subject: Don't Have A New Year's Bash In The Office! [print this page] There are so many reasons why you shouldn't have a New Years bash in the office and part of this comes from experience from the Christmas party and part of this is really just very obvious.
So what are the major reasons?
Drink
Something that never seems to mix in the office is booze. Although it can be a great idea to have a couple of drinks in the office around the festive season I wouldn't recommend going too far. In fact I would actually say that it is a brilliant idea to have a couple of drinks with the colleagues because it will just lighten the mood in the office for the holidays.
Insurance
It had to be mentioned I'm afraid and although the insurance will cover many things that may be damaged from drink, fights and other things I am sure that not all office insurance policies will be happy to fork out hundreds and possibly thousands of pounds because the employees have been careless.
On top of this I will also say that a lot of small business insurance will not even cover you if you spill certain drinks like beer and wine over computers because those types of drinks are not generally acceptable in the work environment.
Personal Experience
This year's Christmas office party was partly held here and although nothing got broken I certainly feel that if we didn't move on to the pub when we did there would have been a fair few broken computers. Drinks were being passed around left, right and centre and it didn't help that we had all had a couple of beers at the bowling alley.
However I will say once again that there is nothing wrong with having a few in office games like pool, gaming or of course poker. The problems only start occurring once people take the drinking too far and start to be careless of their surroundings.
Other Options?
There are so many options out there in which you can take the office party. You could perhaps go for a paid trip to a restaurant and hit the clubs and all of the employees would happily go out if they know their food is paid for. This is also very handy for management as sometimes it allows them to see how people really are outside of work. I wouldn't say that they should use this information against you in the office but to help you push forward in the company.
