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One of the more interesting pieces is buried in the linked PDF: "Excessive alcohol: Harassment is never acceptable and alcohol is never an excuse. But one of t

One of the more interesting pieces is buried in the linked PDF: "Excessive alcohol: Harassment is never acceptable and alcohol is never an excuse. But one of the most common factors among the harassment complaints made today at Google is that the perpetrator had been drinking (~20% of cases). Our policy is clear: Excessive consumption of alcohol is not permitted when you are at work, performing Google business, or attending a Google-related event, whether onsite or offsite. Going forward, all leaders at the company - Directors, VPs and SVPs - will be expected to create teams, events, offsites and environments in which excessive alcohol consumption is strongly discouraged. For example, many teams have already put two-drink limits in place for events. Others use drink ticket systems. The onus will be on leaders to take appropriate steps to restrict any excessive consumption among their teams, and we will impose more onerous actions if problems persist." As someone who's been exposed to heavy drinking culture in Silicon Valley, this is a huge step in the right direction. I hope more companies and tech events adopt this.

philip1209 8y ago
Why not just ban alcohol at work? Why can't work be work, and social stuff can happen outside of it? I know it sounds a bit extreme. But, after reading "It doesn't have to be crazy it work," I feel like companies use alcohol to bribe employees to stay at the office after-hours. A midground would be drinking only with sit-down food. Nobody is doing shots while having dinner. Another idea could be making company social functions a lunch activity, rather than a dinner one.
- savanaly 8y ago
  >Why not just ban alcohol at work? Why can't work be work, and social stuff can happen outside of it? I see this sentiment a lot (especially on HN!) and I share it. I usually skip team dinners when I can. But there's no accounting for taste, and humans in general seem to have a taste for mixing work and "social stuff", so why shouldn't companies encourage it in that capacity?
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - philipodonnell 8y ago
    We already single out certain social things as just not a good idea in the workplace/events even though its common socially: public displays of affection, having lots of kids around, single-sex activities... Its isolating/disruptive if you can't/won't take part. Its unfair when based on things not in the job description (relationships/kids/gender respectively). I don't see why alcohol (excludes non-drinkers) or team-building activities outside of business hours (excludes those with family commitments) couldn't be one of those things.
    - stickfigure 8y ago
      By the time you've excluded all the possible activities that someone could find isolating, you've got a pretty boring work environment. Here's the box you will be working in. Don't forget to turn off the light when you leave Friday.
      - ben509 8y ago
        Where do I sign up?!
      - myle 8y ago
        That's OK. We are also supposed to have private life. If work is not fun enough without those events, maybe it is not fun in general.
        barrow-rider 8y ago
        I'll take it a step further -- why does work need to be fun? It's my meal ticket, not my hobby; it needs to be tolerable. The "fun at work" meme is, IMO, a way to keep people in the office longer a la the GOOOOG's Gilded Cage.
        8y ago
- tdb7893 8y ago
  Having a beer is I engrained in American work culture. Also I've worked at multiple companies where they had work functions at dinnertime and no one got that drunk (generally there were 2 drink maximums, which probably helped) so it's definitely possible to fix the issue without just banning it
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Having a beer is I engrained in American work culture Ummm... no, it's not. Having had dozens of jobs in five industries over the decades, I've never worked for one where drinking on company time isn't a fireable offense. The only exceptions were at the company Christmas parties, and overnight DJ's who were tolerated doing lines of coke off of CD cases. But that's another problem altogether.
    - tdb7893 8y ago
      I'll concede that maybe America is too broad to generalize here but the point still stands that you don't need to completely disallow alcohol to have people not really drunk at basic work functions
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      Definitely not. I am currently in an industry where getting drunk off the job can (eventually) get you fired. Mostly because drunkards are potential security threats with a well-proven recipe for developing and exploiting the opening. Our Christmas parties are as boring as a carbide drill bit.
    - amatecha 8y ago
      "Beer o'clock", typically on a Friday afternoon, is a very common phenomenon in North American software & game companies. :)
      - int_19h 8y ago
        That's exactly the point - it's common in software, but virtually unheard of everywhere else. So it's the software industry that's out of touch with the broader American work culture here.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  I know it sounds a bit extreme. Not extreme at all. Except for salespeople having business lunches, in the United States, drinking on company time is pretty much verboten outside of the tech bubble.
  - dec0dedab0de 8y ago
    in the United States, drinking on company time is pretty much verboten outside of the tech bubble. I don't think this is true, especially for company parties. I have also heard of people in other industries drinking in the office, usually these were smaller companies, or the people doing the drinking were upper management.
  - philip1209 8y ago
    WeWork banned meat at company events or on company expense accounts [1]. Would it be that hard to do something similar for alcohol? Then, bringing it back to Google, if people misbehave after having alcohol - then they bought the drinks, and came to a company event while intoxicated. When I was at OpenDNS, @davidu used to say something along the lines of, "When you try to host a big company party with over 100 people, you expect to have to fire somebody for their behavior there. Don't be that person." Maybe the costs don't outweigh the benefits of work parties. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/wework-meat-events-expense-ban https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/wework-m...
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      Wow, WeWork won't even allow employees to expense meals that have meat in them?! That's ridiculous. The environmental situation with beef is a little more complex than "less beef eaten -> fewer cows -> less methane -> less climate change." What's even more ridiculous is that beef is the costly meat from an environmental perspective, but they've also banned poultry and all other types of meat. I can understand not serving meat, but not allowing employees to expense meals involving meat would make me reconsider working there - especially because of the heavy handed way they did it.
      - deleted 8y ago
- misiti3780 8y ago
  Why not NOT ban alcohol at work, and when an employee fucks up, just fire him ? Is that really not a solution here ? at the end of the day, people should be accountable for their own actions, and i should not be punished if i want to have a beer after working hours with colleagues because a tiny minority of people at my company cant drinking responsibly
