grisly decorations, wearing a costume to an interview, and other questions about Halloween at work

It’s Halloween! Let’s revisit some Halloween questions from past years.

1. My coworker goes overboard with grisly Halloween decorations

People in our office go bonkers over Halloween. Recently we were encouraged to decorate for Halloween. I would take that to mean a little black and orange garland, maybe a plastic pumpkin, right? Well, not hardly. People go overboard and apparently the only rule was no trip hazards in the aisle. The woman in the cubicle next to mine must have emptied out her storage area of Halloween decorations. Now there are gross bloody looking, ghoulish figures hanging from the ceiling above our desk space. There are skeletons with teeth, cobwebs strewn about, and a lifelike bloody head cut off at the neck with facial wounds and hair that appears to be matted with more blood, and a plaque with some sort of satanic looking symbol was hung up. Then she brings in a black cauldron that when plugged in emits what looks like smoke, gurgles, and has neon lighting. There is not a pumpkin in sight!

To me, it’s very dark and not the atmosphere or space that I wish to spend my day in for weeks and yet I have no choice. This is very disturbing. I complained to my manager about the dead people hanging from the ceiling and she just said they weren’t dead people! Everyone thinks this person is so cool because she has a lot of decorations and they ooh and ahhh over it all day long. What is wrong with this picture? This is a large professional corporate office — the finance office for a huge group of physicians, no less. The manager encouraged this and thinks it is just great good-spirited fun and I am looking around thinking, “What is wrong with people”? Too late now, but is this even normal?

Well, it’s pretty oblivious to the fact that not everyone is comfortable with macabre decorations, and I’m alarmed that your manager was so dismissive when she heard about your discomfort.

Do you have HR? They might be more receptive than your boss. But otherwise, next year you could try approaching your coworker ahead of time and explaining that you were creeped out by some of what she put up last time and ask if she’d be open to a different motif. If your sense is that she won’t care, you could try with your boss again, despite her lackluster response this year. I do wonder how clear you were with her; if you didn’t plainly say that you can’t comfortably work around that kind of grisly imagery, it’s worth restating it that way.

— 2021

2. My office’s “kid-friendly” Halloween party was terrifying

My office held a Halloween party this week after hours (immediately after the work day in the office), and said in the invitation that kids and significant others are welcome. Some of us brought our young kids (ages 2-5 or so). When we arrived the signs were pretty ghoulish (dismembered bloody body parts, etc), and one employee, “Bob,” brought this very gruesome and realistic zombie puppet. It’s just as creepy as it looks in the video and it truly terrorized the kids in attendance. The parents are really upset, and would not have brought their kids if we knew that there would be this kind of adult Halloween horror.

The person who did this is otherwise lovely, and is also very close to the CEO. It’s not like management was unaware before it happened, I think they were just clueless about how inappropriate this was for a family event. Before Bob arrived, the CEO was telling people, “I heard Bob is going to bring his special friend Sally” (meaning the puppet). How do we address this with management? Its hard enough in our company for moms of young kids, and I don’t want us to be seen as spoil sports, but I am also really really not okay with the company saying this is a bring your kids event and then having something like this happen. Any advice?

Yes! Talk to whoever is in charge of party planning and logistics for your office and explain this wasn’t kid-appropriate at all! I’m guessing someone involved didn’t understand what is and isn’t kid-friendly and needs that spelled out more clearly. This won’t be you being a spoil sport; this will be you giving someone highly relevant info that they apparently didn’t have and probably would want. (Think if you’d done something similar — you’d want to know!)

You could say, “I think there was a disconnect between whoever said the party would be kid-friendly and whoever planned the decorations. It definitely wasn’t kid-appropriate for small children — my kids and some of the the others were really upset by the some of the gruesome decor and Bob’s puppet. In future years, can we be more careful about that? It of course doesn’t need to be kid-friendly but if we say it is, I want to be sure it won’t terrify our kids.”

Also, next year, make a point of raising this again in case people have forgotten or someone else is doing the planning. Mention that kids were scared last time, and ask for info about exactly what’s being planned. (Maybe talk to Bob in advance of next year’s too.)

— 2019

3. Should I wear a Halloween costume my first week at a new job?

I start a new job the week of Halloween and would love to wear a costume to work on Halloween, which I could not do at my old job. Of course I plan to ask about the office culture around celebrating, but if I hear that others do sometimes dress up for the holiday, would it be a bad idea for me to? Given that it will only be a few days after I start, I will still be in the period where my new coworkers and manager are figuring out who I am, and I worry that a full Halloween costume in my first week would affect how I am seen. The costume I want to wear is tasteful — nothing sexy or scary or likely to cause offense. But it would be a complete outfit, rather than just a prop or accessory. What do you think?

Well, there are a lot of offices where Halloween costumes aren’t a thing at all — especially complete outfits, as opposed to, like, a witch’s hat.

