At the end of a long, hard year at work, I like to celebrate with my colleagues. Like most of you reading this, our Christmas function usually involves music, food and booze. It’s often held on work premises. Management always attends as well.
We don’t have strippers. In fact, I’ve never attended any kind of work function where a stripper’s attended. If I invited a stripper, I suspect I’d be in a spot of bother with my bosses. If this information made it into the public domain and brought Mediaworks into disrepute, I’d expect to be fired.
I know this because I’ve grown up in the real world. That’s what happens in the real world.
Rugby players – professional sportspeople – don’t live in the real world.
Mad Monday celebrations are the sporting equivalent of your end of year work function. They’re a hangover from an amateur era where smart phones and social media didn’t exist. An era when players who should have known better didn’t have to worry, because no one would ever find out what shenanigans they got up to.
Times have changed, but attitudes and behaviours, for some, have not. Now the Chiefs’ Mad Monday celebrations have left the franchise nursing a hangover that won’t go away, and has left the rest of us feeling a bit sick.
The alleged details to emerge from the team’s day out at Okoroire Hot Pools aren’t good. They’re now the subject of an NZ Rugby inquiry, which has been widened at the Chiefs’ request following further allegations from another stripper who allegedly attended the team’s 2015 end-of-season celebrations. A police inquiry will ensure the truth – whatever that may be – is revealed.
Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, there are huge lessons to emerge for Chiefs’ management.
In this age of professionalism, there are so many elements of a player’s life that’s taken care of. They’re told what to eat, where to be, and at what time. They’re even told what they have to do to beat their opponent.
Why then would you suddenly leave these same players to organise an alcohol-fueled end-of-season function, in a public place, with no management present?
The Chiefs players made a bad decision last week. Maybe more than one. But Chiefs management made bad decisions too, and the worst one was the first one: deciding not to be present at the team’s end of season function. Not being there on Monday? You’re mad.
These franchises have a responsibility. It’s not just about winning. It’s also about turning employees into better people who make good decisions.
They should have been there. It’s their job to point out to players who’ve never worked in anything other than a rugby environment, that hiring a stripper for your end of season party isn’t ok.
It wouldn’t happen in the real world.
Newshub.