  - RankingMember 8y ago
    I agree, though I think a warning for a first offense is more reasonable. It seems like every company would rather set policy based on the worst possible interpretation rather than leaving things a little looser and dealing with problems/oversteppers directly.
    - mcguire 8y ago
      I don't know. It seems like either you're responsible for your behavior, or you are not. Having a first-offense warning just shows that the company isn't really serious about dealing with the problem.
      - Aloha 8y ago
        Zero Tolerance Policies, generally also mean Zero Thinking Policies. The punishment should fit the crime, and most situations are warrant only a warning or a minor punishment - and if behavior improves, all is well.
        mcguire 8y ago
        We seem to be backing off of the whole "personal responsibility" thing. If you start off with the policy that "we trust all of our employees to behave like mature adults" and they don't, they've demonstrated that you can't trust them, no? If you have that policy and then start down the road of first-offense warnings, or trying to match the punishment to the crime, you end up in exactly the place where a lot of companies are now. (This isn't a new idea; it's how companies have always operated.) Without a specific set of policies, the company literally cannot do anything right: If you fire someone because his coworkers say they cannot work with him, everyone starts frothing at the mouth. If you pay someone else to leave because he's too important to fire, everyone digs out their pitchforks and torches. If you do nothing, it blows up in your face, spectacularly.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Most employers don't allow drinking at work. Some allow it at company events, provided it doesn't become a problem. The funny thing is about a lot of Silicon Valley companies, I think, is that they decided in their attempt to reinvent work that they'd throw out a couple hundred years of learned experience on what does and doesn't work in a corporate setting. The "fun places to work" eventually figure out that fun for some is often at the expense of others, and that most things corporate environments have ruled out were ruled out a long time ago because they didn't work well.
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - ppod 8y ago
    Ever worked in the UK or Europe? Some things are culturally particular.
- Kiro 8y ago
  Social stuff should be banned.
- zaroth 8y ago
  Feel free to ban anything you want at work. And the people who work there will select for if they want to be a part of it by becoming or remaining employees. (There are, of course, things that are illegal to ban) I personally want to work somewhere who values me as a responsible human being, and expects me to behave like one. The more a workplace feels like they have to micromanage their employees like children, the more I would expect their workplace to be filled with people who act like children. And I personally wouldn’t want to work somewhere like that. Hire intelligent, respectful, ethical, empathetic, mature adults to do interesting work. Fire the ones who don’t live up to it. I expect workplace requirements to be spelled out in terms of expected behavior, expected performance, expected results. Define the outputs. And take responsibility up the chain. IMO the right policy is not to ban alcohol entirely. Rather, if an employee behaves inappropriately the employee is responsible, but if the manager created the environment which lead to the behavior (whether that be approving the purchase of a keg and cheering for a keg stand, or not stopping that engineer from being verbally abusive at the daily stand ups) the manager is also held to account.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    The positive aspect of banning alcohol consumption is that it's an objective measure. If somebody is a drunken lout pawing his employees, save the victim more exposure by drumming him out for the alcohol. With the possible exception of salespeople entertaining clients, there's no need to drink on duty, and if you do, there is a consequence.
    - Benjammer 8y ago
      I don't think the parent comment is at all disagreeing with the existence of any utility in "banning alcohol" here. The gist of what the parent comment is saying, is that, if you have a policy in place to "compensate" for a certain "negative trait," what you are actually doing is inviting _more_ of that trait, because you are signaling that your company will put effort in to help deal with that, which means that someone who needs help monitoring their alcohol consumption would be _more likely_ to work for you, thus accomplishing essentially the opposite of what you wanted. Mature adults who do _not_ need someone else to monitor their alcohol consumption are far more likely to inherently present with the responsible, adult behaviors that you desire. But, a mature adult who can already sufficiently moderate their own alcohol consumption is going to be _less likely_ to want to work at a place where said consumption is heavily, outwardly regulated/enforced, because why would they want to be constantly told something that they have already fully incorporated into their mature, adult habits and personality?
- cpeterso 8y ago
  An incremental step would be for a company to not pay for alcohol. Don't allow employees to expense alcohol. For catered company events, the company could charge people per alcoholic drink or just not serve any.
- x0x0 8y ago
  The policy includes attending google-related events. Not being able to have a beer at a mixer at a conference Google sent you to or sponsored is a pretty shit limitation. Not being able to have a beer at lunch or dinner is also pretty crummy, because the vast majority of people are adults and comport themselves accordingly.
- spurgu 8y ago
  20 percent.... it's hardly the main issue.
- JJMcJ 8y ago
  Once upon a time, most companies banned alcohol completely from worksites, and certainly for company meetings, except for offsites like picnics and dinners and parties.
- habosa 8y ago
  [Googler here] We have much less company-provided alcohol at work than most tech companies that I'm aware of. Mostly beers once a week, and most people don't participate. This change is mostly talking about work social events that take place off site. My team's company holiday party last year was piloting this and gave each person two drink tickets upon entering. I think banning alcohol completely would reduce the attendance of these social events, so this is a good step where we can keep the social benefits without letting it get out of hand. For instance the holiday party I mentioned was on a Friday night. I really enjoy having a few drinks on a Friday night, and I'm much more likely to attend a Google party with 2 drinks tickets than one with zero. I know that sounds silly and immature, but it's honest.
  - fhdhehfhzhe 8y ago
    Wow, piloting a program for drink tickets?! Crazy! My team at OtherBigCo did that a decade ago...
  - jiveturkey 8y ago
    piloting? drink tickets have been a thing at google since 2005 ish
    - habosa 8y ago
      Huh that's interesting! Been here for ~5 years and this drink ticket thing is only ~1yr old in my experience.
- BrandoElFollito 8y ago
