last year’s Christmas party was a disaster, what does “parking is provided” really mean, and more

by Alison Green on November 20, 2024

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Do I have to go to more company social events when last year’s Christmas party went badly?

Last year, I started a new job the week of Thanksgiving. Three weeks later, my office had a Christmas sweater day (we normally wear jeans and hoodies) and a company Christmas party that night. For the party, I got the Outlook invite with the time and address, and nothing else included.

I showed up to the party still in jeans and my Christmas sweater, and it ended up being a cocktail party with everyone in suits and dresses. My new boss saw me immediately and called me over with my new director. They were both like, “Oh yeah, I guess the dress code wasn’t communicated, huh?” and told me not to worry about being so underdressed since I was clearly uncomfortable. I figured I would stick to the few people I already met, and then leave.

Well, unfortunately for me, the company director decided to assign random seats at tables so we would talk to people we wouldn’t normally sit with. So I was going to meet my new coworkers for the first time in jeans at a cocktail party. I went over to my table and it was already full. I was put as the ninth person at an eight-person table. So I was just standing around lost in jeans, and my new director came over and said, “You can have my seat.” So I ended up sitting at a table meeting all the directors and top level people while still in jeans. I made it through dinner, barely, and just ran out while my boss and the director were distracted.

The worst part? This happened in previous years to other people, and no one has figured out how to advertise the dress code!

I realize a lot of this was my own nerves, but it was a terrible way to meet my new coworkers and I doubt I made a good first impression. My dad said I should tell them, “I want to be a team player and attend events, but I can’t when expectations aren’t communicated.” My friends said I just should not have shown up the next Monday and ghosted the job. I continued to show up and haven’t mentioned it. No one else did either.

Our company has had several more social events, and I didn’t go to the majority. I went to a baseball game, but there were three other events that I made excuses to avoid.

Now the Christmas party is coming again. We were acquired, so it’s supposedly more casual this year. However, I still have no interest in going, now or ever again. Am I obligated to go to these when they are so poorly planned and communicated? Should I mention something about clearly stating the dress code and making sure everyone has a seat to save other new hires from my fate?

This is not the big deal it’s become to you, and everyone advising you is overreacting! Yes, it’s uncomfortable to be underdressed (especially as the new person who doesn’t know anyone) and yes, it was thoughtless of your manager not to ensure you knew the dress code and had seating, but it was your manager who should have been embarrassed about that, not you! You didn’t do anything wrong. (And the fact that it has happened to other people, while ridiculous, makes it all the more likely everyone else completely understood why you were in jeans.) This was a mildly awkward thing, but it’s not something that should make you swear off company events forever.

Your dad’s advice treated this as far weightier than it needs to be. Your friends’ advice to ghost the job because of this was preposterous; don’t listen to those friends on anything work-related for at least five years.

You’re not obligated to go to this year’s party, but I think your reasons for wanting to skip it aren’t well-founded. (Plus, making an appearance at an annual work event, even if just an hour or two, can be good for your career, and going might help override the last one in your mind, where it’s currently taking up too much space.) And yes, remind the organizers to make sure everyone knows the dress code and has a seat this year; you can cite your experience last year as a reason for that if you want, but don’t make it a bigger deal than that.

2. What does “parking is provided” really mean?

I know this is very low-stakes, but this is something that drove me bonkers at a previous job, so I want to understand if I was being oversensitive. I got a job at a company where “parking is provided” was one of the benefits they touted. What that meant, however, was that they’d give you a permit that allows you to park on the street in this particular busy, urban neighborhood. However, everything beyond that was up to you. You had to find a spot, which in this case meant you could easily be driving around for 20+ minutes, looking. And you still had to follow the posted signs, which meant moving your car every 2-4 hours.

After one infuriating bout of circling in a multiblock radius with no spots available, I laughingly said to a colleague, “Yeah, parking is provided. The same way they’ve also provided oxygen for us to breathe.” She looked at me like I was nuts, and reiterated, “Parking is provided.”

So what say you? Was parking provided?

“Parking is provided” means parking will be available to you, and this was not that. They should have said, “Street parking passes are provided.”

In fact, your oxygen analogy was too generous, unless the oxygen was within an underground mine where you had to compete with other people to access it.

