In a world of inspirational memes and #girlpost Instagram posts, it’s easy to forget that we all get stuck at work, or feel like we can’t find a way forward at times. Sue Unerman is the Chief Transformation Officer at MediaCom and Kathryn Jacob OBE is the Chief Executive at Pearl and Dean. Together they wrote The Glass Wall: Success Strategies For Women At Work And Businesses That Mean Business. Each week answer your work questions with pragmatic, honest advice that’s proven to work…
Q: We have just had our work Christmas party. We all let off steam, because it’s been a tough year. I am mortified. I gave very honest (too honest) feedback to my boss’s boss. I ended up the evening dancing very closely (too closely) with a colleague. Nothing extreme happened but I know I am the top topic of office gossip, and whenever I join chats around the coffee machine it goes quiet and people look embarrassed. Should I just quit? Can my career survive?
SU: Deep breath. Most people have had some kind of experience of this. It really isn’t just you. However it is you this time. Time to face up to it. There’s a two-step programme for dealing with this, assuming that denying it was you is not an option because there were too many witnesses. Step one: acknowledge what happened. If everyone is falling silent at your approach and looking away, take the brave step of going up to them and saying – did you see what happened to me at the party? I know it’s tough, but it’s better to join the laughter than be the subject of it behind your back.
KJ: Step two is to reframe what happened. We’re going to assume that you haven’t been called in for a disciplinary, so it wasn’t that bad. But given your rant to your boss's boss, it might be wise to go to your boss, apologise for embarrassing them, and ask them to help you reposition your reputation. They will want to be seen as the person who removes any difficulties for their own boss (ie the one you ranted to). Seek their feedback and advice as to whether you should go directly to the subject of your rant and apologise to them or suggest a written apology. Or they might suggest you leave it.
SU: As you become more senior in a business you become accustomed to the point in the evening at a party where at least one person thinks it is a brilliant idea to share their honest feedback. To be frank, once you’ve been the subject of this a couple of times, it becomes very repetitive and you want to cut it as short as possible and afterwards to never mention it again. So, if the advice is to leave it then leave it.
KJ: You must be disciplined at the next party. As we say in our book, The Glass Wall, Success strategies for women at work and businesses that mean business, JDDI. Just Don’t Do It. Say you’re on antibiotics. Say your hamster is ill so you have to leave early. Say you’re detoxing or that you’re training for the next marathon. That way you can live in hope that someone else takes your place as the post party topic of conversation.
SU: Bear in mind it could have been worse. We have an account in our book of one business where someone decided it would be hilarious to do a powerpoint presentation of all the men that one woman had slept with at the company and a candidate list of who was next and circulated it to all staff. This created a huge wave of gossip and the woman involved didn’t even know what was happening until someone eventually confessed. This is just blatant unkindness.
KJ: Actually, isn’t the focus of most gossip to do someone down? On a broader note, now that you’ve been on the receiving end of this, perhaps you can take steps that whenever the next bit of juicy gossip starts to circulate (and trust me it won’t take long) gently to diffuse it and move on to whatever’s happening on Love Island/I’m a Celebrity where they are actually paid to be the subject of speculation and have an army of public relations staff to help them to manage it.
SU: You might worry that not drinking makes you the boring one at the party if you’re not drinking and everyone else is? My experience of this is that quite early in the evening no-one else notices whether you’re drinking alcohol or not (unless you’ve behaved recklessly) because they’re either too drunk or too self-absorbed even to notice what you’re up to. More and more people don’t drink for all kinds of reasons. And many corporates now have a non-drinking policy. It won’t hurt your career and it won’t hurt your social life to be the sober one.
KJ: Sometimes those occasions can be so hideous that one or two drinks just smooths the edges. But frankly a couple of drinks is all you should need, and if you do habitually need more than this then you may have a problem that you should talk to someone about.
SU: You are not one drunken night. You are all of your talent, all of your potential, all of your good work. Don’t get obsessed with what happened. Deal with it and move on. And remember next time, JDDI