  It also depends on the culture of the country. In France it is common to have a small party (pot) during work hours when some people would have one drink. Max two. These also can be at the end of the day but then usually this is by someone who is leaving.
jklinger410 8y ago
Kind of a step backwards in terms of accountability, no? Scapegoating alcohol seems like an excuse and really is like babysitting your adult employees. My view - Drink as much alcohol as you like! And if you imbibe too much, and do stupid things, that shows deficient decision making abilities, and you aren't fit to work here.
- docker_up 8y ago
  Unless you are an alcoholic, and you literally can't control yourself. Then parading out alcohol and then punishing her by firing her for not being able to control herself seems a bit unfair.
  - xkcd-sucks 8y ago
    That would sound like a case where the employee could disclose her alcoholism as a disability, and request the "reasonable accommodation" that no work events she is required to attend have alcohol. Then, if it can be demonstrated that she's actually required to go to a drinking event, gets trashed and acts an ass, she's got a wrongful termination claim. IANAL of course
    - zbentley 8y ago
      Many substance-abuse disorders are not treated as special-accommodation-worthy (in courts often or by HR departments by policy) in the the US. Alcoholism is one such example (Alcohol Abuse Disorder is not a qualifier for disability status without additional presenting symptoms, or exceptional luck during disability determination). That reality, and the reality of addiction, presents a few problems for the hypothetical employee here: - Attending work events that do have alcohol may cause them to endure a great deal of hardship (talk to a recently-abstinent alcoholic if you doubt this). - Addiction has no conclusive test or diagnosis--AAD and other indicators are often not present in people who enter rehab, or in people whose substance abuse is identified as a primary motivator for criminal behavior by courts. This means that "getting trashed and acting like an ass", for "real addicts" (whatever that means, which is a troublesome qualifier to add in and of itself) is difficult to prove to be the fault of the company providing alcohol, and for non-addicts is a convenient out (if provided to the former group). - "Actually required to go to an event" is another troublesome category. Many events aren't "required" . . . unless you want to get promoted/not eventually get fired in favor of someone who attended. I don't propose some legal solution to this (everything I can think of would effectively be thought-policing), but it's an important ambiguity to acknowledge. - Even if a humane HR/management department exists to whom the hypothetical employee could disclose their condition as a disability, and even if that department lobbied the employee's managers/colleagues to prevent addiction from being a disadvantage to their career, that would still likely result in either a breach of that employee's privacy or eventual prejudice seeping in (e.g. via turnover inside HR) regardless. Not good. - If those recourses fail, and the employee ends up before the courts pleading wrongful-termination or equivalent based on their addiction, the (at least state) US court system and arbitration organizations are notoriously inconsistent and prejudiced against claims of addiction as any sort of mitigating or complicating circumstance. A company interested in preserving the autonomy, promotability, and dignity of addicted employees would likely view the courts as something the employee in question should be kept away from for their own benefit. There are many other considerations. Now, many of those apply to any uncommon disability condition, and it could be argued that below a certain point a very few employees' accommodations should not ruin the fun for everyone else. Even if you buy that argument, the incidence of addiction/substance-abuse related serious lifestyle trouble—principally at work or in romantic relationships—for very large numbers of people in the US is well documented. Perhaps it would be better to simply forbid the creation of such situations on the company dime.
dominotw 8y ago
> ~20% of cases What are the other factors. Are there any higher than 20%.
- will_brown 8y ago
  Be willing to bet more than alcohol a common factor would be men being the alleged perpetrator. Another would be the alleged perpetrators are probably in superior positions/title to the victims greater than 20% of the time.
- simlevesque 8y ago
  I'd bet that more than 20% are males.
- dahart 8y ago
  There have to be, but it might be hard to get data, and/or controversial/inflammatory to talk about it. I don’t know if Google will release any statistics on all the cases they know about, and I won’t hold my breath, but that would be pretty enlightening. Things that are likely well above 20% include men being the perp in much larger numbers than the company’s gender distribution (national stats are roughly 80/20 [1]), whether the perp is a higher rank and/or direct supervisor (national stats say this is ~40%, whether the victim was threatened, and what department the people were in. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#In_the_workplace https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#In_the_wor...
gnulinux 8y ago
I never drank at work, I don't understand why people do...
- ConcernedCoder 8y ago
  You've obviously never worked in customer service... I'm joking...well 1/2 joking anyway. (sigh)
- jrowley 8y ago
  When you're spending more time at work than at home, occasionally it's nice to have a beer at work. Don't get me wrong - I'd rather be at home, not working, drinking a beer but it's natural that drinking and work collide when you are working too much and are already stressed.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    This is a really good point. A lot of things are going to collide if people are working too much and stressed. The usual "best practice" advice on avoiding harassment is to not pursue romance at work... but how are folks supposed to do that if they don't have time to pursue it anywhere else? Alcohol might only be a minor contributing factor at that point.
- shaklee3 8y ago
  Because it's fun, and it's a good way to lighten the mood.
ryanianian 8y ago
A "two drink limit" fails to account for (1) how alcohol affects people differently since two drinks can make some people sloppy while others will hardly feel it and (2) the fact that alcohol usually only lasts about an hour per drink and many social events last a few hours. A couple drinks helps get me out of my own head enough to relax with co-workers. After a couple hours, the two beers have worn off and I usually want another one or two to keep my sociability going. I'd much prefer a policy where everyone gets to decide in advance how many drink tickets they want and perhaps say "these tickets aren't good until X time." This would help everyone to regulate their own intake, and it treats employees like adults capable of managing their own bodies while still addressing the issue of people over-consuming by accident or in an unaccountable manner.
- seth__ 8y ago
  >I'd much prefer a policy where everyone gets to decide in advance how many drink tickets they want Then you would get people like me, asking for lots of tickets as you can just discard those when you are done but you would not be able to ask for extra ones. At that point, you could just remove the ticket system as it doesn't work anymore
