Beary Christmas

Ah ... the annual office holiday party! It's a time-honored tradition that seems to be struggling to remain relevant. Growing up, you'd hear fabled tales of drunkenness, inappropriate groping, misuse of company copiers and general unseemly behavior.

In my first job out of college, I worked at a firm where the holiday party was fairly notorious. But that's what you get at Children of the Corn, Inc. where I somehow managed a team of employees at age 23! I remember one particular party where the firm had rented out a museum in Washington DC and half of the city's twenty-somethings managed to snag an invitation. There was that associate who puked on the CEO's shoes, the couple that was caught naked in an adjoining gallery and that director who failed to return to work after his affectionate displays with the ladies.

Recently, however, holiday parties have been much more subdued. Since business school, I haven't been at a company that threw an all-employee bash (for free, anyway) and the department shindigs tend to be more reserved.

Yesterday, for example, instead of the festive, fancy department celebration, we all gathered in a large conference room to stuff teddy bears for low-income pediatric patients at a local free medical clinic. The change from the traditional holiday lunch was clearly a nod to the depressed economy and a reminder that we should all be grateful to even have jobs (We were told by the free clinic's medical director that these teddy bears might be the only gift that many children receive this year.). But it actually turned out to be a nice occasion. Maybe an hour too long, but nice nonetheless. The best part was that our team was excused in the early afternoon so I returned home early to continue packing.