Inappropriate secret Santa gifts could lead to problems at work, a Glasgow lawyer warned.
Jillian Merchant, a solicitor from Glasgow’s Thompsons solicitors, warned workers to take care at their Christmas parties as their behaviour could backfire.
Tonight is predicted to be one of the busiest nights in Glasgow for Christmas nights out, as hundreds of people are due to hit the pubs and clubs after they finish their shifts.
Jillian, who deals mainly with employment and discrimination cases, said for some the night could turn into their worst nightmare if they are faced with disciplinary action, or worse, following the festive season.
Ms Merchant said she is expecting a rush of cases relating to Christmas conduct after the New Year, and urged people to think of their behaviour at festive parties.
She explained in one case, two employees were disciplined by their bosses for play-fighting at their festive party.
Despite maintaining it was a joke, and nobody getting injured, Jillian said their employers took a “dim view” of the situation and took action against their staff.
She added: “There are also cases of people sending inappropriate gifts for secret Santa presents... Don’t send lingerie for example, that would be embarrassing as the person is opening it in front of the whole office, and it could be seen an inappropriate by them or their colleagues.
“All of these things can amount to harassment so people have to be really careful about it.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here