It’s no secret that tech companies sometimes breed a frathouse office culture. Palantir—the Peter Thiel-cofounded data firm, for example—is no stranger to beer pong, drunken injuries, or merciless pranks. But debauchery must have its limits. No one would be stupid enough to throw a stripper party in their own office, right?
So far, no—but a thread popped up last week on Reddit’s r/LegalAdvice titled “Are there any legal implications associated with throwing a “stripper party” at my office?” Guess what it’s about?
Hello, I founded a technology company about 5 months ago, and hired a few acquaintances of mine to work on it with me. After we launched our product, we outperformed our sales expectations by a huge margin, which I believe is a call for celebration.
I told the guys that they could choose whatever they wanted as celebration on me. They opted to have an office party...with strippers.
Rather than state the obvious (“Do not under any circumstance throw a stripper party anywhere, and also especially not in your own office.”) the thread quickly devolves into the finer points of covering your ass in the event you hire half-naked women on the corporate dime.
“Why not just give them a one-time bonus of a couple hundred bucks each in singles, and then the afternoon off to do as they please?” a helpful commenter chimed in. One “expert” thought the biggest issue would be the employees getting drunk and potentially breaking office equipment. Another warned that female employees might claim a hostile work environment (Drat! Those damn women, always spoiling everyone’s fun [except women who happen to be strippers of course.])
Not to fear though, our particularly odious CEO doesn’t bother hiring any of those! Because god forbid any of them decided to procreate while in his employ.
The poster doesn’t identify himself or his company, though he does claim the 16-member all-male tech startup is largely self-funded, five months old, and based in San Jose*. Sure it could be a troll. But just in case: does that sound like any businesses you know?
*Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly claimed this (potentially fake) startup was in San Diego when in fact the alleged founder says his business is in San Jose. Gizmodo regrets any offense taken by the residents of either of these fine cities.