  - ryanianian 8y ago
    Sure but then if you over-indulge you're on record as someone who (1) requested way too many tickets and (2) wasn't capable of managing their own intake effectively or knowing their limits ahead of time. The goal is to help responsible adults remain responsible adults after a couple drinks when parts of your brain tell you to drink more than you know you should. The default of two drinks per night is a good starting point; my point is to let responsible adults decide for themselves ahead of time if more than two would be good for them.
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      honestly if you have a hard time sticking to two drinks at an event that could affect your livelihood, you probably just shouldn't drink. we don't need some rube goldberg system of drink metering. we need people to handle their own shit. if they actually behave badly you can always fire them.
monksy 8y ago
I'm not a fan of the prohibitionist policies. Finding people who can't control their behavior is good. I tend not to drink around work because of the expectation of professional behavior and I'm just uncomfortable around people I have a professional relationship. However, I've been at companies who have cut alcohol because a few people are sensitive. (I'm not referring to those who are alcoholics that have self-discipline issues) It's annoying.
BadassFractal 8y ago
The employees are both behaving like children AND being infantilized at the same time. How do you even get to that point?
ryanmarsh 8y ago
Why can't work just be a polite exchange of (various forms of) labor for money? I've been in consulting shops where the liquor flowed. I get it, it's fun but you can't run a large bureaucracy like you can a small tribe. Is that 20% of cases worth the presence of alcohol? Who would leave over removing alcohol from the office? Could that be for the better? Lastly, I'm not an alcoholic but I have friends who've struggled with it and my heart really goes out to them. Alcohol is everywhere at work functions and I think it's really insensitive. I could live the rest of my life and never have drinks be part of a professional function and be just fine.
walshemj 8y ago
I would have thought "bringing the company into disrepute" would have been enough.
harlanji 8y ago
I can't even identify when people are black out drunk, for some reason. There's not always a slur, and I probably keep enough distance to not smell it. But I've been surprised when a half hour into conversations people have told me they're drunk. Twice that I recall. On the flip side, people have made up stories of me being drunk after having 2 drinks, and my having had any drinks at all makes my side of the story have no credibility. No good. Like when a cop pulls you over and asks if you've had any drinks. So I'm all for getting booze out of the workplace. I'd had my consumption limited to 2 drinks for my past 4 jobs after being fired for saying obnoxious things while drunk. A company holiday party where the tequila was flowing was the only exception, but I kept the volume down that time. I deserved the firing, no complains there. It's my personality to say obnoxious things, having been raised on dark and vulgar comedy. My only way to joke around authentically now is without drinking, sadly, because of the nature of accusations against people who've been drinking. Just one example, I'm sure other people have personally entertaining activities that they always do but people think they must be drunk when they do it, no matter how sober. Dancing's another one... the more sober I am, the more people ask "bro, what are you on?" My twitter is a good example of what I feel free to say while sober. Reading it, you'd think I'm always drunk. I also am noticing after a year on break from drinking that all drinkers are mentally lazy to some degree, and some tell lies assuming that the other party won't notice and I'm likely guilty of that from my drinking days. It's like their memory isn't good so they assume nobody else's is, yet they claim perfect memory. A little meandering, I know... but overall I think a no alcohol policy would be great.
erwan 8y ago
A few years ago, I attended my company's happy hours. I was an intern and too young to drink at the time. There was an open bar and more or less everyone was intoxicated. I join a coworker and we start chatting. Fifteen minutes later, the office manager joins in, interrupting, and starts hitting on me in a pretty blunt way. I enjoy female attention but that was a bit much. I tactfully hint that I'm not interested but she doesn't picks it up so I leave early, a bit salty. The next morning I arrive to work and see an elevator about to close so I rush to catch it. She was inside! The following three minutes were the most awkward elevator ride in my life. I felt bad for her to be honest, maybe I shouldn't, but it must be so embarrassing when you sober up.
- golergka 8y ago
  That sounds like the most typical work party story ever. People make romantic advances, often can't judge the reaction correctly and it's awkward afterwards when everybody sobers up. It's much more awkward the next day after drunk sex in a deserted office though.
delhanty 8y ago
It definitely sounds like a step in the right direction. This is from Stephanie Hurlburt's Twitter a while back. Ah, game industry culture and drinking. I don’t drink. I also feel unsafe being in a mostly-male group when they’re all drinking. ... https://twitter.com/sehurlburt/status/999707171381100544 https://twitter.com/sehurlburt/status/999707171381100544
blinko12 8y ago
Whoa! Yes, that is a huge step in the right direction. As someone who spent a summer in college working for a prominent Silicon Valley startup with open bars and a frat-like culture... I had fun at the time, but in restrospect, that's no kind of work environment I'd want to stay in full time. And I imagine it would be very alienating as a woman.
brownbat 8y ago
Would be interesting to compare office drinking in other regions. I've heard stories about Korean chaebols that are hard to believe, but I'm sure there are intense workplace antipatterns worldwide.
punchingpeople 8y ago
This kind of mentality exasperates me to no end. I am a heavy drinker (never at work), and I hate it when people blame my behavior on my alcohol level. I always have to correct them, they are lucky I am drunk when bad things happen, I tend to be a very violent and horrible person when sober, for sure the outcome could be much worse. People should take responsibility for their behavior without blaming substances.
- acjohnson55 8y ago
  You may be more placid when under the influence, but most people are more volatile, more impulsive, and more likely to make bad decisions. Being sober doesn't make people better, but it does make them less likely to do something harmful to others, statistically speaking.
- scythe 8y ago
  I love drinking as much as the next guy, but if you're a "horrible person" when sober, you might be an alcoholic.
deleted 8y ago
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antaviana 8y ago
In the early 90s, I was told by an IBMer in the US that if he was cought drinking beer in lunch time (even outside in a restaurant), he could be fired, no question asked. Apparently it was a paternalistic policy that came directly from Watson, who not only banned alcohol during work time including lunch, but also paid the wage on Monday to somehow honder spending it all in alcohol over the weekend.