3. What to do with stuff from a previous job in my personal Google Drive

I was in an internship a while back and (stupidly) used my personal Google Docs for all the copywriting for blog posts that my previous employer used. They were shared to a group file (and as far as I know, published to the company blog). I would like to clean out my old documents and delete things because I am running out of space on my Google Drive, but I’m curious what I should do regarding these.

Put them all in a Google Drive folder and share it with your contact at the old internship. Say something like, “I’m not sure if you have copies of these or if you need them. I’m planning to remove them from my Google Drive on (date) so wanted to make sure you can download them before then if you do need copies.” Make the date a month from now so they have time to deal with it.

4. Companies that let you buy and sell PTO

It’s open enrollment season and one of the great benefits my employer offers is a program to buy or sell a portion of your PTO (buy being take a pay reduction in return for more PTO and sell being get paid more for having fewer days of PTO). I think this is a great idea! I’m in a season of my life where I’d like more PTO available (doesn’t rise to FMLA stuff, just general life stuff) and I know some folks don’t want as much time (there’s a limit to what you can sell back so no one is working with no time off all year). It gives people flexibility while keeping a standard (and not veering into the nebulous world of “unlimited” PTO) and not costing the company. Why don’t more companies do this? I have occasionally looked at other jobs, but this particular benefit seems rare (or at least not widely advertised).

My guess is that more companies don’t do it because typically when you design the workload for a full-time job, you need to be able to assume that someone will be working in it X weeks of the year; in a lot of jobs, having someone decide to add additional weeks off can cause real workflow issues. Conversely, good managers really do want people to disconnect and go away for a certain amount of time every year, so that they can recharge and not burn out, and also so that your team can spot holes that are sometimes only seen when someone is away. I know you said you’re required to keep a minimum amount of time, but the bare minimum doesn’t serve that purpose as well.

You’re not wrong that this set-up can be great for individual people in certain situations — and there are some companies where the nature of the work allows them to offer it across the board — but it can be tricky when you’re dealing with the broad variety of roles that many companies have.

5. Can employer pay me less because my health insurance costs more?

Landed a new job after a layoff (woo hoo!). My now boss made a comment that got me thinking.

During negotiations, two things came up. First, I wanted immediate access to the 401K and more PTO. The CEO was okay with that, but mentioned they’d have to offer it to the other employee (there’s a total of three of us on staff, including the CEO). That was fine by me, and since I got it, I’m assuming the other employee will get the same, though I don’t actually know — we’re totally remote and mostly async.

The second was health insurance. He mentioned that the cost to insure me is about $10,000 but closer to $6,000 total for him and the other employee. I’m assuming that’s because I’m over 50 and they … aren’t.

The CEO said he didn’t want to “discriminate,” but since my health insurance costs more, he couldn’t come up on salary. However, between the health insurance costs and salary, total compensation is X, which is about the total dollar figure I was looking for in salary.

What I’m wondering is can an employer pay someone less salary if their total compensation is equal to other employees’ total compensation? To be clear, he was transparent about the salary throughout the process, so I don’t feel like this was a bait and switch and I did get the posted max.

Yes, health insurance premiums are based on age, so what he’s saying is that your health insurance costs more because you’re older and therefore he can’t offer the salary bump he’d otherwise be open to … which is a really legally iffy thing to say! You noted that the overall compensation costs even out, but while you’d need an employment lawyer to tell you for sure if that changes anything, as a general rule you can’t base salary on age.

That said, because this is a three-person company, it might be moot. The federal law that prohibits age discrimination in employment only applies to employers with 20 employees or more. Some states have a lower threshold, though, so you’d need to check if your state is among them to know for sure.

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{ 41 comments }

{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Daria grace*

    #2 the absolute minimum I’d expect from parking provided is an all day permit either on company property or somewhere the company reserves spaces. The amount of work time that would be wasted moving the cars several times a day is ridiculous.

    #4 in addition to all the things Alison mentioned, wide discrepancies in the amount of leave taken risks creating performance evaluation issues. Someone taking only 1 week of leave every year is going to get more done than someone who takes 5 but might not actually be better at the job. This is not always going to be avoidable (extended sick leave, people who bank up lots of leave for an international trip ect) but it’s reasonable companies would unnecessarily not create situations where people who are on paper full time are working very different numbers of weeks a year.

