'Tis the season for holiday bashes and occasionally making memories we'd rather forget. We reached out to HR professionals across the state to share the most embarrassing holiday party mishaps they witnessed during their careers. Here we share the ones that made us both laugh and cringe. So before downing that next glass of bubbly at the company holiday shindig, make sure you don’t wind up like these folks.
“At a former employer, we had a holiday party at a banquet facility where one of our employees had a bit too much to drink and apparently passed out in the shrubs outside the entrance to the facility. No one knew until a co-worker of mine got a phone call from the facility later that night, well after the party was over, asking her to pick up this employee because they found him in the shrubs as they were locking up for the night and heading out. He didn’t live that one down!”
“Our CEO was married to a much younger woman, and one of our employees was “bumping and grinding” with her (she was a willing participant) on the dance floor. (The CEO wasn’t dancing.) When the employee’s supervisor approached him and questioned his behavior, he said, “What? I’m just dancing with [the boss’s] daughter.”
“I was at a [company] holiday party, and a younger associate had quite a bit to drink. She was wearing a very short dress and had on sheer pantyhose with no additional undergarments. Needless to say, every time she lifted her arms as she was dancing (the dance floor was in the middle of the room surrounded by tables), she was basically flashing the room. One of her friends noticed and retrieved her from the dance floor, but not before just about everyone else also saw the Full Monty.”
Illustrations by Rick Colantuoni
Current Issue - April 2024