philip1209 8y ago

Why not just ban alcohol at work? Why can't work be work, and social stuff can happen outside of it? I know it sounds a bit extreme. But, after reading "It doesn't have to be crazy it work," I feel like companies use alcohol to bribe employees to stay at the office after-hours. A midground would be drinking only with sit-down food. Nobody is doing shots while having dinner. Another idea could be making company social functions a lunch activity, rather than a dinner one.

savanaly 8y ago
>Why not just ban alcohol at work? Why can't work be work, and social stuff can happen outside of it? I see this sentiment a lot (especially on HN!) and I share it. I usually skip team dinners when I can. But there's no accounting for taste, and humans in general seem to have a taste for mixing work and "social stuff", so why shouldn't companies encourage it in that capacity?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- philipodonnell 8y ago
  We already single out certain social things as just not a good idea in the workplace/events even though its common socially: public displays of affection, having lots of kids around, single-sex activities... Its isolating/disruptive if you can't/won't take part. Its unfair when based on things not in the job description (relationships/kids/gender respectively). I don't see why alcohol (excludes non-drinkers) or team-building activities outside of business hours (excludes those with family commitments) couldn't be one of those things.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    By the time you've excluded all the possible activities that someone could find isolating, you've got a pretty boring work environment. Here's the box you will be working in. Don't forget to turn off the light when you leave Friday.
    - ben509 8y ago
      Where do I sign up?!
    - myle 8y ago
      That's OK. We are also supposed to have private life. If work is not fun enough without those events, maybe it is not fun in general.
      - barrow-rider 8y ago
        I'll take it a step further -- why does work need to be fun? It's my meal ticket, not my hobby; it needs to be tolerable. The "fun at work" meme is, IMO, a way to keep people in the office longer a la the GOOOOG's Gilded Cage.
        8y ago
tdb7893 8y ago
Having a beer is I engrained in American work culture. Also I've worked at multiple companies where they had work functions at dinnertime and no one got that drunk (generally there were 2 drink maximums, which probably helped) so it's definitely possible to fix the issue without just banning it
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Having a beer is I engrained in American work culture Ummm... no, it's not. Having had dozens of jobs in five industries over the decades, I've never worked for one where drinking on company time isn't a fireable offense. The only exceptions were at the company Christmas parties, and overnight DJ's who were tolerated doing lines of coke off of CD cases. But that's another problem altogether.
  - tdb7893 8y ago
    I'll concede that maybe America is too broad to generalize here but the point still stands that you don't need to completely disallow alcohol to have people not really drunk at basic work functions
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    Definitely not. I am currently in an industry where getting drunk off the job can (eventually) get you fired. Mostly because drunkards are potential security threats with a well-proven recipe for developing and exploiting the opening. Our Christmas parties are as boring as a carbide drill bit.
  - amatecha 8y ago
    "Beer o'clock", typically on a Friday afternoon, is a very common phenomenon in North American software & game companies. :)
    - int_19h 8y ago
      That's exactly the point - it's common in software, but virtually unheard of everywhere else. So it's the software industry that's out of touch with the broader American work culture here.
reaperducer 8y ago
I know it sounds a bit extreme. Not extreme at all. Except for salespeople having business lunches, in the United States, drinking on company time is pretty much verboten outside of the tech bubble.
- dec0dedab0de 8y ago
  in the United States, drinking on company time is pretty much verboten outside of the tech bubble. I don't think this is true, especially for company parties. I have also heard of people in other industries drinking in the office, usually these were smaller companies, or the people doing the drinking were upper management.
- philip1209 8y ago
  WeWork banned meat at company events or on company expense accounts [1]. Would it be that hard to do something similar for alcohol? Then, bringing it back to Google, if people misbehave after having alcohol - then they bought the drinks, and came to a company event while intoxicated. When I was at OpenDNS, @davidu used to say something along the lines of, "When you try to host a big company party with over 100 people, you expect to have to fire somebody for their behavior there. Don't be that person." Maybe the costs don't outweigh the benefits of work parties. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/wework-meat-events-expense-ban https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/wework-m...
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Wow, WeWork won't even allow employees to expense meals that have meat in them?! That's ridiculous. The environmental situation with beef is a little more complex than "less beef eaten -> fewer cows -> less methane -> less climate change." What's even more ridiculous is that beef is the costly meat from an environmental perspective, but they've also banned poultry and all other types of meat. I can understand not serving meat, but not allowing employees to expense meals involving meat would make me reconsider working there - especially because of the heavy handed way they did it.
    - deleted 8y ago
misiti3780 8y ago
Why not NOT ban alcohol at work, and when an employee fucks up, just fire him ? Is that really not a solution here ? at the end of the day, people should be accountable for their own actions, and i should not be punished if i want to have a beer after working hours with colleagues because a tiny minority of people at my company cant drinking responsibly
- RankingMember 8y ago
  I agree, though I think a warning for a first offense is more reasonable. It seems like every company would rather set policy based on the worst possible interpretation rather than leaving things a little looser and dealing with problems/oversteppers directly.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    I don't know. It seems like either you're responsible for your behavior, or you are not. Having a first-offense warning just shows that the company isn't really serious about dealing with the problem.
    - Aloha 8y ago
      Zero Tolerance Policies, generally also mean Zero Thinking Policies. The punishment should fit the crime, and most situations are warrant only a warning or a minor punishment - and if behavior improves, all is well.
      - mcguire 8y ago
