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Presumably it's entrenched by convention because it's a successful practice; organizations that do it are in some small way more successful than ones that don't
by ahupp 6y ago
Presumably it's entrenched by convention because it's a successful practice; organizations that do it are in some small way more successful than ones that don't. I doubt that is true for amphetamines.
I don't know about offering cigarettes, but I've definitely been in environments where smoke breaks were an effective way of building connections across the organization.
- RodgerTheGreat 6y agoWould you feel the same way about "successful practices" which discriminate against employees on the basis of race, sex, or religious preferences? There are plenty of commonplace social practices which do not benefit employees or society. The mere presence of a feature does not prove that it is adaptive.
- distant_hat 6y agoBut they do benefit employees. I am not a smoker but a number of people in a former company were and they shared a camaraderie that if you didn't hang out with them you wouldn't get. It also cut across levels, so you could be an intern and it was an easy time to hang out with some mid level manager and get noticed.
- sukilot 6y agoHuh? Amphetamines are extremely popular in successful organizations, from banking to biking to booking (college studies).
- ahupp 6y agoFor sure, but I'm not so sure they would be net-positive for an organization. Plenty of people can't take them in a sustainable way, and if they were given out like beer at happy hour I think a lot of folks would go off the rails. My last employer offered an on-site therapy benefit and I sometimes wondered whether we'd see a progression from therapy -> on-site psychiatry -> little nudges to take ADHD tests -> everyone is taking Adderall.
- monadic2 6y agoOf course it's successful to intentionally manipulate you with alcohol. Just because you can explain a phenomenon does not justify it; that's just giving up on the concept of "values" altogether.