So this is the stick-in-the-mud answer, but unless you hear that the whole office dresses up and people go all out, I wouldn’t do it. You’re still getting to know the culture and people are still getting to know you, and I don’t like the thought of you ending up as the only person in a meeting wearing a full costume your first week at work. There are often a lot of meetings that first week, and people care far more about seeing that you’re listening and processing all that new information than they do about seeing you in costume.

The counter-argument is that this is a fun way for your coworkers to get to know your personality. But I’d argue people manage to get to know their new coworkers without costumes every other month of the year, and the risks of it being weird are greater than the potential rewards. It’s a new job, the stakes are high, and there’s no real downside to playing it safe.

If you want a compromise, though, you could go with a small prop or accessory, and save the full outfit for next year.

— 2019

Read an update to this letter here.

4. Wearing a Halloween costume to an interview

I have an interview on Halloween. Would it be ok to wear a costume to show my fun spirit?

Nooooo. Unless you’re interviewing someone where “fun spirit” is a major and key job requirement, this would be a very bad idea (and even then, I wouldn’t do it).

While I’m sure there’s some interviewer out there who would appreciate it and think it’s awesome, there are far more who will find it off-key and inappropriate for a professional situation. Plus, you want the focus on your qualifications, not what you’re wearing.

— 2014

5. Moving a meeting so people can go out on Halloween

Our office meeting is usually the first Wednesday of the month. The November 1st meeting is being moved to November 2. The reason … Halloween, so people can party that night. A lot of people work remotely so it doesn’t really apply since they won’t be in the office. I have an appointment with a client outside that I can’t change. Is this the path that office culture/protocol is going down? Is this a trend you’re seeing?

Don’t read anything into it about office culture or trends. It sounds like your office just wants to be considerate of people who have Halloween plans. And why not? It’s good to accommodate people’s schedules when they can, and if means they get better engagement at the meeting that’s a plus too.

– 2023

6. Do I really have to wear a Halloween costume to work?

I am the assistant to the executive director of a nonprofit human services agency. The culture of the agency includes having the employees and the volunteers wear costumes to work on Halloween. In all of my long work history, wearing costumes to work on Halloween has never before been a part of the workplace culture. Part of my work involves interacting with the public, and my personal standards include the belief that it is not correct to for staff to wear Halloween costumes in the workplace, especially when interacting with members of the public.

When I joined the agency four years ago, I wore a black pantsuit on Halloween and purchased a witch’s hat, and kept the latter item visible next to my desk. I have followed this practice since that initial year, without engendering any negative comments from my manager or other staff members. Halloween is almost upon us again. In the last staff meeting, my manager reminded everyone to wear costumes on Halloween, and said that the staff members who wore costumes would get to go home early on that date, while anyone not wearing a costume would have to stay until the normal 5:00 closing time.

Going home early on Halloween is not a special treat for me, as I have work that needs to get done. I plan on following my usual practice of wearing a black pantsuit and bringing the witch’s hat to work. Although almost all of the rest of the staff, including the manager, show up each Halloween in new and specially purchased costumes, I believe that I am observing the letter of the office culture custom, if not the spirit. Am I under any obligation to go beyond my usual practice of wearing a black pantsuit and bringing the witch’s hat to work on Halloween?

I wouldn’t think so, not in any reasonable office. I mean, some might think that you’re being a bit of a party pooper, but it’s not something that should have any real ramifications for you at work. In fact, it seems clear that it’s not a requirement, based on your manager’s wording that people not wearing costumes will just work until their normal ending time.

That said, for what it’s worth, I think you’re probably being a bit too much of a stickler when you say that people shouldn’t wear Halloween costumes to work, especially if they’re interacting with the public. There are certainly some jobs where that’s true — for example, if you’re a doctor, you shouldn’t be giving patients bad news about their health while dressed as a giant banana or something — but for most jobs, it’s not inherently unprofessional to wear a costume, and if the culture of a particular office is one where people do that, that’s a perfectly reasonable way for that office to run.

None of that obligates you to dress up if you’d rather not, and anyone who gives you crap about that is being a bit of a jerk, since different people have different preferences around this stuff. But at the same time, just as they shouldn’t be judgy about your personal preferences on this, I’d urge you not to judge the people who enjoy dressing up as incorrect either.

— 2016

7. Halloween Christmas card

The photo for our annual Christmas card is being taken on Halloween, prior to our office Halloween potluck, while people will be in costumes! (We are an medical software company, and our recipients include hospitals, clinicians, and universities.) Ugh. I feel that this is unprofessional, tacky, and weird — I don’t understand why we would use a clearly dated photo for our Christmas card. How, if at all, do I raise this concern to our higher-ups?

If you want to raise it, you can be direct about it: “I think it will look really out of place for the season if we send a Christmas card where people are obviously in Halloween costumes. What about taking the photo next week instead?”

But I wouldn’t worry terribly much about it. It’ll be a weird Christmas card! That’s okay.

— 2018

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