I'm sorry that happened to you but you could go to the ER if you could afford it? I fractured my elbow on a bike and went to the ER who scheduled me an ortho the next day. Ended up with surgery two days after the accident and paying my high deductible health plan for the year.
This was my first major health problem. It solidified to me how much of a clusterf the healthcare system was and how fortunate I was to be able to take off work for a week afterwards and be able to pay my high deductible.
I interpreted it as Acxiom only looking at a few key points that they were told to do such as confirming that there were 4.3M rows/users. You would think that they would identity match and spot check a sample...
Just left there after a year. I had a great time and built some very fun stuff. Alcohol-free office is a bit of a bummer, but there's a nice little joint downstairs you can buy an overpriced beer.
To be honest I wish I could find a listing of alcohol free offices and offices that don't have a drinking culture. I can't drink and being dragged to the bar which usually has overpriced and or tasteless food is a real pain for the cost of socialization.
Ditto, I moved from startup-landia to Google about 2 years ago and have really enjoyed the decreased focus on alcohol.
Alcohol isn't banned, but the company in general does not pay for booze in the office outside of company events, so there aren't fridges or kegerators free-flowing with booze, unlike most of the startups I've worked at before.
Some teams keep celebratory stashes that they pay for themselves, which IMO strikes a good balance between letting people drink but discouraging a heavily alcohol-focused work culture.
I didn't find startup drinking culture tiresome until I left it, and I'm glad I did.
I really liked the drinking culture in my early to mid 20's but by my late 20's I got a stomach condition that put an end to that. Now I am in my early 30's I have lost any inclination to even want to partake. There are many things I now enjoy more being sober.
I've never been more productive and my mind has never been so clear.
I miss it now(mid 20's I guess), I used to work at a company with a big drinking culture and I made a big social circle around that, then I moved to a different country where I don't know anyone outside the office and the lack of this type of activities make it much harder for me to socialize, I feel very lonely sometimes.
It's pretty trivial to land yourself in a position where no one invites you out for drinks. Once you arrive in that place, no one invites you anywhere. Then you age out, and nothing ever happens again, and you continue your treadmill of employment until death.
Seriously, is that a thing? Not drinking in the office is an aberration in California? Because I'm in Ontario and if I was drinking at the office I'd probably get sent home for the day and have a nice talking to on the next one.
Anecdotally, that's not accurate. The bay area companies with an outsized interest in drinking are typically pot friendly. Though with both, it's not cool to be intoxicated during real work.
I work in aerospace and we have a ton of machinery around that can cause serious injuries so this kind of environment would never work here, but what's the attraction of a workplace that allows alcohol?
Don't get me wrong, I like the occasional drink, and maybe I'm just a lightweight, but I imagine my work productivity/reliability would tank after even a few beers. Hell, I don't even drink coffee on work days, even though I quite enjoy the taste, because I feel like it makes me too jittery. Now I will admit that I'm a technician so I work with my hands but is coding/programming more immune to this kind of thing?
Also, from my experience alcohol seems like one of the best guaranteed ways to get people to act in ways they normally wouldn't. I certainly act more relaxed, maybe even unprofessional or crude, after I've had a few drinks. Which is of course why I don't drink in a professional setting. After all the things I've read about toxic work environments at places like Uber, if I was running a company, the last thing I would want is my employees drinking at work.
I want to make clear I've never worked in an environment that allowed drinking, certainly not one that had employee areas stocked with alcohol, so I'm not judging here, I'm just trying to figure out the attraction. And how companies that allow or support it mitigate the potential negative effects.
The attraction is building social glue. Does it work? It's really mixed; i've seen it work very well for bonding with new coworkers; i've also seen people alienated because they don't drink (for a variety of reasons).
These policies also make so much more sense with small offices where everyone knows each other.
Finally, there are typically stringent "on call" policies for people in control of deployed infrastructure to ensure they don't drink. People further away from the money don't need this as much.
Thanks for the reply, specifically in relation to people in control of deploying infrastructure abiding by different policies.
The bit about acting as social glue makes some sense to me, although to be honest it still seems somewhat problematic. Even discounting people who don't drink for whatever reason(alcohol dependance, religious views, health, etc) I would think that alcohol would pose just as many potential problems as it would aim to fix.
I'm obviously bringing a huge amount of personal bias to this discussion, but I'm probably exactly the kind of person who might benefit from the social aspects of drinking. I'm normally very shy and reserved, a beer or two often helps me relax and enjoy the company of others without my normal anxiety. Of course, a few too many beers results in me being too talkative and boisterous. In a social situation amongst friends, this would be no problem, someone would just tell me to calm the fuck down, I'd be momentarily embarrassed, and no one would think anything of it. At work however, it may pose more longer lasting problems with how others view me, or how I think others view me.