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    1. ran away*

      Most competent managers are going to be able to account for these types of differences. For example, you would see similar differences in output between full-time and part-time employees and managers would be expected to know and account for that.

      I’m an American in a European country where this type of system is common. It works really well at most medium and large companies. You still need to get time off approved, so you don’t get to take off when your presence is crucial. And there is a limit to the amount you can accrue, so planning can still be done.

      But having this system encourages employers to cross-train for jobs. And it encourages workers to take the time off they need. Most people seem to buy extra time, so it encourages them to take at least one longer break each year to really disconnect. It works.

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    2. Cinn*

      It probably depends a lot on size of company, job type and the normal amount of leave offered. I’ve seen this before at an OldJob. I’m based in the UK and on average we probably had about 25 days PTO (not including bank hols or sick) there, and were allowed to buy/sell up to 5 days a year. Meaning no one could go above 30 or below 20. Personally, like LW4, I thought that worked quite well. But I can see it being difficult to work with lower PTO, small teams/companies or on call requirements (to name but a few).

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      1. RW*

        yeah my sister in NZ had base 4 weeks PTO and could choose to buy up to an extra 2 weeks, so similarly no one could be above 30 or below 20 – it worked well for them, but I’ve always worked coverage-based jobs so haven’t been offered this :(

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        1. Jake Purralta*

          Every company I’ve worked for in the UK you could buy or sell 2 weeks holiday. You always started with 4 weeks or more depending on length of time at the company.

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  2. James*

    OP1, if I invited a guest to a party and forgot to mention the dress code, resulting in the guest being underdressed, I would absolutely be the one to be embarrassed. I would certainly not think less of the guest! Nobody thinks you showed up in jeans to diss you new coworkers. You are overreacting.

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    1. allathian*

      Yes, I agree. And the best way to get over the embarrassment is to attend this year’s party.

      Sure, the company messed up by not communicating the dress code for the party, but given that it’s happened to other people before it’s not the end of the world.

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      1. Allonge*

        And the best way to get over the embarrassment is to attend this year’s party.

        This x100. This is a low-key thing where others messed up that will be funny when you look back in 10 years. Unless, like, you are working at an Academy for Proper Dressing for All Occasions or something similar (but even then, it was not just your fault, OP).

        Go to the party, check with trusted colleagues what they are wearing. Have fun!

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    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      Yup, that and the seating issue were a failure on the part of whoever planned this event, not the OP. It takes one additional line in an invitation to say the dress code!

      There may be different party planners this year due to the company being acquired, so if I was the OP, I’d check the dress code first and show up for an hour or two. If, after a year or two, you find that the holiday parties are awful, feel free to skip them, while showing up occasionally to other events.

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    3. Artemesia*

      And to make a tendentious speech about ‘being a team player if expectations are communicated’ is a great way to be remembered as a doink forever. This is something to laugh at and move on, not to build your whole persona at work around. (And as Alison noted — a friend who suggests walking off a job over this is so out of touch that I wouldn’t take advice on anything especially work from them.

      Anyone would have felt awkward. But sometimes you just have to roll with what life dishes up, laugh and not make a fuss.

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      1. Ellis Bell*

        Completely agree on the speech being the wrong note for what happened here. At the end of the day, it was just a party! I completely understand some slight awkwardness about feeling underdressed, and not having anywhere to sit, but it’s not the big forever deal OP is turning it into. I would understand if OP had been treated snootily, or there was a hard expectation on the dress code, but there wasn’t. I’ve done this myself when I lived a long commute away from the office and I was too busy to really chat to colleagues about the Christmas party. We’d had a dress down day to coincide with the Christmas party and I ended up in a nicer restaurant than I expected in a jumper dress and Uggs. I felt totally grungy, but I had some great conversations with colleagues before I begged off. The reason dress code expectations weren’t communicated? Because there weren’t any; I was absolutely welcome in my Uggs. Other people had wanted to dress up. This stuff happens, and no one is judging.

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        1. Chocolate Teapot*

          I would be feeling embarrassed too. Even if the dress code hadn’t been included on the invitation, how come nobody mentioned that it was usual to wear something more formal?

