Coincidence?
A couple of days ago I posted this:
"Next week I'm off on Friday because the Tay crowd are having a couple of quiet beers and a bunch of us are staying at a local hotel. I'm thinking it might get messy.... if we're lucky"
Yesterday I got an email reminding those of us staying at the hotel to be on our best behaviour. Spooky!
It got me thinking though that many of us don't think about the consequencies of our actions when representing our companies. Take, for instance, driving a logo-ed company vehicles. If you speed, cut someone up or just annoy them with your poor driving then you'll find that person associating your actions with the company. At best they'll just think that your company employs poor drivers, at worst they'll not use your service or product. Most of these vehicles have the phone number on the side too so you can potentially find complaints about your actions being reported.
A few years ago I received a call while on air at a radio station from the police. They were following up a report from a woman who'd been cut up by a radio station pool vehicle who was both speeding and driving dangerously. As it was a well logo-ed car and because we only had one of that make we were able to work out exactly who had been driving it.
You think that you're immune from this when out drinking and especially during the Christmas party season but you're not. A great example of this was going to a free bar evening run by a recruitment company who were trying to get business from the company that I worked for. Myself and a colleague had a few beers and then a few more thinking nothing of it especially since we seemed to have the blessing of the management. All it took was a little snide comment from the recruiter the following day to our management about how our boys "liked a beer" and we were in trouble. Silly really but worth remembering.
Of course it gets worse and when you start arguing with bar staff or causing trouble/fights, even within your group, when you can be identified then the repercussions are going to be bad.
I learnt my lesson a long time ago and especially when on radio nights out in our broadcast area, I'm always on my best behaviour. I like my job too much.
