Biglaw, Law Schools

Don't Let 'Holiday Party' Become 'Will Work For Food'

Mind your manners and your paycheck.

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Black Man Employee Feeling Fatigue At Work. Job Dissatisfaction.Let’s not beat around the wreath — being a dick at the Christmas party is an easy way to experience a layoff season of one. As nice as it would be to meet all of your work expectations from the comfort of your living room, the collective hallucination of acting like Long COVID isn’t a thing means that in-person events are back in session. Not only will the number of days you’re expected to be in the office increase, the amount of showing face outside the office bumps up too. Going to the party is enough to avoid the “they’re too good for us” gossip at the water cooler (is that a thing again?), but absence is preferable to committing a party foul that makes people think they’re too good for you.

Oddly enough, the wisdom comes from LadBible:

A legal expert has warned that you could be waking up with more than just a hangover if you misbehave at your work Christmas party this year…Employment law expert Katherine Cook told the Shropshire Star that – as you might imagine – work Christmas parties that revolve around alcohol led to an increase in problems.

She says that this month and next, her and her team see a ‘surge’ in businesses asking for advice about disciplinaries and bad behaviour including violence and ‘discriminatory comments’.

While that advice is good enough on its own, let’s back it up with a couple of concrete examples. Remember that associate who got fired for drunkenly yanking an anchored wig off of someone’s scalp? Don’t be that guy. And while I have no knowledge of what she was intoxicated by, it is hard to believe that telling a far-reaching legal meme account that Hitler was pretty good actually was a sober decision. Don’t be her. Get the brilliant idea to play pranks on coworkers after a few whisk(e)y sours? Don’t write whatever got this guy kicked off the plane. There’s no question your risk of ending up on the no-fly zone is much lower if you indulge in shenanigans at the local pub, but your chances of getting canned are about as high. Should it be protected speech to suggest that depriving two million civilians of water and food for two months is less than ethical? Maybe. But if Penn’s president loses her job security for validly considering which statements earn free speech protection… I doubt your gig is much safer.

Drink, be merry, and try to keep your job. It is much better to eat beforehand and nurse a mocktail than to submit your resume and then fill out those damned boxes that wouldn’t need answering if they read what you just gave them. That said, you are more than welcome to ignore all of this advice and be an asshat in front of your boss. I, along with the rest of the editorial team, look forward to making fun of you.

Legal Expert Issues Warning Over How This Year’s Christmas Party Could Ruin Your Career [LadBible]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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