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Office Parties Feel the Chill

nytimes.com

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Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#41

Post by sitkack »

pc86 wrote: post #33
fredley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely this. At a place I worked previously, due to a tight budget, instead of doing the sensible thing and not having a party (or letting teams organise their own smaller bashes), the company cheaped out and rented a basement somewhere into which we barely all fitted. It was cramped, noisy and expensive. One employee got drunk and had a fist fight with the restaurant management after knocking down the sliding wa…

It seems odd that you would forget whether or not this event precipitated you quitting a job.

He was the one that knocked down the partition.

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#42

Post by froindt »

deepGem wrote: post #40
froindt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, they probably spent more than 30/person on just food and drink, but regardless I agree anything under a couple hundred dollars wouldn't feel genuine.

Thanks, I'm trying to institutionalize this and was wondering what would be a good Christmas bonus. 250$ was my ballpark.

Probably depends on your industry and implementation. I'm new to the workforce so I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I've seen some comments on reddit over the years with people getting piddly little bonuses (tens of dollars) and having management tell them they should be happy they got anything. The workers would have preferred getting nothing and it was a morale killer.

I don't know what good levels are. Maybe think of it in terms of % of salary for the median employee? $30 wouldn't feel genuine to anybody, especially if it looks like people at the top aren't cutting back. $250 for a developer making $175,000/year makes a much smaller difference than for support staff earning $40,000/year.

Another thing to consider - if things are tight and you don't already have a holiday bonus, a certificate to get a ham, turkey, or meat and cheese tray at a nearby grocery store would seem more genuine than a piddly $30 cash bonus. Of course switching from ~250/year bonus to a ham will be a morale killer.

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#43

Post by jordache »

fredley wrote: post #23
cluoma wrote: post #12

Maybe it's just my inner-millenial but I really dislike office Christmas parties. This year my company rented out a large theatre with a buffet of goose and free beer/cocktails/wine all evening. It started at 6pm and most of the attendees were gone by 10pm, and we are a young company with many in their 20s. I feel like it was really a party for a few outgoing people and those in HR. A Christmas bonus would have been…

Absolutely this. At a place I worked previously, due to a tight budget, instead of doing the sensible thing and not having a party (or letting teams organise their own smaller bashes), the company cheaped out and rented a basement somewhere into which we barely all fitted. It was cramped, noisy and expensive. One employee got drunk and had a fist fight with the restaurant management after knocking down the sliding wa…

a cheesy venue prompted your resignation?

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#44

Post by jnbiche »

Sholmesy wrote: post #22
bertil wrote: post #20

I actually like Christmas party (it helps I was working for great companies and with colleagues I actually like and I don’t go out as much as I’d like). I didn’t stay very long this year because I had other things to do, but one thing that surprised me was to hear one of my male colleague objectifying his direct reports (female and married). I have had until then the odd chance of only noticing offensive comments fro…

Did you call him up on it? You don't have to be aggressive/self-righteous about it to let someone know what they are saying is not ok.

He/she mentioned offensive behavior from both male and female colleagues. Why not call out both?

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#45

Post by deepinthewoods »

gubby wrote: post #13

This article seems to be sponsored by Escape the Room, whatever that is, with its own ad-style paragraph. "A less philanthropic but still debauchery-free experience can be had at Escape the Room, an interactive game site where as many as 10 people are shut in a room and have one hour to solve a puzzle..." Could be an example of the pay-per-mention market (there was an article about this last week on HN)

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#46

Post by fredley »

jordache wrote: post #43
fredley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely this. At a place I worked previously, due to a tight budget, instead of doing the sensible thing and not having a party (or letting teams organise their own smaller bashes), the company cheaped out and rented a basement somewhere into which we barely all fitted. It was cramped, noisy and expensive. One employee got drunk and had a fist fight with the restaurant management after knocking down the sliding wa…

a cheesy venue prompted your resignation?

It was the cherry on the cake of terrible culture.

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#47

Post by dingo_bat »

icebraining wrote: post #11
notliketherest wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're digging into a topic I've inquired about many times. I've never received any response from any admin. Ironically my submission was flagged itself for asking why certain articles were flagged and hidden. See here Ask HN: Why are “Google memo” links being flagged and hidden? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14994180

dang replied to you in that thread: the flags are coming from the users. So what exactly are you expecting more? Mind-reading the motivations of individual flaggers?

Probably ignoring unwarranted flags.

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#49

Post by icebraining »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #29
lancebeet wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Escape rooms have become quite common and they're provided by many different actors. Given how many there are on Manhattan alone it's difficult to pinpoint exactly which one they mean. If this is advertisement, it's not money well spent.

What is the business structure, though? Are all "escape rooms" independent operations, or are they more of a franchise? I was curious about the "Escape Room" phrase itself - it sounds like a brand, but I did an USPTO search for a trademark, and surprisingly, there's like a metric ton of ones matching ".* ESCAPE ROOM .*".

"Escape Room" is a type of business, like "Bowling Alley". There are franchises and there are independent operations, but the name itself is completely generic.

Re: Office Parties Feel the Chill

#50

Post by gadders »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #34
gadders wrote: post #14

>>Executives surmised (perhaps wisely) the party’s meager attendance wasn’t enough to justify the $300,000 price tag. So, two years ago, HBO offered its employees an afternoon off with their co-workers to volunteer at a charity instead. That's some reward.

Deloitte (or at least part of Deloitte) have a charity day. I don't think it replaces their Christmas party though. Anyway, according to one of my colleagues who used to work there, everyone really liked it, it was a way to get help out the community, with the added bonus that you're still getting paid. The cynic in me assumes that they just do it because it's bloody good PR.

Most Investment Banks give a couple of days a year, some give a day a quarter (in the UK at least).

This is also unrelated to Xmas Parties though.

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