Halloween

Top 5 Office-Inappropriate Halloween Costumes

Don’t let the wrong costume cause professional horror!

The days are growing shorter, the leaves browner, and the candy aisle at the supermarket richer with fun-sized bars of milk chocolate. That could only mean one thing: Halloween is upon us! It’s time, once again, to walk that narrowest of professional tight ropes: selecting a costume for the office Halloween party.

Choose right, and you’ll be the star of the day, achieving temporary prominence on the Facebook walls of countless co-workers until you’re relegated to the “Memories” album by the inevitable barrage of Thanksgiving food porn. (“Stuff, that turkey, baby! Ohhh yeah, stuff it!”)

Choose wrong - let’s face it, you probably will - and it could result in weeks of whispers and averted gazes in the break room, a visit to HR, and immortalization on the Facebook walls of countless co-workers long after they realize those Thanksgiving sweaters make them look fat. (Actually, Kenny, it was that third slice of pie…)

So, to help you navigate the annual masked minefield, here are the Top Five Office-Inappropriate Halloween Costumes to avoid like the house that hands out sliced fruit to trick-or-treaters.

5. Peter Gibbons from “Office Space”

We get it. You’re far too smart, creative, and altruistic for your paper-shuffling cubicle job. The only way you can possibly subject yourself to the monotony of another day is through ironic detachment and passive-aggressive apathy. Yeah, you and the other 96.7% of the American workforce that stumble across the film on basic cable semi-annually at the end of a Rolling Rock fueled Saturday night, and swear that creator Mike Judge was channeling their inner pain when he wrote Peter.

This costume is not creative or irreverent. More importantly, if you were Peter when the film was released in 1999, you’re Bill Lumbergh by now, or at least you should be. If you’ve been filing TPS reports for two decades, and haven’t fallen bass-ackwards into some sort of Senior Associate-Associate Coordinator-Coordinating Supervisor paper promotion to a semi-private office with a partial alley view, then you’re actually Milton in a perennial search for that proverbial stapler of wasted youth.

4. Sexy Olaf

Ever since Disney’s charming children’s film, Frozen, entered the popular lexicon in the mid-2010s, cheeky Halloween revelers have delighted in donning ever skimpier costumes based on Olaf, the movie’s singing snowman. The outfits, generally consisting of a leotard and stockings, but no pants or shorts often sell out at many online retailers by mid-September. So, almost certainly more than a few of them will make appearances at office events this Halloween season.

While the ongoing sexualization of Halloween has permeated almost all of the classic costumes in recent years, the sullying of Olaf is particularly disturbing, as the snowman symbolizes the innocence and joy of childhood. The costume might be a hit at the party, but you’ll likely have to endure lasciviously whistled renditions of “Let It Go” every time you walk the sales floor between now and New Year. Plus, do you really want to have to spend the office Holiday potluck explaining to the daughter of Chester McFaddleheim in Accounting why her daddy has been absconding to the basement with her favorite DVD every night for the past two months?

3. Group Costume

These always seem like a good idea in theory. Your entire pod will coordinate on something high concept. Not only will it be a great team-building exercise, but it will save everyone the time of having to come up with a clever individual costume.

Of course, it only works if you remain tethered to the entire group for the duration of the event. Five guys in shiny, fitted suits and overly moussed hair make for a credible office Halloween version of BTS. A lone guy in the men’s room struggling frantically to undo the crotcheted button fly on his skinny trousers before those six Miller Lites evacuate faster than upper management on the first day of golf season makes for a likely call to office security.

2. Superhero

Who doesn’t love superheroes? Not only do they represent the good-over-evil idealism and impeccable physical prowess of which corporate America drained us by the end of the first internship, but they also wear awesome outfits! Henry Cavill looks so lithe and aerodynamic in his Superman suit! That sleek lycra Black Widow outfit hugs Scarlett Johansson’s curves like an Aston Martin on the Autobahn. Who wouldn’t want to strut their stuff in superhero style for all the office to see?

The problem is, your stuff is very different from Henry’s and Scarlett’s. Their bodies are shaped by trainers and nutritionists, paid more in a month than you make in a year to sculpt the stars to the exact specifications of those form-fitting suits. Your body is shaped by 8 hours a day in a sagging office chair, domestic beer, and a four-a-day Krispee Kreme habit. You’re not Batman, you’re Fatman. You’re not Wonder Woman, you’re Blunder Woman. They’re a product of Marvel. You’re a product of Carvel.

It’s not so much that your co-workers will laugh at you. They’re already fully aware of your figure faults. But, the first look in the mirror upon donning your contoured costume will likely rob you of the one superpower you actually do possess, and the one vital to enduring corporate life: the power of self-delusion.

1. Your Boss

What better time to ape his signature clip-on tie and coffee-stained Dockers than Halloween, right? You can even bring that spot-on impression that’s been killing in the break room to the big stage! Or, at least the conference room lectern. He’s got to laugh along in the spirit of the occasion, right?

Wrong.

Just remember, if he were the type of guy who took a good joke with self-deprecating grace, you probably wouldn’t have spent an entire Sunday perfecting that impression in your bathroom mirror. He might well play along while all eyes are on him, but you’d better have your suitcase packed and your passport up to date. He will likely take delicious pleasure in deploying every one of those spastic mannerisms and verbal ticks that you so flawlessly mimic as he’s announcing your re-assignment to the newly opened satellite office.

In Guam.