        We seem to be backing off of the whole "personal responsibility" thing. If you start off with the policy that "we trust all of our employees to behave like mature adults" and they don't, they've demonstrated that you can't trust them, no? If you have that policy and then start down the road of first-offense warnings, or trying to match the punishment to the crime, you end up in exactly the place where a lot of companies are now. (This isn't a new idea; it's how companies have always operated.) Without a specific set of policies, the company literally cannot do anything right: If you fire someone because his coworkers say they cannot work with him, everyone starts frothing at the mouth. If you pay someone else to leave because he's too important to fire, everyone digs out their pitchforks and torches. If you do nothing, it blows up in your face, spectacularly.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Most employers don't allow drinking at work. Some allow it at company events, provided it doesn't become a problem. The funny thing is about a lot of Silicon Valley companies, I think, is that they decided in their attempt to reinvent work that they'd throw out a couple hundred years of learned experience on what does and doesn't work in a corporate setting. The "fun places to work" eventually figure out that fun for some is often at the expense of others, and that most things corporate environments have ruled out were ruled out a long time ago because they didn't work well.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ppod 8y ago
  Ever worked in the UK or Europe? Some things are culturally particular.
Kiro 8y ago
Social stuff should be banned.
zaroth 8y ago
Feel free to ban anything you want at work. And the people who work there will select for if they want to be a part of it by becoming or remaining employees. (There are, of course, things that are illegal to ban) I personally want to work somewhere who values me as a responsible human being, and expects me to behave like one. The more a workplace feels like they have to micromanage their employees like children, the more I would expect their workplace to be filled with people who act like children. And I personally wouldn’t want to work somewhere like that. Hire intelligent, respectful, ethical, empathetic, mature adults to do interesting work. Fire the ones who don’t live up to it. I expect workplace requirements to be spelled out in terms of expected behavior, expected performance, expected results. Define the outputs. And take responsibility up the chain. IMO the right policy is not to ban alcohol entirely. Rather, if an employee behaves inappropriately the employee is responsible, but if the manager created the environment which lead to the behavior (whether that be approving the purchase of a keg and cheering for a keg stand, or not stopping that engineer from being verbally abusive at the daily stand ups) the manager is also held to account.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  The positive aspect of banning alcohol consumption is that it's an objective measure. If somebody is a drunken lout pawing his employees, save the victim more exposure by drumming him out for the alcohol. With the possible exception of salespeople entertaining clients, there's no need to drink on duty, and if you do, there is a consequence.
  - Benjammer 8y ago
    I don't think the parent comment is at all disagreeing with the existence of any utility in "banning alcohol" here. The gist of what the parent comment is saying, is that, if you have a policy in place to "compensate" for a certain "negative trait," what you are actually doing is inviting _more_ of that trait, because you are signaling that your company will put effort in to help deal with that, which means that someone who needs help monitoring their alcohol consumption would be _more likely_ to work for you, thus accomplishing essentially the opposite of what you wanted. Mature adults who do _not_ need someone else to monitor their alcohol consumption are far more likely to inherently present with the responsible, adult behaviors that you desire. But, a mature adult who can already sufficiently moderate their own alcohol consumption is going to be _less likely_ to want to work at a place where said consumption is heavily, outwardly regulated/enforced, because why would they want to be constantly told something that they have already fully incorporated into their mature, adult habits and personality?
cpeterso 8y ago
An incremental step would be for a company to not pay for alcohol. Don't allow employees to expense alcohol. For catered company events, the company could charge people per alcoholic drink or just not serve any.
x0x0 8y ago
The policy includes attending google-related events. Not being able to have a beer at a mixer at a conference Google sent you to or sponsored is a pretty shit limitation. Not being able to have a beer at lunch or dinner is also pretty crummy, because the vast majority of people are adults and comport themselves accordingly.
spurgu 8y ago
20 percent.... it's hardly the main issue.
JJMcJ 8y ago
Once upon a time, most companies banned alcohol completely from worksites, and certainly for company meetings, except for offsites like picnics and dinners and parties.
habosa 8y ago
[Googler here] We have much less company-provided alcohol at work than most tech companies that I'm aware of. Mostly beers once a week, and most people don't participate. This change is mostly talking about work social events that take place off site. My team's company holiday party last year was piloting this and gave each person two drink tickets upon entering. I think banning alcohol completely would reduce the attendance of these social events, so this is a good step where we can keep the social benefits without letting it get out of hand. For instance the holiday party I mentioned was on a Friday night. I really enjoy having a few drinks on a Friday night, and I'm much more likely to attend a Google party with 2 drinks tickets than one with zero. I know that sounds silly and immature, but it's honest.
- fhdhehfhzhe 8y ago
  Wow, piloting a program for drink tickets?! Crazy! My team at OtherBigCo did that a decade ago...
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  piloting? drink tickets have been a thing at google since 2005 ish
  - habosa 8y ago
    Huh that's interesting! Been here for ~5 years and this drink ticket thing is only ~1yr old in my experience.
BrandoElFollito 8y ago
It also depends on the culture of the country. In France it is common to have a small party (pot) during work hours when some people would have one drink. Max two. These also can be at the end of the day but then usually this is by someone who is leaving.

jklinger410 8y ago

Kind of a step backwards in terms of accountability, no? Scapegoating alcohol seems like an excuse and really is like babysitting your adult employees. My view - Drink as much alcohol as you like! And if you imbibe too much, and do stupid things, that shows deficient decision making abilities, and you aren't fit to work here.

