Christmas party awards - humiliating or harmless fun?

[TippyToes123]

Our office Christmas party takes place in a couple of weeks and an email has been sent to all staff by the organiser asking us to nominate our colleagues for an alternative awards ceremony.

The categories include things like 'worst tea maker', 'office clown', 'always chatting' and so on. There is also an award for the person who loves to drink but can't handle it.

For context, my employer is a national firm which prides itself on looking after their staff and having a culture of respect. But our local office is more 'laid back' and has a heavy drinking culture.

Since I joined, there have been many staff events, which have included lots of free alcohol. I have witnessed colleagues getting very drunk, being sick, saying and doing things they have regretted afterwards. Usually, it is the newer trainees who are swept along with the free alcohol and encouraged to knock back shots. I think that making anyone get up in front of their colleagues to accept an award for not being able to handle their drink is humiliating. If it was me, I would be mortified. (For the record, I've been tee-total since joining and am not expecting to be nominated!)

I know that if I was to express my feelings on this (which I won't), I would be accused of missing the point and trying to spoil everyone else's fun. In fact, the email even stated that these awards are to be taken in the good nature and spirit that they are intended, a bit of fun.

So I'm interested to know...AIBU?

Yes...it's just a bit of harmless fun, which promotes team bonding.
No...it is potentially humiliating and adds nothing to the Christmas celebrations.

I am with you on this. And I personally would be grassing them up to the national HR team for the drinking culture too. If that makes me a killjoy, so be it

No I think this sounds a bit off, if it’s a big company go to HR and ask them to be discreet with who has raised a complaint!

I think harmless fun, but I have a good sense of humour and can take a joke. I have been to two occasions when someone couldn't and ended up being quite (unreasonably) offended which put a dampener on things

Fucking bolllocks, this. No fun to be had in this forced fun shite.

Is David Brent involved?!

All a bit The Office. Did someone who likes cheeky banter come up with this.

Feels like an invitation to bully and humiliate. But I am quite bah humbug about organised fun.

Really, someone will end up crying in the toilets, and someone else will spend the rest of the year interrogating who voted for them.

I have memories of having to smile through similar humiliation to appear a good sport.
The apparent thing that had happened wasn't me, it had been the popular girl who had said it was me.

The Dundies!

Really naff and humiliating. Organised fun at my last place was a quiz or at most a Christmas decorations competition.

I wouldn’t be nominating and I would quietly be encouraging others not to. I would be very open about why I am not nominating, it’s not fun it’s humiliating to some and will make some feel uncomfortable, that’s not on

Have they not seen an episode of the Office US?

Humiliating!

This.

I think it’s crass and certainly not something I’d want to participate in. It’s like an old fashioned beauty contest. Ugh!

That kind of thing isn't fun, particularly for some winners who feel humiliated but are expected to smile and laugh as otherwise they'll spoil the fun. A friend experienced similar and 'won' an award. I can't remember the exact name given to the award but it was incredibly racist and she was devastated. She refused to accept it and left crying.

This type of 'banter' can have lasting effects on people. No matter how much the organisers think they know everyone, it's a work environment where people put on a professional front. Yes, they might have a laugh and joke but sometimes they're cringing inside at things that are said and done but don't want to rock the boat. Power imbalances can turn this type of thing uglier too. If management supports it, lower level staff feel they have no option. It's a nasty look from management, in my view.

I would have no problem with saying 'Count me out' and 'Is this really something you think is appropriate for a workplace in 2023? It sounds more like a flashback to the 'photocopying your bare arse and throwing up while shagging Andy from Accounts in the stationary cupboard' office parties of yore/urban legend.'

But I have no issue with looking 'humourless', I once got a 'tarts and vicars' party called off.

We have this every year at work and yes, it's humiliating, not least as at least some of the 'awards' are contrived to point something out about a certain person and have a laugh at their expense .
Think along the lines of a member of staff who reports everything to management, is known in the workplace for 'sucking up' as it were (I'm struggling to describe the behaviour in a non judgemental way tbh!) And then there's a 'Brown Nose' or 'Goody two shoes' award. And of course everyone votes for that person and it's all funny because the behaviour that gets everyone's back up is dealt with publicly and with ridicule. A very similar situation happened last year at my work Christmas party and as much as that person pisses me off as much as everyone else, it really wasn't the way to deal with it and I felt really sorry for the person involved.
But my workplace does have a bit of a culture of humiliation to address issues, the management (and usually everyone else) will know fine well who has done something, and usually it's because that person has been put in an impossible position, but emails or group messages are then sent round expressing how wrong whatever it was is and how it shouldn't be happening and won't be tolerated etc etc but everyone knows who is at the centre of the incident and having been on the recieving end it's humiliating and is not how these things should be addressed.

I've worked in places that do Christmas "awards", but only ones that aren't cruel or humiliating. Things like most chatty, best tea maker, most likely to go over and above, that kind of thing. I think the closest to being cruel was the "most likely to have biscuits/chocolate available" type thing which was created especially for me as I always had a stockpile in my drawer that others could borrow from then replace - often late nights there meeting deadlines on projects etc, when a chocolate bar or Jaffa Cakes could keep people going.

I don't think it's completely terrible, but I also think there are much better ways to have a laugh with colleagues. You can have awards for less embarrassing stuff. And yeah, while I have absolutely no problem with colleagues getting hammered together, nobody should ever feel under pressure to drink and nobody should be goaded into doing shots etc. It's actually my office Christmas do today and yes, people (including me) will definitely be getting very tipsy, but there will also be people who don't drink much/anything at all and nobody would dream of questioning that or putting pressure on them.

We had office awards but they were all complimentary… even then, I was overthinking and wondering if there was an undertone to mine (big toxic history). I hate them. Ours were done nicely but even then, someone may have been upset.

I wouldn't care personally about being nominated for anything BUT I think it's a stupid idea as there are always people who get hurt -even the complimentary side can be problematic with people going off in a huff as they've not won anything (yes, I have experience in this area having worked as HR manager for a big firm and dealing with the fall out!).
I'd always advise managers to just steer clear of this kind of thing. It may seem fun on paper, but it rarely turns out that way.

The drinking culture you describe is far worse than a few awards.

I think it sounds awful and really embarrassing

We have alternative awards but the categories are very harmless. Mostly likely to send a gif on teams chat or most energetic in the afternoon sort of thing.

So alternative awards are fun but these categories are absolutely not appropriate!

This is the sort of thing that ends up being cited in employment tribunals as evidence of harassment or unfair work environments- any manager signing off on this is not good on strategic risk/ workplace culture