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    1. Holly Day*

      This is such a weird take to me. Is this really so unusual in the States? I’m in the UK and every company I’ve worked for in the last thirty years has had this system. It’s just – not a problem? You might end up WANTING more time off but you planned for this, you made decisions, and you don’t NEED it (since this system does not impact sick leave etc.) If people did genuinely “need” more time off for something, they can work with their manager and HR to sort it out. This system just allows people to plan their time off more effectively and allows them to have some control. I can’t see why anyone would be opposed to that. No one HAS to change their allocation – it’s an optional flexibility offered, and most people love it.

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  4. Coverage Assoicate*

    Can we please end professional cocktail parties on work days before…6pm? 7pm? Maybe I should read more “day to evening” tips in the fashion magazines, but I have very little clothing that makes sense for both my work day at the office and then the kind of cocktail party where most men are in suits. (Maybe that’s on me because I hate wearing black and don’t own flashy jewelry.)

    Not to mention that it feels unfair to have these professional events where men can wear office clothes but women can’t.

    A professional organization has organized a “gala” for 5:30pm on a Tuesday in the business district, and I don’t think anything would be lost if they had said “reception” or “party,” except that I’m fine wearing a suit to a professional reception or party, but not to a professional gala.

    Maybe it’s regional, and this relatively new organization doesn’t get it. This is San Francisco, and I don’t remember this combination of weekday and immediately after the work day “gala” happening before in the more than 15 years I have been attending professional events in San Francisco, not even with fairly conversative organizations.

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    1. Roeslein*

      Women can totally wear office clothes to these events too. My usual go to is a black knee-length dress or a black skirt with a nice blouse. I just wear a blazer over it during the work day and maybe change into heels before the party if I feel fancy.

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      1. amoeba*

        Yeah, I’d just wear slacks and a nice blouse/top. Like, business casual. Which would be slightly more dressed up compared to a normal day at the office, but nothing close to inappropriate! If they expect cocktail dresses, I’d be… well, surprised mostly, because that would be super strange and unusual in my industry, haha.

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  5. RCB*

    Piggybacking off of something Alison mentions in #5 about employers needing to have a certain number of employees to be subject to certain workplace discrimination laws….I get that the point of this is to not burden small employees with complex HR issues (I assume that’s the rationale, right?), but it’s REALLY frustrating working at a small employer and getting illegally terminated and not having the Federal protections. I’m just as much a worker as someone working at a big company and I deserve the same rights. Fortunately I’m in a liberal area so my state laws were able to bridge the gap just enough to make the case able to litigate, I’d have been completely out of luck if I were in a red state.

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    1. Mid*

      It’s one of those things I’ve never really understood. Healthcare can be a huge expense for a small business but I can’t understand how not discriminating would impede small businesses, and the justification for the different laws for small businesses has always been that the laws are costly to them.

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    2. Emmy Noether*

      I think this is entirely about what a law has to look like to get a chance to pass. One can sometimes get a majority behind protecting workers from large, anonymous corporations, but a small business owner is a sympathetic figure in the public imagination, and small businesses are something most people also want to protect. So in order to counter the argument of “but it will kill small businesses!” (whether that’s true or not!), they just get an exception.

      It’s not about logic, it’s about politics.

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  6. TheBunny*

    LW#1

    First I have to thank Alison for saying what I was thinking. The advice received has been *checks notes* to ghost the job or to make a VERY BIG DEAL out of it.

    Egads. Go or don’t go…but do it because you want to go or don’t. The fact that everyone was in cocktail attire tells me it was communicated to most, and oopsing on details for a new hire isn’t the best look, but all it takes is one person to not know someone is new (or new-ish) and things like this happen.

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    1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Referring back too much to this as a reason for not attending other events also risks looking like OP is sulking, even though I don’t think that is the intent. The acquisition is also a factor here, harping on things that happened under the “old” management risks looking like OP hasn’t moved on or doesn’t see that things will be different with the acquisition, and at a time when reputations are still being established with the new parent company.

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  7. Jillian with a J dammit*

    Maybe it’s just me (probably), but I would have asked ever single person I came across what they were wearing to the party. I absolutely hate to be underdressed or overdressed, almost to the point of panic.

