Office Parties

Office parties are notorious for stirring up trouble between people in a company's office. When some people are taken from the work environment and placed in social settings, personal social anxieties can be exposed and laid bare before co-workers. Not every office environment is supportive enough to manage their way through the unease that can be caused by finding out, for example, that after a couple of drinks the Comptroller of the company becomes a bumbling creep to young women. Or that the teetotaler in the office becomes a sanctimonious jerk in the presence of people drinking alcohol. For some people, the routines of the workplace are a comfort. The rules of the office enable them to survive and prosper in spite of their personal shortcomings. They take solace in the procedure, its rhythms are soothing. The office party disrupts this rhythm for the fragile.

But for the robust individual, the office party can be loads of fun. This is a person who knows their own personal boundaries. This person can be a secretary, a mailroom supervisor or the CEO of the company. They are bright, witty and conversant and know how to watch their alcohol consumption. They know how to create deft conversation without treading over the line of proper office topics.

Conversations about religion are to be avoided at all costs during an office party where alcohol is present. Other off-topic conversations are the Vietnam War, gay marriage and out of wedlock insemination and adoption.

Office parties are a great opportunity to network and expand your contacts within your company. In the social setting, officers are more likely to be receptive to a personal introduction of a subordinate or a new employee whose work the officer does not know. The smart employee will know well in advance of the party who they would like to meet there. They should do a little quiet research on that person and know what topics they are going to use in the opening segment of the conversation. This can be a very tricky things. While it might seem like a good opening line to remark about the officer's children, it could come across as a little too personal.

One of the best opening topics in a conversation at an office party is the subject of vacations. If you are interested in establishing a connection with a higher up at the office, try to quietly find out where that person went on their last vacation or what is their favorite vacation destination or activity. Use this information early in the conversation after the introduction to create a mutual place between the two of you.

The absolutely key part of any conversation at an office party is never to go down the path of the dead-end topic. The subject of vacation is a good example of an open-end conversation subject. You must, of course, have a somewhat interesting vacation story to tell in order to keep the conversation interesting. If you do not have an interesting story to tell, then for you the whole topic of vacations becomes a dead-ender. Find something else.

In this same idea, if you are having a first conversation with relative strangers, don't bring up the topic of children if you don't have any children of your own. For if you do, and the polite conversationalist then asks you to tell your children's story, the conversation will hit a dead end. It is very difficult to recover from a conversational dead end.

Have fun at your next office party!