6 ms·

Beer

92 points by mathattack 13y ago

bennyg 13y ago
Probably not great in the office, but having a nice craft beer shouldn't be discouraged - it opens up the thoughts, creates an aura of relaxation and can promote conversation and creative collaboration pretty damn fast. Not everything must be productive, productive, productive all of the damn time. Creative thoughts are an important part of the ability to execute them. Just relax and have a beer every now and then.
- mathattack 13y ago
  At my prior employer, there was a legend of two guys who wrote the companies email system (before commercial packages were available) in 6 weeks. There method was to hit a pub for 4 hour design sessions every few days, followed by a few days of marathon coding. As soon as they'd get stuck, back to the pub. This was an uber-conservative employer, so beer in the office would have been cause for celebration. I'm with you that if you're going to have beer in the office, it should be good beer. A trend I've seen lately is scotch at work. It's more an end of the day relaxer than anything else. I've seen both sides of the argument, and don't have a definitive opinion. If it works, keep doing it. If not, don't. If beer in the office costs you employees, don't have it. If beer in the office cuts your turnover, it's cheaper than hiring new people.
  - xentronium 13y ago
    > A trend I've seen lately is scotch at work. Watching Mad Men I always wondered whatever happened to strong beverages in the offices. Was it cultural? Have people decided that drinking during workday is faux pas? Was it some campaign against alcohol, similar to what happened to tobacco?
bosstwizz 13y ago
Buzzkill.
blueblob 13y ago
I'm a student so take it with a grain of salt, but when I have precisely 1 beer, I tend to be a little more relaxed and program better. That being said, I wouldn't want to have beer constantly available, especially at work.
- hijinks 13y ago
  It's not as bad as you think. I work at a place with a fridge full of craft beers but the culture is really in place that we do beers late Friday afternoons for a time when the company can all hangout and talk. I've also worked at a place full of Russians where my boss would randomly show up at 11am and ask if I wanted to help drink cognac with him.
badman_ting 13y ago
I work at a place that doesn't have beer on tap, but people will frequently have beers in meetings on Friday afternoons. Which never really struck me as a "fratty" thing to do. It would be interesting if places switched to wine, then the frat angle would be a lot more incongruous. But probably other problems would result :)
- tptacek 13y ago
  Drinking glasses of beer from a tap during a working meeting sounds very frat-y to me, and I'm a drinker.
  - badman_ting 13y ago
    I mentioned the wine thing because I wonder how much of this is about the alcohol, and how much is about self-consciously avoiding the "aesthetic" (such as it is) of the frat house. You specifically mention glasses of beer from a tap, and I wonder why. It seems like it shouldn't matter if the beers are fancy stuff from Whole Foods (which is what happens here), or crappy stuff from a tap. But I guess it does.
  - oh_sigh 13y ago
    Okay. Now we have two opinions.
jiggy2011 13y ago
Amongst companies that keep beer on premesis what is the culture surrounding it? If you come into work on monday morning and everyone is already onto their 3rd Carlsberg export by 12:30 then I can see why that might cause problems. OTOH companies that I've worked at that have kept beer in the fridge it has always been something that might be enjoyed with lunch on a friday or at 7PM when one has stayed a little late finishing some milestone on a project before heading home (assuming they are not driving).
- mathattack 13y ago
  At my current employer, there's rarely a lot of beer in the fridge, and people won't grab one before 4:30 or 5:00 or early in the week. Outside of interns, the people most likely to grab 1 or 2 are the hardest workers in the office.
  - dfxm12 13y ago
    Are you implying your interns are the hardest workers (aside from those who grab 1 or 2 beers) or are you implying that interns grab 1 or 2 beers, just like your hardest workers?
    - mathattack 13y ago
      The latter. We actively discourage interns from doing overtime.
      - dfxm12 13y ago
        So now you are implying "working hard" means working more hours? sheesh...
- bbarn 13y ago
  It's been present in the last three places I've worked. At one, it was definitely the "after 4 on Fridays" type of thing (115 person company at the time), at another it was the "start at lunch and go till the end of the day" type (8 employees, bad work environment outside of the beer), and at the last, it was pretty much in the fridge and the same regular group would grab one at 3 or 4 every few days or so.
