How to Deal With A Hangover At Work

It's the holiday season and that means heavy drinking so you can deal with your relatives. Sometimes, your work life and your drinking life have to cross paths and that means you're hungover at work. Here's how to deal.

Your alarm goes off and you smell like a tequila factory. Sometimes a little breakfast and a shower can help you feel a little better. If you drag your sorry ass out of bed, have some Cheerios and a shower and you still aren't feeling very good, you need to make up a strategy. While you're pooping, think about this: What are the risks if you call in sick? Is there a big project that's due? Is there a mandatory meeting you absolutely cannot miss? If the answer is yes, then you need to suck it up and make an appearance. If you're still drunk from the night before (because, hey, it happens to all of us; myself included), then you should not drive at all and you need to stay home.

Once you're out of bed and moving around, that can help, but doing a few jumping jacks, push ups and running in place can help, too. It gets your blood moving and it gets oxygen into your system that can increase your detoxification rate. Drinking lots of fluids can also help your detox rate, so pop some Advil and grab a Gatorade on the way into the office.

When you get to the office, keep a low profile. Make sure you chew some gum as you're humming along and try not to make any major decisions. Do simple things that don't tax your already hurting brain. Also, make sure to avoid coworkers, clients and management. Unless you're management. Then just do what I did: close your door and do everything via phone and email.

Whatever you do, don't tell people. It's not professional and it could wreck your reputation.