Again, I'm not judging anyone else who enjoys this kind of workplace, and I understand that what holds true for me may not be true of others, I just wanted to give my two cents.
Having free alcohol around is fine; you don't see much day drinking (social decorum works well here), and it means people tend to stick around a little on fridays to chat instead of taking off immediately. Some employees, anyway.
However, there are other cultures where it's a huge smell for, umm, fratty culture. Don't ignore your gut on this unless you like cleaning up your boss's puke and feeling a stigma for staying dry. I've also experienced this and it was really fun for a small startup where everyone is friends—it needs to be carefully managed as you grow; you lose employees this way.
It's something that started as a sign that "we're cool and edgy and different", and gradually become a cultural shibboleth for startup people.
Having worked at dry offices, offices that had alcohol available at all times, and ones that did weekly TGIFs or whatever, I can't say I favor the trend. Invariably, it becomes a problem, and then people start moaning about how the culture is changing because the alcohol is disappearing. It's also alienating for a lot of otherwise good people (some people are alcoholics!)
It's a workplace, not a frat house. If you need a drink, finish your work, and go out and enjoy your life. But then, I feel the same way about office meals (I'd prefer you just paid me a higher salary, and I'll buy my own food, thanks), so I'm not a "team player".
I think it started as "cool and edgy" thing but showed many benefits to startups.
First, if you have many people you can buy alcohol in bulk much cheaper than usual, if most of your workforce enjoys it then it is cheaper to buy it for everyone than giving increasing salaries a bit for people to drink on the streets which can be expensive. This is especially true for a very young workforce which spends a lot in entertainment.
Second, in startups which are pushing people to work for long periods of time, it can be a way to disguise burnout. If you are spending all day in the office you can feel your social life suffering, but they bring your social life to the office, I have my own anecdotal evidence of this.
Third, to a smaller degree, people will stick around and while they are not exactly on call it can pop up solutions to problems or new ideas to the office, I've seen many TGIFs crazy ideas get implemented and generate a better work environment, it can feel like a much safer meeting space for people to speak up.
> It's a workplace, not a frat house. If you need a drink, finish your work, and go out and enjoy your life.
They're not mutually exclusive. My office has alcohol, but people only tend to drink around or after 5, and typically quietly at their desk while working on something. Occasionally there will be a few people having a conversation in the kitchen over beers in the late afternoon.
I wouldn't describe it as a frat house though, and I think if you need to use that to describe an office, that's your problem; the alcohol is just a symptom.
I'd be okay with removing the alcohol if my employer also stopped driving me to drink[1].
Yeah, like I said...I've worked in offices that started with "we're all reasonable adults" policies. That's fine until it isn't anymore, and then it's a big, sad outrage and an excuse to complain about the "culture dying" when the rules change.
I'm not a teetotaler, but it just seems unnecessary to me. Start with a culture of "we drink at the bar", and it never has to be a problem for anyone in the first place. Alcohol doesn't make you better at your job, so there's really no argument for it, other than "culture", which goes back to the shibboleth thing....
The ultra puritanical attitude in parts of the USA is also a culture - and if you know your history it has a sectarian nativist basis against immigrants.
I was referring the attitude in the USA in general due to the early ultra protestant settlers, and if you look at the history of nativist anti immigrant movements it was aimed at European often poor catholic immigrants who came for areas with a well established brewing and wine traditions.
Yes, I know what you were referring to. But there's a huge logical gap between "established brewing and wine traditions" and "must have alcohol at work".
The prohibition movement was at least partially anti-immigrant. But saying "drink on your own time" is neither prohibitionist, nor anti-immigrant.
can only imagine this works well in large cities with good public transport. car-oriented commuter areas... doesn't even strike me as a remotely good idea.
It's a reflection of the workplace as an extension of the frat house environment that many workers at these places cherished. So if you enjoyed that kind of college environment (recall that the average age of such places tend to be very young), then such a company will feel natural.
Yes, I believe that there's an element of implicit bias to it. It's one of those murky things that gets bundled up with "culture fit" as spurious reasons to reject candidates who don't look and act like you do. Hence the "shibboleth" comment.
It's a complicated question. What's innocent, non-coercive fun for a small group of responsible people can get wildly out of control with one bad hire. And we don't do interviews for "angry drunk"....
Alcohol isn't for the workday. But people will sometimes linger and just talk. We'll do informal tech talks about what we're working on some Friday afternoons. Show a movie in a conference room every couple months. People will often have a beer in these settings.
Nobody is drinking while grinding out code, but these end-of-the-workday social environments can be incredibly valuable both socially and professionally.
It essentially replaces the team going to a bar together, and keeps that environment in the office.
This was my first major health problem. It solidified to me how much of a clusterf the healthcare system was and how fortunate I was to be able to take off work for a week afterwards and be able to pay my high deductible.