Karunamon 13y ago
FTFA: It’s a recipe for mixed signals, disagreements, misunderstandings. So are endless meetings, endless emails, emergencies at 4:55p on a Friday, upper management, the phase of the moon, and tidal activity. We get it. Your vision of "professional" explicitly doesn't allow for any kind of alcohol ever, but how about not dictating that for everyone else, eh?
- tptacek 13y ago
  You are responding to the tone of the post and to your presumption of who the author is and what they represent, but you're not really responding to the message of the post.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    That's exactly my point. The message of the post of the author's opinion. There's no message to respond to because you can't argue with an opinion.
tptacek 13y ago
Is the subtext here about hostile frat culture, or, worse, about harassment? That's what I think it is. Like a lot of things, I think beer is fine if you're adult about it. We've got quite a lot of beer in our Chicago office (we haul crates from Russian River and Three Floyds and Jolly Pumpkin). But nobody drinks while they work, and nobody drinks whole bottles; we open a bottle and a bunch of people taste. If it's Friday, we might open a couple bottles. I can't imagine this creating a problem. For one thing, nobody's getting drunk. For another, nobody is OK with disrupting anyone else's work. And finally, I don't think many people here would be sanguine about seeing someone get harassed. On the other hand, maybe that's because so many of us are parents. Maybe there's an argument that your culture needs to be mature enough to handle beer, and maybe there's an argument that if you've got kegs and people are drinking during the working afternoon, that's a sign that maybe the maturity isn't there.
- mathattack 13y ago
  Perhaps there's a difference in culture between bottles versus kegs? The former suggests restraint, the latter doesn't?
  - JTon 13y ago
    I agree with this. And as a side note, it brings me back to the days where my student house would come together to try and finish a torpedo keg. We always failed our mission. But I believe we came out the other end closer friends
  - lazerwalker 13y ago
    It all depends on the context. Out of the beer-friendly offices I've worked in, I've preferred the ones that have kegerators because it means I can pour myself half a beer at 5pm instead of going for a full 12oz.
  - rev_null 13y ago
    A really classy startup would stock wine, or perhaps a collection of single malt whiskeys.
  - 13y ago
lmm 13y ago
Fuck that shit. I like beer. If I have a choice between a job where it's supplied and a job where it isn't, guess which I'm going to choose. You say "investors aren't backing frat houses", but they must be seeing decent returns from companies with a beer supply or they wouldn't be funding them.
- mathattack 13y ago
  This seems to be the best argument for it. Or rather - would you leave a place that had beer for one that didn't?
- kylec 13y ago
  This is exactly why companies provide it. Like programminggeek said, it's a signal that they're trying to look cool. They would probably prefer if you didn't actually use it (impaired mental function, cost of operation, etc), but simply having it attracts and retains employees like you. There's beer on tap in my office, but I never actually see anyone have any at their desk or during the day. I've only ever seen people drinking at the end of the day before going home.
drtse4 13y ago
Maybe it's because i'm european and not living in the US, but this kegerator in the office thing looks like something that gets old fast. The first weeks it may sound fun, beer in the office, branded beer glasses,etc... but i don't understand how someone could care as the novelty wears of. And i hope i don't need to comment on that "devs need beer" thing, c'mon, childish stuff. Does a subset of the employee likes beer? Ok, let's go outside to taste some nice craft beer after work. I don't see anything wrong with that.
- jemka 13y ago
  Alcohol makes me sleepy and lose the ability to concentrate. I have no idea why people enjoy drinking when they're trying to get stuff done. Especially if any of that "stuff" requires significant brain power.
  - oh_sigh 13y ago
    Maybe because different people react differently. That might be it.
- dfxm12 13y ago
  It has nothing to do with being European. My (multinational) company has offices in the US and Belgium. There's beer on tap in Belgium, and not in the US. Every time I visit, my colleagues in Europe always make a big stink like "how do you get stuff done over there with no beer?"
