It’s that time of year again people – the time when we go to social functions with people we may or may not like but spend most of our week with – work colleagues. Yes the office party season is upon us, and after being to a few friends parties and hearing sob stories and disasters from other friends I think its time to make a few comments.

One person I know came to me with a terrible sob story of an embarrassing incident. Whether they say it or not, I think a lot of people who get in this situation do it for attention – either from those outside of work or those at work. The fact is, if you have an embarrassing incident – unless it is that bad, its going to get you attention.

 
Now, the important thing is context – some things such as being caught taking hard drugs, getting into a fight or leading on a colleague can be seriously damaging. However, smaller incidents, such as knocking something over or singing badly will not harm your career in the long term at all, but may get your name out there.   

 The key is, not to get known for getting involved in embarrassing incidents at every office function, but rather to ‘gracefully recover’ (in colleagues’ minds) from your silly episode and blossom into an essential part of the team. It gives a great opportunity for water cooler talk, and in my opinion, is a great way to fast track your name around the organisation.

 It does leave you in something of a ’sink or swim’ situation – where you are then forced to recover from the incident otherwise you will actually do your career more harm than good. The upside is, that managed well, letting go a little at an office party can do wonders for your reputation, particularly if you are a bit quite.

I think some people are naturally aware of this technique, but not consciously aware – as I have seen thios pattern repeated again and again. Those who have an ‘incident’ but don’t recover and either damage their standing for a long time, or even worse leave, are those that are motivated and unclear.

By motivated and unclear I mean that they are motivated by several factors – desire, rejection, alcohol, desperation and loneliness. These people don’t have a clear goal in mind and see the office party as a chance to change things round – impress the boss, get to know that person they are attracted to or to feel better. However, they have no real clue as to how this will happen and often feel that alcohol will somehow smooth the process. These approaches never work in my mind and almost always end in disaster – don’t let them happen to you.