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Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year 2007
To all staff of accountingweb and readers of this website :
Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year 2007
My experiences
I have worked for 2 Big 4 firms. One gave out a bottle of champagne to each member of staff every Christmas (plus the usual department Christmas meal) the other only had the Christmas meal.
One year 100 bottles of champagne (across the whole firm) had a ‘golden ticket’ attached to them. The ticket was a free weekend break anywhere in Europe to the value of £1,000. Having been there all of 3 months, I managed to pick out one of these special bottles. As a result, my wife and I had a weekend in a suite at the Savoy all paid for by the firm. I will admit that my heartbeat went up a few notches as I got to the desk to check out and expected the woman to say ‘That will be £850 please’!
Nothing
When I worked for one of the final four (for three year post qualifying) we got nothing at Christmas and actually had to pay for our own departmental Christmas do which nobody wanted to go to but was compulsory!
Just don't do a Christmas party
Please don't do it you'll never know what might happen.
Better still, if you do, please don't invite me.
Can we call that a deal?
The CEO
Remember your trainee days
As an accounts junior I always enjoyed the office parties. It gave me chance to meet up with staff and friends from other offices who I rarely saw and get to dance with the secretaries from head office.
Strangely, as the company I worked for grew so it seems did the partners desire for profit and the christmas party was axed along with the christmas bonus.
I also always had to work at least one day between christmas and new year because the partner at my office liked to work during those days and needed someone to answer the phone. I wanted to be at home with my family and celebrating with friends and not sat alone in an office with very little to do in these pre-self-assessment days. No clients were working, I was.
So now as a sole-practitioner I make sure my small workforce get a christmas gift, a bonus (even if only a modest one), a lunchtime meal and drinks which usually lasts through to the evening and a full week and a half to 2 weeks much needed holiday to spend with friends and family before welcoming them back to the madness that is January!
I would like to think they appreciate it as much as I would have. Maybe I will ask them next week when they are suitably lubricated!
Scrooge
Worked for an accountants in Birmingham (Fletcher & Co) when I was younger; the chairman decided that all his staff had to come in on New Years Day, this would have been around 1986.
I missed the whole of December and part of January as I had the Flu (proper Flu and not man flu :o) ) then went down with measles.
Had I been well enough to attend work, I would not have turned up on principle, can employers get away with this?
As for Christmas parties at work, I give them a wide berth, too many things can go wrong.