  - bbarn 13y ago
    I worked for a company based in Germany, and when I'd go visit I remember the big bottles of beer in the cafeteria. I think the whole time I was there I witnessed maybe 2-3 people ever drink a beer outside of the Wednesday weisswurst lunch day (You want to talk about workplace culture being oppressive try to eat that awful stuff). It wasn't especially prohibited, it just didn't seem like anyone did it. Now, the minute we were off work, I could find half the company at the same bar in the city having a great time together nearly every day of the week.
programminggeek 13y ago
Beer in the office is not something anybody needs and yes it requires a level of responsibility about how you use it, I would argue the same thing is true of having free soda in terms of the long term health of people in the office. I'm a guy and I could care less about if there is beer or not in the office. If anything it's a signal that the company is trying to look cool. It doesn't mean that the company is in fact a cool place to work. Also, it is completely sexist to say that beer is the fault of guys or that it is keeping women away. The place where I worked where they had beer on tap, just as many women drank as men. Many of the women were as vocal about supporting the beer keg as the guys were, so even though it is popular to claim that it's a gender thing, it's not. Some people like beer in the office some don't. I don't think gender has a lot to do with it. Alcohol consumption is very much a personal preference that doesn't correlate well with gender from what I can tell.
- tehwalrus 13y ago
  Sure, it's not necessarily sexist (although it may happen to appeal to more women than men in job adverts). But, alcohol and soda are not on a par - only one impairs your ability to think, act and discuss properly[1]. [1] yeah yeah tolerances, but ultimately it's wearing down peoples inhibitions - we're definitely more likely to be rude (or accidentally rude) when drunk.
jlarocco 13y ago
Seems like a non-issue to me. If a person doesn't want beer, they don't have to drink it. As long as everybody is getting their work done and not getting drunk, who cares? Soda and junk food aren't great either, why not complain about them?
jbondeson 13y ago
The better question is: why would you have people on staff who you wouldn't trust to be mature enough to handle the situation?
- kaitai 13y ago
  We're all human and we all mess things up. Most people most of the time are fine people. That's not really the question: the question is about costs and benefits when things go wrong. I'm a mature, responsible, smart, amazing, blahblahblah person much of the time. And then other times I'm not, and my failures are largely non-malicious -- just stupid. I'd guess the same is true of all of us.
  - jbondeson 13y ago
    Yes, we all mess things up, but that remains true with or without alcohol. But the fact of the matter is that there will be alcohol present at some time with company events, be it a summer picnic event, holiday party, or dinners. Not to mention the fact that your employees are going to be going out for happy hours together, and just because it doesn't happen on company property doesn't make it any less a company issue if two employees have an incident. So I ask again why you would want to have someone on staff that you would think twice about giving access to beer in the office?
zeffr 13y ago
Don't fix what ain't broke? Beer causing problems in the office is a personnel problem, not a "beer in the office problem".
spindritf 13y ago
Most programming is nothing like operating heavy machinery or heart surgery, there's no reason not to have beer on tap. Working conditions have been improving greatly over the last century. I for one welcome a bit of pampering. Small doses of alcohol actually improve mood and cognitive performance[1]. Athletic too but that's less relevant. If some people like it, let them have it. What happened to "live and let live"? If some people like more frat-like atmosphere, why not let them gravitate towards those places? [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9833014 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9833014
- drtse4 13y ago
  [1] Mood and cognitive performance improved by a small amount of alcohol given with a lunchtime meal.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    Everyone is different here. I used to work in Paris periodically, and it did work well there. People never got drunk, but frequently had wine for lunch. Then I worked in Australia. You knew better than to try and get a serious question answered on a Friday afternoon. I personally find that I get tired with alcohol, and while my creativity may go up, my focus goes down. As such, I don't like alcohol at lunch, but that's a personal choice.
seanhandley 13y ago
We have a beer fridge in the office. If we’re hosting a barbecue event in Summer or some other kind of social we can offer them out. We’re free to take them if we want. Very, very rarely does that happen – and we’re a hosting company with software and hardware folks, aged 20-40 on average, the kind of people demographically some might expect to be all for beer at work. Maybe after a hard day, a beer happens. But never, ever, ever during. Frankly, If you think you can work and drink, you’re mixing business with pleasure. Never a good call. Having a drink at work at the end of the day is a nice option to have, especially if there’s something to be thankful for (we fixed the issue, so-and-so is having a baby etc). It’s a case of knowing when it’s appropriate, and when it isn’t. If you don’t know when it’s appropriate to have a casual beer your sensibilities are way off. Worse, if you think it’s ok to be flat-out drunk in the office then you probably shouldn’t have a job at all. It’s not beer’s fault. Nobody forces you to drink it, either in small or large doses.
