Black Friday is almost here so it must be Christmas shopping season. With impending festive shin-digs on the horizon, here’s my guide to ten gifts for the PR practitioner in your life. Secret Santa, we’ve got you covered.
1 ) Best. PR Intern. Ever. T-Shirt, £12.49 – £14.99
For the shining star in your comms team, this t-shirt comes in men’s, women’s and kid’s sizes and a choice of black, blue or red.
As more and more firms extend their Christmas closing hours, it can feel like you’ve been out of the office forever. Lots of people feel a bit blue in January. Summer holidays are a while away, the excitement of Christmas and new year are over, it’s cold and dreary and you have a nasty cough – although maybe that last bit is just me.
Don’t be downhearted though. January needn’t be all doom and gloom. See it as a fresh start – a time to set yourself new challenges and deal with things that you have been putting off for ages. 2011 could be the year that you stop procrastinating and get on with things. Make it the year that you make things happen.
Firstly, catch up with your emails from over the festive period and make a concerted effort to file away those you need to keep and delete any unwanted messages. Then make a to-do list and actually DO the things on it. That means calling that really annoying girl in accounts who has been asking you for invoicing details for months. Suck it up, it won’t be as bad as you think.
Dig out last year’s appraisal form and check what was set as your goals for the year. Have you achieved them? Have you even *started* to achieve them? Now’s the time for a plan of action. Set the wheels in motion – book relevant training courses, speak to your manager about taking on extra responsibilities, brainstorm with colleagues to come up with new and inventive ways of keeping costs down. Make sure you there will be no reason not to promote you or give you a pay rise this year.
Most people spend a fair few hours at work so it’s important that you want to be there. One of the easiest ways to enjoy your work is to be friends with the people you work with. If you’re not a naturally social person try and push your boundaries a little by arranging to go for a drink with some colleagues, and offering to help them out if they have a heavy work load. Having friendly, encouraging colleagues can do wonders to lift your mood.
If you have been bumbling along in your job for ages and are bored, do something about it. You shouldn’t be dreading going back to work after the Christmas break so if you found yourself having to drag yourself into the office, now’s the time to look for a new role. After the austerity measures of last year many companies are loosening their purse strings and are hiring again, so polish up your CV, brush up your interviewing techniques and start reading the job ads.
Q. I like to keep my work and home life quite separate but my firm is throwing a Christmas party and I am feeling under pressure to attend. How can I avoid it?
A. Some people are not natural party animals and can think of nothing worse than spending extra time with their colleagues, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to deal with it for one night as not attending may mark you out as being reluctant to be a team player and damage your career. A staff party is one way for a company to show appreciation for their employees’ hard work over the year and to give them an opportunity to mingle outside of work and therefore build rapport. If you’re a manager, not going along can also send a bad message to your team – i.e. ‘I don’t like you enough to spend time with you’. Even if your company expects you to contribute financially to the event, and in this age of austerity, some will, it may be frowned upon if you chose not to attend.
So, once you’ve come to terms with the fact that you should go along, here’s my guide to surviving your work’s Christmas do.
- Don’t get drunk. Even the quietest among us can say dreadful things with a tongue loosened by alcohol so keep the drinking to a minimum.
- If you have to buy a secret Santa gift play it reasonably safe – edible undies may *seem* like a good idea, but the recipient may not see the funny side.
- Try not to only talk about work. This is not the occasion to suggest to your boss that you’re due for a pay rise, or tell your team about a piece of work you want completed by Monday. It is meant to be fun.
- Dress appropriately. This is easy if your party is at lunch time as you are likely to be in work clothes but if your firm throws a lavish evening do try to remember that you are going to have to look the other guests in the eye in the office the next day.
- Use it as an opportunity to network. You may not get many opportunities to meet some people at your company – particularly if it’s a big firm – so make yourself known to the movers and shakers, without chewing their ear off about your job.
- If you snog someone in the stationery cupboard, someone WILL find out and it’ll be the talk of the office until the next shin-dig.
- Ditto photocopying your bottom.
- If your partner is invited to attend, try to make them feel at ease by introducing them to people instead of leaving them to fend for themselves while you have a laugh with your office mates.
- Do your best to actually enjoy it – you might surprise yourself.
It’s the morning after the night before, and oh what a night. Those scamps from The World’s Leading had a good turn out for the mob party of the year with tinsel a plenty and copious amount of booze – courtesy of my boss. Hurrah.. ooo…keep the noise down I’ve got a bit of a headache this morning.
It was great to meet some new faces, and a couple of old ones. No doubt we’ll be along to the next one – I feel a Valentine’s theme coming on….
Special mention to Kewal Varia at Spark who spectacularly managed to single handledly spill a couple of bottles of wine and a dozen bottles of beer – despite being told to sit still for fear of knocking over the tray. Some people just don’t like being told what to do.
A bit of gossip from the night……. who whispered in my ear that their MD is really really tight? Answers on a postcard please….
Filed under Christmas, PR, Social Media
Ding dong merrily on high! Here at Indigo Red we are full of the festive spirit. As such, we’re sponsoring a few drinks on Wednesday night with those anonymous rascals down at The World’s Leading. The great and the not so good tech PRs will be there with Christmas trinkets in hand (it’s how we’re going to recognise each other – well it’s better than an FT and a wilting carnation).
Best of all, the beer is on our boss – ho ho ho!
Filed under Christmas, PR, Social Media
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