12 ms·

I remember this, back when I was working in the 90s, I worked with some ex BT engineers, they would go to the pub practically every lunch time. I soon learned t

I remember this, back when I was working in the 90s, I worked with some ex BT engineers, they would go to the pub practically every lunch time. I soon learned to curtail it myself as I found myself coming across as overly aggressive in emails. After that, I got a job where my mentor was a borderline alcoholic, we were always travelling for work, he would take customers out for long lunches pretty much every day, 3-4 pints was normal, then, in the evenings, he always seemed to know a pub where he could get a lock in, I was hungover a lot of the time.

travisjungroth 4y ago
"Bordline alcoholic..." Sometimes I'm just impressed by people who can drink that much and hold down a job, especially past the age of 25. Assuming the neighborhood fireworks stop within an hour, I'll get about six hours of sober sleep. I already know tomorrow will be a little tougher. I can't imagine going from lunch to lock-in and then going to work the next day.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > I can't imagine going from lunch to lock-in and then going to work the next day. For a very long time in history, the pace of work was more tolerable: most in the "upper chain" were people who worked the shit jobs at the beginning of their careers themselves instead of by clueless MBAs who joined management right after university, had utterly no idea what the worker base was doing and only were able to crunch numbers and rule by fear. Also, there usually was no computerized database or other way on which to track efficiency of workers, which means that the expected pace was effectively set by the workers themselves - and they accounted for having had a couple beers the night before, since that was was everyone did, and no one wanted to be the one arsehole that ratted out everyone else to management. The first change was anything that could be industrialized, where the pace of work was dictated by the machines, which obviously led to (sometimes extremely violent) strikes and literal labor fights. Classic trades and office jobs still ran under the "old order of things" for decades. And then, maybe a decade ago, the age of IT began - now everyone and their dog employs efficiency-gaming at all parts of the chain, and here we have a problem for the mentioned old guard. Obviously, a part of the "efficiency gains" of the last decades was cutting down on actual laziness or on mind-blowingly complex processes. But the way things are going, I think people will want an "out" to better times in the past - basically, capitalism is once again going to discover it the hard way that people are humans, not machines, and as such need frequent downtime to mentally relax, even if it's just a beer or cigarette breaks.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  When you are used to it a couple of pints won’t even phase you. As a consultant I remember going out to have drinks with my coworker around 8pm and going back to the office at 11pm to finish a presentation. It was very much business as usual but to be honest I was basically working all the time when I was not partying. Some of the people there clearly were bordering functional alcoholism but that was part of the culture.

travisjungroth 4y ago

"Bordline alcoholic..." Sometimes I'm just impressed by people who can drink that much and hold down a job, especially past the age of 25. Assuming the neighborhood fireworks stop within an hour, I'll get about six hours of sober sleep. I already know tomorrow will be a little tougher. I can't imagine going from lunch to lock-in and then going to work the next day.

mschuster91 4y ago
> I can't imagine going from lunch to lock-in and then going to work the next day. For a very long time in history, the pace of work was more tolerable: most in the "upper chain" were people who worked the shit jobs at the beginning of their careers themselves instead of by clueless MBAs who joined management right after university, had utterly no idea what the worker base was doing and only were able to crunch numbers and rule by fear. Also, there usually was no computerized database or other way on which to track efficiency of workers, which means that the expected pace was effectively set by the workers themselves - and they accounted for having had a couple beers the night before, since that was was everyone did, and no one wanted to be the one arsehole that ratted out everyone else to management. The first change was anything that could be industrialized, where the pace of work was dictated by the machines, which obviously led to (sometimes extremely violent) strikes and literal labor fights. Classic trades and office jobs still ran under the "old order of things" for decades. And then, maybe a decade ago, the age of IT began - now everyone and their dog employs efficiency-gaming at all parts of the chain, and here we have a problem for the mentioned old guard. Obviously, a part of the "efficiency gains" of the last decades was cutting down on actual laziness or on mind-blowingly complex processes. But the way things are going, I think people will want an "out" to better times in the past - basically, capitalism is once again going to discover it the hard way that people are humans, not machines, and as such need frequent downtime to mentally relax, even if it's just a beer or cigarette breaks.
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
When you are used to it a couple of pints won’t even phase you. As a consultant I remember going out to have drinks with my coworker around 8pm and going back to the office at 11pm to finish a presentation. It was very much business as usual but to be honest I was basically working all the time when I was not partying. Some of the people there clearly were bordering functional alcoholism but that was part of the culture.