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I'm out of the loop with SV startup culture, but banning alcohol in the office is "a step that many in tech would view as crossing a red line"? I hope I'm readi

I'm out of the loop with SV startup culture, but banning alcohol in the office is "a step that many in tech would view as crossing a red line"? I hope I'm reading that wrong. If there are restrictions as to time and place, then sure some alcohol in the office might be okay, but as a general rule alcohol + work = problems.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
The typical SV startup attitude is often: "get it done, we don't care how." There are good reasons for this. People - especially in SV - value their freedom. Having that peace of mind allows them to focus, which can be better than the old school, Java-shop, get-20-support-tickets-done-by-Friday style of management. Another reason: there's a reason startup offices are so "fun": they don't want you to leave. Nerf guns and hard liquor make the office seem like a place to hang out at, so working 10,12,14+ hours a day doesn't seem so bad. You're hanging out with your friends, right? Overtime pay? Never heard of it. We get stock options right? No, our founders wouldn't dilute our shares to favor late stage investors, would they? So maybe that's the problem.
- deleted 11y ago
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SFjulie1 11y ago
You read correctly. And it has consequences. The startup culture is very toxic in terms of use of psychotrops. People takes all kind of drugs (alcohol included) often with a laxist attitude from supervisors and drugs + workload + stress = lot of catastrophs. Ho! And of course, the more crunches the more open bar there are to reward you from keeping on with the good job and release the pressure. EDIT and it happens that drinking overlaps with production duties during crunches, when people are already lacking of rest. Thus, generating of course more production incidents. Startup are brain crunchers and are free to go on since there is no legal liability for this, and they don't pay the price for the damages since they just fire burnt out employees who have to pay for fixing themselves afterward and tell customers there are no guarantees software works, it is a lose-lose-win situation.
bbulkow 11y ago
SV startup culture has been about personal responsibility since at least the glory days of Atari, which ( according to my sources and a published movie ) had an MRD - Marjuana Research Division - built in a small rooftop shack, and sometimes meetings would be in the MRD. Reputedly, people had nitrous tanks in the office, too, and would huff during the workday. Apple really championed the "beer bust" culture in the early 90's. I have been in "dry offices" and do find it a morale killer, because there's the sense that the HR department knows better than you. We have beer in our office, and a bottle or two of hard stuff, but honestly no one ever touches it. We have a hard working and professional culture and know alcohol and coding don't mix. ( Or, as I say, "Don't drink and write drivers." ) Sometimes the inside sales guys knock off at 3pm on a friday and have a can of beer. They start early - calling the east coast - so it's good to see them blowing off a little. More professionally, we tend to troop to the dive bar around the corner, which is honestly more fun than setting up a kegerator. Having beer and not drinking it is a more solid culture than banning beer from the top.
goldbrick 11y ago
I've had a number of jobs in different cities (none in SV and only a couple that were really "startups") and I find it completely normal to have alcohol in the office and eerily sterile to ban it. Nobody really starts drinking before 5pm and almost everybody finishes up their work for the day first. I've never found it to be a problem. I would have a hard time trusting people that I felt like I couldn't have a drink with.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

The typical SV startup attitude is often: "get it done, we don't care how." There are good reasons for this. People - especially in SV - value their freedom. Having that peace of mind allows them to focus, which can be better than the old school, Java-shop, get-20-support-tickets-done-by-Friday style of management. Another reason: there's a reason startup offices are so "fun": they don't want you to leave. Nerf guns and hard liquor make the office seem like a place to hang out at, so working 10,12,14+ hours a day doesn't seem so bad. You're hanging out with your friends, right? Overtime pay? Never heard of it. We get stock options right? No, our founders wouldn't dilute our shares to favor late stage investors, would they? So maybe that's the problem.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

SFjulie1 11y ago

You read correctly. And it has consequences. The startup culture is very toxic in terms of use of psychotrops. People takes all kind of drugs (alcohol included) often with a laxist attitude from supervisors and drugs + workload + stress = lot of catastrophs. Ho! And of course, the more crunches the more open bar there are to reward you from keeping on with the good job and release the pressure. EDIT and it happens that drinking overlaps with production duties during crunches, when people are already lacking of rest. Thus, generating of course more production incidents. Startup are brain crunchers and are free to go on since there is no legal liability for this, and they don't pay the price for the damages since they just fire burnt out employees who have to pay for fixing themselves afterward and tell customers there are no guarantees software works, it is a lose-lose-win situation.

bbulkow 11y ago

SV startup culture has been about personal responsibility since at least the glory days of Atari, which ( according to my sources and a published movie ) had an MRD - Marjuana Research Division - built in a small rooftop shack, and sometimes meetings would be in the MRD. Reputedly, people had nitrous tanks in the office, too, and would huff during the workday. Apple really championed the "beer bust" culture in the early 90's. I have been in "dry offices" and do find it a morale killer, because there's the sense that the HR department knows better than you. We have beer in our office, and a bottle or two of hard stuff, but honestly no one ever touches it. We have a hard working and professional culture and know alcohol and coding don't mix. ( Or, as I say, "Don't drink and write drivers." ) Sometimes the inside sales guys knock off at 3pm on a friday and have a can of beer. They start early - calling the east coast - so it's good to see them blowing off a little. More professionally, we tend to troop to the dive bar around the corner, which is honestly more fun than setting up a kegerator. Having beer and not drinking it is a more solid culture than banning beer from the top.

goldbrick 11y ago

I've had a number of jobs in different cities (none in SV and only a couple that were really "startups") and I find it completely normal to have alcohol in the office and eerily sterile to ban it. Nobody really starts drinking before 5pm and almost everybody finishes up their work for the day first. I've never found it to be a problem. I would have a hard time trusting people that I felt like I couldn't have a drink with.