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Dirlewanger 13y ago
Great, another nannying article that says their way is best and all other ways are poison. Throw in a few links to inflammatory articles to "back up" their claim too. Nope, absolutely no chance at all that an office full of mature adults can enjoy a beer here or there throughout the week without someone getting sexually harassed and their life ruined.
donretag 13y ago
Beer is the new ping pong.
nicholassmith 13y ago
As long as it's good beer, not the wishy washy stuff. I've worked in offices where there's been alcohol in the fridge at times, it was always for a Friday and only acceptable after 4pm (with a finish at around 6pm most people aren't going past one beer). It's not an essential, and I don't think a company should provide it as a perk, why not pay for your team to hit a bar once every now and again, get out of the office.
Tichy 13y ago
Beer doesn't rape people. People do. I think if somebody wants to have beer in their office, they should be free to do so. If they want to smoke in their office, the same (not sure if this is still legal, though) - I just would like to know in advance, because I wouldn't like to work there. But other people might. Also, this seems to suggest beer leads to rape/harassment. So as an implication, rape/harassment in bars are fine, just not in the office? Doesn't make much sense imo.
nilkn 13y ago
The office I work in has beer and I often forget we even have it. There's no pressure at all to drink it and I've never once seen somebody drunk (or even nearly so) in the office. And we don't have bottles. We have a keg. Honestly, the free soda is a much more legitimate issue than the free beer. The beer has caused no problems and I don't know of anybody who overconsumes it. The soda, though, is unhealthy and far too easy to overconsume. I've been guilty of that myself.
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
Devs don't need beer, they need coffee, :D On a more serious note, I don't get the point of this post. Beer and pizza being listed in job adverts? Yeah, that's a sign that the job itself isn't actually attractive enough to draw people in. Second, I for one wouldn't want to work anywhere that had a continuous supply of beer and pizza. Maybe as a friday afternoon event. Beer and sexism? I don't see it. For one, women drink beer too. Although to be honest, not everyone's into beer; "drinks" would be a better term. Good wine, for example. Beer and immature, juvenile 'frat boy' behaviour? Only if you're working with immature, juvenile frat boys. We have beer at the office (I work offsite though, curse you consultancy!), but nobody drinks during the week days, and most people just want to go home at 5 on fridays. Maybe they have a beer at 4. But most just want to go home to their families and pasttimes. It really depends on a lot of factors, and whether your job is a place where you go to work, or something that doubles as your entire social life. or something. If people, as hinted at in the article, drink tons of beer during their working hours, then those people have a problem, imho. Who here does? Also, does the author have experience working in a place that serves beer during working hours? Or people that become complete tards when they've had a couple?
ksikka 13y ago
The point is that there is a long list of variables more important to get right than the decision to have beer at the office, and getting those variables set correctly would be MUCH more significant than the Beer variable. So just eliminate the variable altogether and save yourself the trouble. That seems to be the point here. Forget about beer in the office and focus on the things that really matter.
mgkimsal 13y ago
The beer culture is very very weird to me, and something I just don't get. I don't understand why companies don't promote an ice cream culture. Have custom flavors available throughout the day, a stocked freezer, etc. Sit back and have a sundae while discussing code problems. Try new toppings/sauces now and then, etc. I don't drink beer. When I was younger, it was mostly a financial issue. As I'm older, I just don't like the taste. "Oh! But try this one - it's got a bold whatever with a hint of foo aftertaste". I don't care. It's beer. If it tasted so radically different from beer, it would be called something else. It's still beer. Tech conferences often revolve around a subcontext of beer. "Let's go grab a beer!" Beers provided at open bars. Etc. I get it - it's a social lubricant. But... it's so ingrained in many cultures and subcultures (much like sports) that not participating is an odd signal. With more pushy types, ordering a non-beer gets a weird look and I have to explain myself multiple times. I shouldn't have to. Ordering food, there's generally no such pushback - even vegans at the table generally don't say anything when I order a chicken sandwich. But order a water or coke when the rest of the table's ordering specialty beers, and 7 times out of 10 there's someone who questions you. Again... I don't get the beer culture, and would love to see it replaced with nothing, or something else like ice cream. EDIT: Sometimes people ask me if my non-beer attitude is a religious thing. It's not. I occasionally drink alcohol (wine/spirits) because I like the taste. EDIT 2: What I was trying to get at above was that promoting a beer culture will necessarily be somewhat exclusionary, and some people may be on the defensive or feel like 'outsiders' at the outset. If you know you're doing that - you only want to hire people with a shared love of beer - that's great. But... that's probably not the point of your business. For pintlabs.com, for example, that is the point of their business (local startup focusing on beer - gentle plug for them)
- andrewcooke 13y ago
  coffee seems like a decent substitute. or rather, cafe culture. which could include a beer, or wine, of course, but widens the options.
