How to Plan a Surprise Retirement Party
Planning a retirement party is fun and exciting --- but making it a surprise takes it to a different level. It can get tricky trying to plan a party that only one person in the workplace doesn't know about! Here are ways to keep the party a surprise.
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Instructions
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Collect personal e-mail addresses from all your coworkers. The best way to keep the surprise retirement party from being ruined is to contact people at their home e-mail addresses rather than through their work address. This will eliminate the possibility of sending out an "all company e-mail" that goes to everyone --- including the guest of honor.
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Set up an account on a free invitation web site such as evite.com. These sites allow you to send out party details to large groups of people and keep track of how many are attending. Use the web site you chose to send out electronic invitations to all the employees at their personal e-mail addresses.
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Ask your human resources department to give you the guest of honor's personal information. Contact the spouse of the retiree so you can also invite family and friends who are not co-workers to their loved one's surprise party.
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Split the responsibility of working out the party details with two or three other employees. If you are doing all the planning on your own, you will be overly stressed and your guest of honor will suspect that something is going on!
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Dig up some old photos of the retiree from when he started at the company. Display a history of his time with your company, including promotions and major achievements. This will be a nice added touch to the surprise retirement party that your guest of honor will remember forever.
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Tips & Warnings
Try not to use too much company time planning the party --- unless, of course, your boss says it's your only responsibility until the party day arrives!
Loose lips sink ships! Be especially careful when discussing the party at work. An unintentionally-overhead conversation at the water cooler could spoil the whole surprise.
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Comments
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I was really hoping this was going to be a tutorial on throwing a surprise retirement party for someone who really needs to retire but hadn't planned on it just yet. Ah, well.
