The Party Animal

You know this species. You may be this species. This business attracts this beast. Lots of business gets done over drinks and dinner. Plenty of good vibes can accrue to an office that has a social component to it. At the center of the action, there can be counted on a handful of hearty souls to start the tab, finish the tab, and hand you the tab. In a positive way, this animal will organize social events and can be counted on for a good laugh. This is the good animal.

This same beast can be a bad animal too. Every office has stories of puke, bad driving, grab ass, and next day remorse. Here are some symptoms of good animals gone bad:
 Drunk driving
 Missing work the day after
 Calls from spouses looking for the animal in question
 On the next business day, the office is quiet. Too quiet. Perhaps some folks won’t look you in the eye.
 Any sort of police involvement
 Cars left in parking lots overnight

Jess had a situation once involving an upscale pool hall, booze, and an over-stressed rookie named Alex. The event was designed as a TGIF, right after work, on your way home event. Food was in plentiful supply and a pool tournament was designed to encourage friendly competition. Spouses were invited. Some came. Everything was great until, Alex showed up. He was drunk when he came in. He quickly pounded down a couple of mixed drinks and was sloppy, falling down drunk and, you guessed it, had driven to the event.

Fortunately, several attendees with a level head physically stopped him from going to his car but he would not surrender his keys. Jess, probably 10 minutes later than ideal, was alerted and physically extracted the keys from poor Alex. A cab was called, the keys were given to the very well paid cabbie, and told to take him home.

Travesty averted. Except Jess happened to go by that location later that evening after going out to dinner with his understanding spouse, and Alex’s car was gone. He apparently paid the cabbie (or a different one) again to take him back to the car and the cabbie, thinking he just got the biggest tip of his sorry ass life, took him there. Again fortunately, nothing else bad happened. No accident. No injuries. But it could have ended badly. Fortunately, Jess did things right and no damage done – except to Alex’s reputation.

In another case at a mutual fund “conference” several guys got in their rental car at the end of a long night of drinking with the idea that the car would fit nicely on the cart paths of the golf club where the “conference” was being conducted. The car was totaled and had to be dragged off the course by a tow truck and the damage to the course was a real number. The stories go on and on.

So what is the smart manager to do with this animal? Realistically, you can’t police everyone and you can’t not have social events. But there are some things that can help you police the scene:
 Always invite spouses. Many will come and help babysit the animal.
 Start and end the event early. Always pay and be among the early leavers after you pay.
 Have events in your home.
 Hire a limo to drive people to and from.
 Never, ever, allow yourself to be drunk in front of employees. Nurse a beer or two all night.
 Have your assistant or another trusted staffer be your eyes and ears. You can’t possibly know what is going on at every table or with every employee.
 Follow your instincts. If something doesn’t seem quite right, it probably isn’t.

 Set the example and make it a high standard. While you can enhance your reputation as approachable by being in the conga line, you don’t have to be the one leading it with the fruit hat and grass skirt on. You are better off with a reputation as being a bit of a bore than having the view be that you are everybody’s buddy.

 If something does blow up, you must step in and take control of the situation. Even if you are late, this is better than being missing in action. If this does happen, again protect yourself to the maximum extent. Cover up is a risky strategy. It gets riskier the bigger the debacle. No the regional won’t care much if you have a trainee who pukes in the john. But he will care if the trainee is in the can humping his assistant singing “I got you babe” while someone is posting the pics to Facebook. From their cell phone. On the night before the Regional is visiting your branch. Count on it.

Maybe you have an example of dealing with the Party Animal. So put down the cocktail and email it confidentially to manageia2@gmail.com