks and the (free) music too. Have a good time without her.
You could accommodate them by letting them pay for the extra guests. That keeps your budget under control, allows you to gift them one guest and allows them to be grown-ups by paying for additional guests.
You mean the invite for family and friends to join in the office pot luck did not impress her?
How rude of her.
I think if this was expressed from the get go then most likely it would have stopped any of this office drama from even happening.
I would think at this point it is a little late in the game.
Well, unless her daughter is adult-age, I think it’s appropriate to bar her. Many of us don’t have kids and would expect an office party to be adults-only. I know everyone thinks their kid’s an angel and well-behaved, but all too many aren’t. “Guest” doesn’t mean two year old kid, it means your significant other or an adult companion.
Yup.
No Kids’N’Pets.
It’s sad that these miscreant employees need the equivalent of a three page legal disclaimer to understand the basics.
I think it’s a bit inappropriate for the lady to flounce about over the fact that her kid (the third wheel) wasn’t automatically tacked on. Adult events aren’t fun for most children, and it’s really not appropriate for them to attend anyway. Even normally well-behaved kids who get tired and bored often become problematic as it is, and having them be disruptive at an adult event makes it all the more obvious. One that’s ill-mannered to start with makes the tantrums more frequent and more volatile. [sub](All it took for me to avoid babysitting for people when I was younger was my first “real” experience being with two boys who were absolute hellions and wrecked one of my mother’s fine silver dishes and tried to beat on me. After that week and letting my mother know what had happened, my mother never asked me to babysit for any of her coworker’s kids again.)[/sub]
Personally, the only holiday party I’ve ever been to where kids were invited was one that was centered around entertaining the kids and having lunch than a “let’s socialize and network with one another outside of work” deal. However, it was a small company and family oriented enough that they were more likely to do a picnic with a keg than a formal dinner with open bar.
I also don’t recall my parents ever taking me to a holiday work event until I was in college. My mom took me to a few events, but only after I had actually worked a summer at the same company and thus was considered “one of the guys” with most of the people there.