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  8. Elsa*

    OP #2, that definitely didn’t qualify as “parking is provided”, and you had every right to be angry that having to spend so much time on parking and re-parking your car. It sounds absolutely exhausting.

    Having said that, I do think it’s a good idea to find out details of the parking situation when you are checking out a job, and not just take employers’ word for it when they say “parking is provided”. If there is an employee parking lot, does it have enough spots for everyone? If not then what is the backup option? How far is the available parking from the workplace?

    If the job is in a busy urban area, then you need to be extra careful to ask those questions and get clear answers.

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    1. Artemesia*

      Having to repark means not only that parking is not provided but that you are being asked to do something borderline illegal in parking all day on public streets where parking time is limited.. What else did they lie to you about? Better check to make sure your retirement matching doesn’t kick in after 10 years or for similar ways to not deliver on benefits promised.

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      1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

        I can’t see how “move your car ever 2-4 hours” even works in practice. I mean I understand why it is, but how does any work ever get done? What if you get stuck in a long meeting, do you excuse yourself part way through to go and move the car? Are occasional parking fines just part of the cost of doing business and submitted for reimbursement? I think it could easily add up to an hour per day of moving cars around.

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    2. MK*

      Eh, I think anger is a bit of an overreaction here. Yes, the wording is not accurate, but I doubt it was a deliberate attempt to lure candidates with false promises of free parking. I assume it was explained while onboarding.

      That being said, the remark thing is crazy. Wherever I agave seen the system of streets where both by-the-hour-parking and permanent permits were allowed, the “don’t stay parked for more than x hours” rule didn’t apply to those with permits; changing spots every few hours kinf of cancels out the benefit of a permit.

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  9. Not Australian*

    IMHO any function that takes place on a work day should take place immediately after work and have the same dress code as the workplace itself. If they want folks to dress up in something special, it should be held on another day to allow people plenty of time to prepare at home. The only exception I can think of would be a multi-day conference where people have hotel rooms to return to and presumably advance warning of the dress requirement. If I’m expected to go home, change my clothes, and then return to meet the same people I’ve been working with all day, I’m going home and staying there – full stop!

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  10. GammaGirl1908*

    This is about a 2.5 out of 10. LW called this a “disaster” and seriously considered abandoning the job over it? Yes, the event was a little awkward for LW, and yes, the office event planner is clearly full crappe at the job, but avoiding every other extracurricular and planning a lecture for the boss and freaking out about this year’s event is Way Too Much. LW should have laughed it off in the moment (“I guess this is how you all haze the new guy?”), showed up appropriately attired for the next event, and gotten over it.

    LW, I started a new job last month, and I have stumbled and bumbled through a few moments of not knowing the culture or not having the right information or not knowing who to ask, or other unknown unknowns (and even a few known unknowns, where I ask for something and they scramble to find something they should have gotten me a week ago). Everyone says, “Oh gosh, we should have told you!” and that’s the end of it.

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    2. TheBunny*

      I’m 6 months into a job and fully bungled something recently (in my defense I thought it was handled BUT going off past behavior of the person who told me that I should have asked more questions) and no one has pitchforks out for me. I think OP can, in the immortal words of Elsa, let it go.

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  11. I still bought my week of PTO*

    #4 – I realized something about the ability to buy vacation this year, because it’s the first year I’ve done it, and that’s that it really is a bit classist.

    I went to sign up for buying my week of vacation because I have old parents who don’t live by me and a sibling who moved a 10 hour flight and 4 hour train ride from me. So I thought I’d buy ann extra week. And I now I’m paying for that week for a year out of my checks.

    I am in a Senior leadership role. I get that the week costs me a lot more because a week of my paycheck is more, but if you live paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford anything extra to come out you can’t buy the extra week.

    Also my health insurance went up by a stupid amount for 2025. So that’s hundreds of dollars more per check I have to fork over.

    My company allows buying an extra week of vacation because we were bought out by a company who cut our vacation time you could earn. So they are placating people. I am positive Corporate America is not thinking of pay inequity when making any of these decisions, so I think it’s good that they offer the option and that companies that don’t aren’t doing it based on any workers rights or benefit equality platform. But it seems worth noting.

