Creative Cost-Cutting: the Company Christmas Party

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So, just to preface, my agency isn’t in any financial trouble. But, like any good company, they are concerned about the bottom line and profit. So sometimes they need to get creative to cut costs and save money. Take for instance the company Christmas party (it’s still Christmas party here in Italy, not holiday).

Having been to three company parties so far, I have been able to discern that the ingredients for a successful company party are:

Alcohol
Dancing

Rinse and repeat.

Something missing from this list that I would add is “Karaoke” – this can always add a certain element to things, be it embarrassment or entertainment, but it doesn’t seem to be that popular here.

Though, I seem to do pretty well in both areas (entertainment and embarrassment) with only the two ingredients above.

But back to the financial savings – there was a lesson today!

So when faced with a clear expense such as the holiday party, certain cost-cutting should be taken into consideration. Dancing + Alcohol = Disco as an obvious location for both. But renting out a disco costs big Euro. Unless we do it on a weeknight. Like Wednesday.

Now we’re talking. And saving money! So we have the dancing taken care of.

But what about the alcohol? Since we saved so much money before, we can definitely have an open bar.

Open bar = Evil on a work night.

Being a good 20 hours or so later, I can finally write about it but this morning looked rough for quite a few of my colleagues. And I was no exclusion. I made it into the office around my normal time of 9.30 and was greeted by very few faces. In fact, mainly those that hadn’t made it to the company party. I sense a theme.

I resisted for a good hour or two, and then I had to come back home for a nap. When I left, some still hadn’t made it into the office yet. It was a risk to go back home, and the previous, “how are YOU this morning? Everything FINE???” that I had received on my arrival would definitely be multiplied upon my re-entry, but it was necessary.

That nap sailed me through the rest of the work day, though a few of my colleagues dropped out at the ungodly hour of 5pm (we’re a 6.30pm office).

So let’s review! For you math geeks out there: Weeknight(Alcohol + Dancing) = Cost savings AND Weeknight(Alcohol + Dancing) = Loss in Worker Productivity. Maybe they should get some creative accountants to look at their math.

This evening I knew that only the greasiest meal I could find would do. So, I did things right. I had a samosa for an aperitivo from my favorite local take-away Indian. It’s a crime as he sells these samosa bombs for only 1 euro and they are worth much more than that! I then sat down to a big, greasy plate of Pasta all’Olio e Peperoncino, Pasta with Olive Oil and Hot Pepper. But that wasn’t quite greasy enough for me, so I added sausage. Yum, the grease.

Isn’t saving money fun?