Yes, it is the “Holiday Party at the Glass Shop” Blog

Which of the following don’t go together well?

• Peanut butter and marshmallow.
• Baseball and green grass.
• Polar bears and white snow.
• Alcohol and a glass business.

Yup, you guessed it. Deep six the alcohol at the party at your company this year, unless it is an evening affair and there is a professional bartender handing out the drinks. You just can’t imagine the grief you will be in for if someone has an accident on the way home from your party where you served alcohol. Worse yet, you have the party around the cutting table and then go back to work… and then someone has an accident. You have never seen, and rightly so, the wrath that OSHA will bring down on your head.

I know you have done this forever—and never had a problem. So if you think of yourself as lucky, go buy a lottery ticket, and don’t gamble with your business.

And now to shatter your dreams that drinking doesn’t happen at your place around the holidays, I’m telling you that it does. I have seen very few business where a bottle of Scotch isn’t passed around on Christmas eve; where a coffee cup has a small amount of ‘coffee’ in it that is being sipped slowly. A vendor brings in a bottle and says to share it with the whole department, so your receiving clerk does just that. 

I’m not a party pooper. If you want to have a party, do it. Ask a few folks to be designated drivers and ask them to pick up in the morning and take people home who have had a drink. Start the party at 2:30 in the afternoon and then consider the rest of this day a write-off; then you can enjoy the party, too!

Lastly, you have people on the road. Remind them that you have a zero tolerance policy on having a drink at someone else’s party. And at your party, don’t allow visitors or delivery drivers to have a drink with you. Your liability extends to anyone who is served at your business.

What can you do to make this easier? Have a three or four different types of juice. Have a couple of different sodas and a handful of flavored bottled waters.  Also, have some bottles of non-alcoholic beer in the ice chest.

Enough of my preaching on this subject. Enjoy your party, and enjoy the parties at your customers and your vendors. I just want you safe and sound to enjoy the New Year’s party coming the following week.