Four Rules To Remember When Holidays At Work

Holidays at work can be land mines, and Halloween is no exception. Some of the normal rules don't apply, but you're still expected to remain professional – even while doing things you'd never do on any other day, such as wearing a costume or wrapping your desk in giant cobwebs. That can make the holiday tricky to navigate.

Here are four rules to remember in order to ensure that your Halloween week at work remains fright-free.

1. Tread carefully if you wear a costume to work. If your office is one that welcomes costumes, be sure that you keep yours work-appropriate. That means no costumes that are revealing or sexually provocative (like a naughty nurse costume, which should be saved for your off-work time), and no costumes with racist undertones (like caricatures of another ethnic group or of a group that has been systemically oppressed). Most people these days know that blackface is offensive, but there are still plenty of American Indian or "gypsy" costumes out there. Be thoughtful and sensitive about using someone else's ethnicity as a costume. Offending co-workers is not a fun way to celebrate the holiday.

Yes, you can send someone home if his or her costume is too over the top, but doing that is likely to cause drama and hurt feelings; it's better to just ward off issues before they happen. And the larger the office, the greater the chance that someone is going to show up in something inappropriately sexy or outright offensive if you don't set expectations ahead of