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.

Hate shit like this. Tedious

It's interesting how dated the drinking culture and shots o clock stuff sounds to me when that would have been normal just a few years ago. Drinking isn't the thing it was anymore so I don't think it's right pushing the young starters into it, who probably think they must participate.

Awards can be done in a well meant way but that is so hard to gauge and someone who comes across as having the thickest skin can be one of the most sensitive. A young man on my course who was a loud character was voted for many things including 'most likely to be convicted'. He was actually very hurt by that as it was quite an unsettling thing to be accused of in our line of work even in jest.

I mean I don't think it's all terrible but maybe a 'keep it lighthearted and include seniors' request to avoid punching down and personal comments? Someone could be really mortified at going too far on a work drinks.

Feels very 1980s and deeply inappropriate.

Justfinking · Today 09:35
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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”

Mocking people in public doesn’t equate to a “good sense of humour” at all.

Take it in the context it's meant to be taken in and lighten up. You sound like a right miserable party pooper. If you do not want to participate, then don't, but stop spoiling everyone else's fun.

Making a bad cup of tea is one thing, but anything to do with alcohol should not be included. You don't know what people are dealing with at home. Someone could've gone overboard at a work event following bereavement or depression or a bad medical diagnosis and not want the incident brought to the attention of the whole office to be laughed about.

God what a bunch of miserable people you all are. Well they do say misery loves company.

AngelAurora · Today 11:09
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God what a bunch of miserable people you all are. Well they do say misery loves company”

Not miserable at all. Just not spiteful.

I like the idea of the awards, but agree that some of those you have mentioned are incredibly poor taste.

I would nominate for the fun awards (like worst tea maker - is there also an option for best tea maker?) but I would decline for the alcohol related awards.

Thanks for all the comments. It's interesting to get others' thoughts as I would be shot down in flames if I uttered any kind of disapproval at work. I'm pleased to see that most agree.

I'm not against the idea of an awards ceremony and some of the awards are for how helpful, happy, entertaining, and so on, people are. The worst cup of tea award is just plain daft and I doubt anyone would get too upset about that.

It's just the drinking one that really oversteps the mark. Who would want to be reminded of how drunk they got? Especially in front of all their colleagues at a Christmas party. I don't get any pleasure from seeing other people being embarrassed.

How am I spoiling everyone's "fun" by posting for opinions on here? I said in my post that I wasn't going to try and stop it. I just wanted to see if anyone else thought it was inappropriate, in a work environment, to celebrate people getting really drunk. It just seems to go against everything that the firm as a whole stands for.

There can be a fine line between banter and bullying. As I tell my kids... a joke is only funny if everyone is laughing.

And the award for best magically knowing everybody else's intentions and braying loudly about it goes to @AngelAurora

Exactly!!!

How do you know you have a good sense of humour? I always think people who say that are in the same category as the "I'm mad, I am!!".

Who are always not funny but irritating as hell!

About 20 years ago I worked in an office full of middle aged nasty bitches (I was only young at the time)

Anyway, one Xmas we went out for the office Xmas meal and everyone had done secret Santa. There was a lady who was rather overweight and not well liked for some reason. Somebody had bought a fat, ugly troll as her Xmas gift.

She was utterly humiliated but tried to laugh along, bless her. The rest of them howled with laughter (I didn't join in).

So yeah, any form of public humiliation is not ok in my book!

Sounds like an employment tribunal waiting to happen. The drinking culture also sounds awful.

Careful…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235129/Deloitte-girl-quits-sending-email-asking-colleagues-vote-offices-attractive-men.html

Harmless fun and any adult who accepted too many of the free beers has already humiliated themselves, to be fair.

I agree. I don't like enforced fun but we do have lots who do so we organise a range of things and would contemplate positive awards if this came up. The culture of humiliation is a bad one and I wouldn't engage with it at all.

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.

It wasn't the Italian Grandmother award, was it? For bringing to the team... home baking.
Meant kindly, but just gave me the impression that all else that was brought to the team in the course of the actual job meant bugger all.
The whole cake/tea fixation of the place in question was at extreme levels.

I always find the people who think these type of passive aggressive awards are “harmless fun” are the office twats anyway. The type of people who relentlessly bully others under the guise of banter and can’t see past the end of their nose when it comes to others feelings.

Even the “positive” awards have me eye rolling, they’re just a popularity contest and another example of workplaces being for the extroverted.

I disagree, it’s not a good sense of humour to make laugh out of someone especially at the working environment. What you are saying about the “ability to take a joke “ means that you practically justify the bullying in small doses.

I would grass them somewhere OP, if it’s possible, your work place has very unpleasant culture.

Quite. Imagine being so unreflecting that you still thought these things were “harmless” despite seeing people upset by them twice.

Not miserable at all. I just don't find publicly humiliating others funny.

I think anything done in the workplace and intended to embarrass/humiliate someone is a terrible idea. I would question the suitability of any manager who signs off on this. As well as being an HR nightmare it this sort of thing could really upset someone and you also have no idea what other people are going through anyway.

My DH once went on a work based residential course where there were 'funny' awards announced one the final evening. DH won 'Biggest party pooper', with the explanation that he had refused to drink any alcohol, went to his room early and didn't laugh much. What they didn't know was that FIL was seriously ill in hospital with a DNR (due to ill health and dementia) so at any point he could have had a call telling him he needed to leave to go and say his final goodbye. He needed to attend the course to get a promotion otherwise he would not have gone. Being publicly called out on not being particularly upbeat really made him feel better as you can imagine.