docker_up 8y ago
Unless you are an alcoholic, and you literally can't control yourself. Then parading out alcohol and then punishing her by firing her for not being able to control herself seems a bit unfair.
- xkcd-sucks 8y ago
  That would sound like a case where the employee could disclose her alcoholism as a disability, and request the "reasonable accommodation" that no work events she is required to attend have alcohol. Then, if it can be demonstrated that she's actually required to go to a drinking event, gets trashed and acts an ass, she's got a wrongful termination claim. IANAL of course
  - zbentley 8y ago
    Many substance-abuse disorders are not treated as special-accommodation-worthy (in courts often or by HR departments by policy) in the the US. Alcoholism is one such example (Alcohol Abuse Disorder is not a qualifier for disability status without additional presenting symptoms, or exceptional luck during disability determination). That reality, and the reality of addiction, presents a few problems for the hypothetical employee here: - Attending work events that do have alcohol may cause them to endure a great deal of hardship (talk to a recently-abstinent alcoholic if you doubt this). - Addiction has no conclusive test or diagnosis--AAD and other indicators are often not present in people who enter rehab, or in people whose substance abuse is identified as a primary motivator for criminal behavior by courts. This means that "getting trashed and acting like an ass", for "real addicts" (whatever that means, which is a troublesome qualifier to add in and of itself) is difficult to prove to be the fault of the company providing alcohol, and for non-addicts is a convenient out (if provided to the former group). - "Actually required to go to an event" is another troublesome category. Many events aren't "required" . . . unless you want to get promoted/not eventually get fired in favor of someone who attended. I don't propose some legal solution to this (everything I can think of would effectively be thought-policing), but it's an important ambiguity to acknowledge. - Even if a humane HR/management department exists to whom the hypothetical employee could disclose their condition as a disability, and even if that department lobbied the employee's managers/colleagues to prevent addiction from being a disadvantage to their career, that would still likely result in either a breach of that employee's privacy or eventual prejudice seeping in (e.g. via turnover inside HR) regardless. Not good. - If those recourses fail, and the employee ends up before the courts pleading wrongful-termination or equivalent based on their addiction, the (at least state) US court system and arbitration organizations are notoriously inconsistent and prejudiced against claims of addiction as any sort of mitigating or complicating circumstance. A company interested in preserving the autonomy, promotability, and dignity of addicted employees would likely view the courts as something the employee in question should be kept away from for their own benefit. There are many other considerations. Now, many of those apply to any uncommon disability condition, and it could be argued that below a certain point a very few employees' accommodations should not ruin the fun for everyone else. Even if you buy that argument, the incidence of addiction/substance-abuse related serious lifestyle trouble—principally at work or in romantic relationships—for very large numbers of people in the US is well documented. Perhaps it would be better to simply forbid the creation of such situations on the company dime.

dominotw 8y ago

> ~20% of cases What are the other factors. Are there any higher than 20%.

will_brown 8y ago
Be willing to bet more than alcohol a common factor would be men being the alleged perpetrator. Another would be the alleged perpetrators are probably in superior positions/title to the victims greater than 20% of the time.
simlevesque 8y ago
I'd bet that more than 20% are males.
dahart 8y ago
There have to be, but it might be hard to get data, and/or controversial/inflammatory to talk about it. I don’t know if Google will release any statistics on all the cases they know about, and I won’t hold my breath, but that would be pretty enlightening. Things that are likely well above 20% include men being the perp in much larger numbers than the company’s gender distribution (national stats are roughly 80/20 [1]), whether the perp is a higher rank and/or direct supervisor (national stats say this is ~40%, whether the victim was threatened, and what department the people were in. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#In_the_workplace https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#In_the_wor...

gnulinux 8y ago

I never drank at work, I don't understand why people do...

ConcernedCoder 8y ago
You've obviously never worked in customer service... I'm joking...well 1/2 joking anyway. (sigh)
jrowley 8y ago
When you're spending more time at work than at home, occasionally it's nice to have a beer at work. Don't get me wrong - I'd rather be at home, not working, drinking a beer but it's natural that drinking and work collide when you are working too much and are already stressed.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  This is a really good point. A lot of things are going to collide if people are working too much and stressed. The usual "best practice" advice on avoiding harassment is to not pursue romance at work... but how are folks supposed to do that if they don't have time to pursue it anywhere else? Alcohol might only be a minor contributing factor at that point.
shaklee3 8y ago
Because it's fun, and it's a good way to lighten the mood.

ryanianian 8y ago

A "two drink limit" fails to account for (1) how alcohol affects people differently since two drinks can make some people sloppy while others will hardly feel it and (2) the fact that alcohol usually only lasts about an hour per drink and many social events last a few hours. A couple drinks helps get me out of my own head enough to relax with co-workers. After a couple hours, the two beers have worn off and I usually want another one or two to keep my sociability going. I'd much prefer a policy where everyone gets to decide in advance how many drink tickets they want and perhaps say "these tickets aren't good until X time." This would help everyone to regulate their own intake, and it treats employees like adults capable of managing their own bodies while still addressing the issue of people over-consuming by accident or in an unaccountable manner.

seth__ 8y ago
>I'd much prefer a policy where everyone gets to decide in advance how many drink tickets they want Then you would get people like me, asking for lots of tickets as you can just discard those when you are done but you would not be able to ask for extra ones. At that point, you could just remove the ticket system as it doesn't work anymore
- ryanianian 8y ago
  Sure but then if you over-indulge you're on record as someone who (1) requested way too many tickets and (2) wasn't capable of managing their own intake effectively or knowing their limits ahead of time. The goal is to help responsible adults remain responsible adults after a couple drinks when parts of your brain tell you to drink more than you know you should. The default of two drinks per night is a good starting point; my point is to let responsible adults decide for themselves ahead of time if more than two would be good for them.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    honestly if you have a hard time sticking to two drinks at an event that could affect your livelihood, you probably just shouldn't drink. we don't need some rube goldberg system of drink metering. we need people to handle their own shit. if they actually behave badly you can always fire them.

monksy 8y ago

I'm not a fan of the prohibitionist policies. Finding people who can't control their behavior is good. I tend not to drink around work because of the expectation of professional behavior and I'm just uncomfortable around people I have a professional relationship. However, I've been at companies who have cut alcohol because a few people are sensitive. (I'm not referring to those who are alcoholics that have self-discipline issues) It's annoying.