    That being said, I think it’s a good benefit and I appreciate it.

    Reply ↓
  12. Kisa*

    #1 since this has happened before, is it possible ITS some sort of an ”initiation rite”? Mean and unneccesary, but somebody’s idea of ”fun”.

    Youre not to blame, your company sucks AY throwing christmas parties. Making sure that guests feel welcome is kind of the step zero.

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  13. Ganymede II*

    LW1, if you’re worried specifically about standing out at this year’s party, either over- or under-dressed, there are some options that magically blend in most dress codes (you haven’t mentioned gender, so I’m offering options all along the spectrum):
    – black dress (below the knees), with a nice necklace – there’s a reason LBDs are a category of their own. Keeping it below the knees means you can match casual and cocktail. A black jumpsuit will also do if you don’t like dresses;
    – navy pants with a white shirt. Add a necklace if you’re feminine presenting, a bowtie if you’re more masculine – both can be quickly taken off if you feel over dressed;
    – nice red sweater with black pants will be a bit more casual, but still fit with a festive vibe.

    If you really don’t want to go, don’t. But if you’re just hoping to avoid a clothes mismatch, there are ways.

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  14. andy*

    #1

    > The worst part? This happened in previous years to other people, and no one has figured out how to advertise the dress code!

    I would say this is a good news. This already happened, you are not the only one, people know what the reason is. This does not reflects badly on you as a result. Your dads advice will make you look petty and your friends advice is just pure bad.

    This should not be a big deal a year later at all.

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  15. Help Me Understand*

    LW 1, you mention your nerves, and this reaction makes me think they might be hurting you at your job more than you think. If the situation happened as you’re describing you extremely overreacted, especially if it’s impacted your behaviors after that night.

    “but there were three other events that I made excuses to avoid”? Why?

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  16. J*

    @LW4

    I’m in the Netherlands and our PTO and benefits system is totally different than yours in the US, but we are able to buy and sell (some) vacation days. You cannot sell the legally required days, but you can sell the ones that your company gives you in addition. You can also buy some PTO, but it’s more expensive than the wages you’d see on your bank account for a day worked. If you sell PTO, it’s taxed in a higher bracket (if I remember correctly) so I don’t know a lot of people who do it. The people who have too much PTO saved up often just take off a few hours Friday afternoon.

    We do have something called “keuzemodel arbeidsvoorwaarden” in which you can swap PTO, holiday pay and end-of-year pay (bonuses you get in May and November) for a bike, travel reimbursement, sports membership, and a couple other benefits. You don’t earn more money but you earn a different type of money which will be taxed differently. For example, travel reimbursement is taxed at 36% while end-of-year pay is taxed 49% so the win here is the difference in taxes.

    It has taken me 3 years to understand this whole “exchange benefits because of taxes” thing and I hate filling out the form for it. Recently I had an increase in travel costs, but I couldn’t get a reimbursement because end-of-year pay and holiday pay have been paid already and I don’t have enough PTO to exchange.

    In any case I would argue for making benefits systems way less complicated. I have a master’s degree and I still don’t totally get this.

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  17. Lexi Vipond*

    I do think the friends might have been joking hyperbolically, the way it was fashionable for a while to suggest burning your house if you saw a large spider in it.

    Dad is overreacting, although I suppose it’s possible that he misunderstood and thought that someone had accused the OP of not being a team player, rather than them just worrying about being seen that way. Or maybe intense reactions run in the family

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  18. Clearance Issues*

    #1: while being improperly dressed for an event like that is my personal nightmare, it really isn’t a big deal so long as your outfit wasn’t outright offensive. (I’ve worked at a few places where casual t-shirts on fridays were banned after Incidents)
    Each office in my company has different dress codes for their holiday party, and I got invited to 2 others since my team is spread out. One of them is goofy holiday sweaters, one is “formal” and one is “cocktail.” The ONLY one I ever got a dress code for is my home office. The other two, I phrased it as a lighthearted “I don’t want to stand out, what is the dress code?” Also: most holiday parties have a different dress code than other work social events. You should be fine to match your day to day dresscode for most of them.
    (If your company has a shared drive of photos, you can check there for previous years of events to see what other people were wearing.)

    Reply ↓

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