Now that December is here 'tis the season to be jolly, and also attend your work Christmas party where you'll spend the evening trying not to make a fool of yourself in front of people you have to spend five days out of every week with.
You do not want to be the guy everyone is talking about on Monday morning and have to spend the next year grinning through gritted teeth, while your colleagues tell new hires what you got up to.
Worst of all is when you wake up from your festive fun with an urgent message from the HR department telling you there needs to be a meeting about your conduct.
One unfortunate soul who woke up after her Christmas party to a bit of regret was a woman named Molly, who shared a picture of the aftermath in a video on TikTok.
Advert
In the somewhat redacted email from HR, the woman was told what she'd done 'amounts to gross misconduct' and since she was still on probation it was curtains for her employment.
Here's hoping she's found a new job since then and learned to be careful at the next Christmas party to avoid this sort of thing happening again.
While it's a chance to let your hair down and boogie-woogie with your work colleagues in the hopes of developing greater camaraderie, the office Christmas party is a minefield of hazards that could have you spending Christmas itself looking for a new job.
Legal experts have fired out plenty of warnings about the pitfalls of this sort of thing, as the stuff you do at the party can still technically count as you having done it in the workplace.
If you wouldn't do it at your desk then you should probably not do it at your Christmas party.
Definitely don't do things that would count as gross misconduct, which includes harassment, insubordination and damage to company property.
Even if your place of work puts on some festive fizz to help you all get into a jolly mood you'll want to be careful how much you drink, that extra glass of alcohol might be the difference between you having a good time and thinking that launching the photocopier down the stairs is a wise career move.
However, this Christmas party malarkey is a two-way street as employers are liable for the stuff their staff gets up to during a party and it's worth sending a message out making sure everyone knows what you won't accept.
Another piece of advice is asking the senior staff to keep an eye on some of the more reckless team members to try and make sure they don't disgrace themselves.
Honestly, if you can make it home under your own steam after the party and don't wake up to a warning from HR in the morning, things have gone pretty well.
Joe Harker