SCENE: The research and reference department of the Federal Broadcasting Company. RUTHIE and SYLVIA are decorating the office for their holiday party.
RUTHIE: Are you sure you want this mistletoe right over the door?
SYLVIA: Certainly! Then, if anything good comes in we can grab him!
RUTHIE: What is the company policy here?
SYLVIA: Anything goes, as long as you don’t lock the doors.
That risque office chatter took place in the 1957 comedy “Desk Set” and epitomized decades of bawdy office party behavior. In Hollywood’s version, Tracy and Hepburn traipsed through Legal clutching bottles spewing champagne, and falling in love even as his avant-garde computer system threatened to eliminate her job. (And Ruthie’s and Sylvia’s.)
The holiday party will never return to those bold flirtations of yore. In fact, as the years progressed, holiday parties became a breeding ground for lawsuits related to issues of sexual harassment, responsibility for alcohol-influenced accidents and general bad behavior. Not to mention lower day-after productivity and the blues that accompanied too much indiscretion of every sort.
So it came to pass in offices all over America that the mistletoe was torn from its amorously strategic placement, the rum was siphoned out of the eggnog and all suggestive commentary was bleached away, by corporate decree.
And the bearers of these grim tidings to the world have been Corporate America’s lawyers.
Jeff London, president of the law firm Sachnoff & Weaver, toils as Santa’s judicious helper, quelling the fears of litigation by human resources and risk managers alike. Since 1984 London has advised his clients who worry about liability on how to pull off the prudent party.
According to London, the changing practices can be graphed by decades. “It ebbs and flows,” says London. “It was crazy in the mid-to-late ’80s and then it slowed down till the early ’90s when it got kind of crazy again.”
The periods track with the vicissitudes of the economy, he says, with temperance being the current order of the day. The steady decline of workplace friskiness, however, is due more significantly to what London calls a heightened “political awareness” that took hold in the mid-’90s and has not let go. Though holiday parties may not be as “spirited” today, London said, “In certain respects they’re not as intimidating because people don’t have a concern that they’re doing things they’re not supposed to be doing.”
The demise of the office party coincides with America’s decreasing tolerance for drunken driving as well.
According to Douglas Darch, partner of the law firm Seyfarth Shaw: “If an accident occurs after a party, potentially the employer is liable. A court will ask, Did the company exercise reasonable care to prevent the employee from driving while intoxicated?”
To help his clients keep out of hot water, London has compiled a list of dos and taboos, with the first requisite being a liberal sprinkling of common sense.
Taboos include:
– The aforementioned mistletoe.
– Grab bags (it seems one person’s toy is another person’s, ahem, plaything).
– Soirees held in hotels.
– Blowouts that go late into the night.
– Friday and Saturday wingdings.
The dos are no more carefree:
– Require top executives to be present.
– Serve food, especially those rich in starch and protein (for alcohol absorption).
– Use designated drivers/cab drivers/limousine services.
– Hire professional bartenders.
Last year approximately 92 percent of the business community organized holiday parties. The numbers ultimately may be down this year, according to London, in part due to reductions in workforce necessitated by economics. His clients, concerned over public perception, are paring back. Additionally, some large companies are calling for each department to hold its own party and canceling the costlier company-wide event.
A double whammy for the holiday party is a collective mood that has employers opting for a more thoughtful approach.
“In my experience, office parties have definitely shifted from adults-only to family affairs,” says Mari Hoashi Franklin, vice president of government, community and education services for BVM Olenti Inc. in Libertyville. BVM Olenti’s Fifth Media is a video network that broadcasts advertising and public service messages in supermarkets and public buildings.
“Those who have families do not need yet another event that separates them from the ones who will be part of their lives for all of their lives.” Franklin’s company plans to celebrate the holidays with a potluck lunch in the office, with families invited to attend.
Yet a balance can be struck, say those who have dedicated their lives to grappling with the Grinch who stole the holiday party.
Special event planner Sherri Foxman is founder, chief creative officer and self-proclaimed “party girl” of Cleveland-based Party411.Com. At 51, Foxman is old enough to remember fondly holiday parties of Christmases Past: “In the ’70s we had huge parties, which was a carryover from the previous decade. The amount of alcohol consumed was incredible; the sexual dalliances were blatant and the frivolity of it all spread to hallways of the hotel ballroom where one might find an inebriated top executive sitting on the marble floor, head between his knees.”
In the 1980s Foxman recalls a perfectly acceptable party she planned for the YWCA in which her company designed mistletoes that attached to headbands and hung above the face. “On them read `mistletoe, kiss below’ . . . and no one said a word,” she said. “That’s all gone now. The sexual revolution is over, the blatant drug use is over. So let’s call Anita Hill.” Or Clarence Thomas.
Foxman has no quarrel with being more careful, but London’s list sounds to her more like “rules on how not to have fun. The truth is they are all well and good but the whole purpose is for holiday parties to be a morale builder.” Not a morals buster.
Her solution to unseemly behavior is a calculating one: If you can’t put back the holiday party of the past, put the past back into the holiday party. “Twenty years ago they put up a Christmas tree and left it at that,” Foxman said.
“Today a fabulous party starts with the theme. We’ve gotten creative, and the themes pull it through. For example, for Pfizer Pharmaceutical we are in the midst of planning a Studio 54 party and changing the entire venue into a disco. The room will rock right out of the ’70s.”
Laurie Haynes, manager of training for Apple American Group, a franchisee of Applebee’s restaurants in Ohio and three other states,is another Party411 client.
This year their theme is a “time warp” party that covers the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, all while managing to remain a model of adherence to London’s rules–except for one. The party will be held in a hotel and already 35 rooms have been reserved for an overnight stay.
But according to Haynes, “It doesn’t have anything to do with sex, it has to do with driving-home issues. Some people live up to two hours away.
“This is a Gen X kind of crowd,” said the 30-something Haynes. “They haven’t experienced the debauchery of long ago.” Applebee’s, she said, will “supply the dance floor, the fun and the food.”
Foxman agrees that we live in a different time. “The expectation isn’t the same. People coming up today don’t know any different; they think they’re having a great time,” she laughed. “Now you have people talk about the food being fantastic, not how many drinks they had.”