BadassFractal 8y ago

The employees are both behaving like children AND being infantilized at the same time. How do you even get to that point?

ryanmarsh 8y ago

Why can't work just be a polite exchange of (various forms of) labor for money? I've been in consulting shops where the liquor flowed. I get it, it's fun but you can't run a large bureaucracy like you can a small tribe. Is that 20% of cases worth the presence of alcohol? Who would leave over removing alcohol from the office? Could that be for the better? Lastly, I'm not an alcoholic but I have friends who've struggled with it and my heart really goes out to them. Alcohol is everywhere at work functions and I think it's really insensitive. I could live the rest of my life and never have drinks be part of a professional function and be just fine.

walshemj 8y ago

I would have thought "bringing the company into disrepute" would have been enough.

harlanji 8y ago

I can't even identify when people are black out drunk, for some reason. There's not always a slur, and I probably keep enough distance to not smell it. But I've been surprised when a half hour into conversations people have told me they're drunk. Twice that I recall. On the flip side, people have made up stories of me being drunk after having 2 drinks, and my having had any drinks at all makes my side of the story have no credibility. No good. Like when a cop pulls you over and asks if you've had any drinks. So I'm all for getting booze out of the workplace. I'd had my consumption limited to 2 drinks for my past 4 jobs after being fired for saying obnoxious things while drunk. A company holiday party where the tequila was flowing was the only exception, but I kept the volume down that time. I deserved the firing, no complains there. It's my personality to say obnoxious things, having been raised on dark and vulgar comedy. My only way to joke around authentically now is without drinking, sadly, because of the nature of accusations against people who've been drinking. Just one example, I'm sure other people have personally entertaining activities that they always do but people think they must be drunk when they do it, no matter how sober. Dancing's another one... the more sober I am, the more people ask "bro, what are you on?" My twitter is a good example of what I feel free to say while sober. Reading it, you'd think I'm always drunk. I also am noticing after a year on break from drinking that all drinkers are mentally lazy to some degree, and some tell lies assuming that the other party won't notice and I'm likely guilty of that from my drinking days. It's like their memory isn't good so they assume nobody else's is, yet they claim perfect memory. A little meandering, I know... but overall I think a no alcohol policy would be great.

erwan 8y ago

A few years ago, I attended my company's happy hours. I was an intern and too young to drink at the time. There was an open bar and more or less everyone was intoxicated. I join a coworker and we start chatting. Fifteen minutes later, the office manager joins in, interrupting, and starts hitting on me in a pretty blunt way. I enjoy female attention but that was a bit much. I tactfully hint that I'm not interested but she doesn't picks it up so I leave early, a bit salty. The next morning I arrive to work and see an elevator about to close so I rush to catch it. She was inside! The following three minutes were the most awkward elevator ride in my life. I felt bad for her to be honest, maybe I shouldn't, but it must be so embarrassing when you sober up.

golergka 8y ago
That sounds like the most typical work party story ever. People make romantic advances, often can't judge the reaction correctly and it's awkward afterwards when everybody sobers up. It's much more awkward the next day after drunk sex in a deserted office though.

delhanty 8y ago

It definitely sounds like a step in the right direction. This is from Stephanie Hurlburt's Twitter a while back. Ah, game industry culture and drinking. I don’t drink. I also feel unsafe being in a mostly-male group when they’re all drinking. ... https://twitter.com/sehurlburt/status/999707171381100544 https://twitter.com/sehurlburt/status/999707171381100544

blinko12 8y ago

Whoa! Yes, that is a huge step in the right direction. As someone who spent a summer in college working for a prominent Silicon Valley startup with open bars and a frat-like culture... I had fun at the time, but in restrospect, that's no kind of work environment I'd want to stay in full time. And I imagine it would be very alienating as a woman.

brownbat 8y ago

Would be interesting to compare office drinking in other regions. I've heard stories about Korean chaebols that are hard to believe, but I'm sure there are intense workplace antipatterns worldwide.

punchingpeople 8y ago

This kind of mentality exasperates me to no end. I am a heavy drinker (never at work), and I hate it when people blame my behavior on my alcohol level. I always have to correct them, they are lucky I am drunk when bad things happen, I tend to be a very violent and horrible person when sober, for sure the outcome could be much worse. People should take responsibility for their behavior without blaming substances.

acjohnson55 8y ago
You may be more placid when under the influence, but most people are more volatile, more impulsive, and more likely to make bad decisions. Being sober doesn't make people better, but it does make them less likely to do something harmful to others, statistically speaking.
scythe 8y ago
I love drinking as much as the next guy, but if you're a "horrible person" when sober, you might be an alcoholic.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

antaviana 8y ago

In the early 90s, I was told by an IBMer in the US that if he was cought drinking beer in lunch time (even outside in a restaurant), he could be fired, no question asked. Apparently it was a paternalistic policy that came directly from Watson, who not only banned alcohol during work time including lunch, but also paid the wage on Monday to somehow honder spending it all in alcohol over the weekend.