  - evacuationdrill 13y ago
    I've seen posts on /r/coffee where people's workplaces have half a dozen or more brewing methods available to them, including grinders, espresso machines, and steam wands. If my work had that, you can guarantee I'd have a spreadsheet to track what tastes best to me.
thaddeusmt 13y ago
Alcohol is a very polarizing subject, even outside of the workplace. And rightly so - it can be a destructive force, and does require more personal responsibility than many people have to use it "appropriately". And beer especially is loaded with gender baggage as the drink for choice for men. In light of all the recent discussion about gender equality in tech (not to mention "rape culture") having a keggerator in the office can easily be construed as throwing your company's hat in the male-privilege ring. Beer enjoys a better reputation than liquor, at least, but would the conversation change if the office stocked wine? Or drink with the opposite gender stereotypes, like maybe strawberry margaritas on tap? I like beer (and homebrewing) and have no problem with it in the office. But I'm a young, white, male, developer; so no surprise there. It would appear I am who these companies (think they) want to attract and retain. But assuming my demographic is not the only one who should feel comfortable in the office, I could see erring on the side of sensitivity and "professionalism", and not having beer on tap in the office.
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nawitus 13y ago
Don't fix it if it ain't broken.
ap22213 13y ago
To me, having beer on tap just says, 'hey we have a relaxed, carefree, creative culture here.' And, I'm attracted to that.
shanac 13y ago
Just as a caveat - I know Anne. I'm also a lady, so, some of the sexism arguments both do and don't ring true. I'm not sure what I think. I've drunk alcohol in the office that had beer as a way of thinking through a problem. It worked. I also know a few engineers and other tech people who are alcoholics, and have admitted to me they spent serious time (and still do) in AA. I'm not sure the continual serving beer at pretty much every tech event I've ever been to is good for their careers. I'm 90% sure theire are events where they just bow out of because of temptation reasons (not every event, but still) I personally wouldn't mind a dry event just for calorie count/i don't need it reasons on occasion. I also know that other countries drinking during the day is much more normal (an example here :http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2010-04-08-carlsberg-beer-drinking-limit_N.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2010-04... ) I also think other countries have very different feelings towards alcohol. The US still has some puritan motifs in its alcohol culture. Finally, the one thing that does bother me - beer in tech companies usually means they want you to be there 24/7. Fine, ok - but you can do business elsewhere. For all you know interacting with some bartender may help you - and it isn't going to happen if your work life is also your social life, as implied by the kegs.
- mathattack 13y ago
  Finally, the one thing that does bother me - beer in tech companies usually means they want you to be there 24/7. Fine, ok - but you can do business elsewhere. For all you know interacting with some bartender may help you - and it isn't going to happen if your work life is also your social life, as implied by the kegs. This is very true, and includes other benefits too. Dinner is a cheap price for a few hours of developer time. Laundry service? Much cheaper than a few hours of developer time. Package delivery at the office? Again much cheaper...
  - shanac 13y ago
    I'm not sold that always being in the social context of work is healthy. And as my cofounder says "Keeping healthy is the cheapest way to get stuff done" Further, productivity drops if you work 24/7. On a personal level - time for other things (including laundry) outside of work does make me more productive because it gives me to time to think about work. The mind relaxes and you make connections you would not otherwise.
apazzolini 13y ago
http://xkcd.com/323/ http://xkcd.com/323/
peterwwillis 13y ago
What strikes me about this blog post is it's not actually making a point using supporting evidence. They don't even have any negative experiences to even use as example. This person just doesn't want beer in their (or others') workplace. I agree with all the author's points. But I have worked several places with not only beer, but liquor on hand. Nobody got drunk, nobody acted like an asshat (more than they were sober). They were responsible. Is that going to be the case all the time? Probably not. But then again, some workplaces are always just more shitty to work in than others, and when you encounter it you decide if you need to move on or not. It's unlikely that beer would be the single motivator driving you to that decision.
bambax 13y ago
> think about what your devs really need (...) Sunlight, on occasion I'm sure this is entirely tongue-in-cheek, but sunlight is extremely important; we don't get enough; all those people constantly attending "conferences" held indoors where they watch people talking on stage and slides flickering on a screen while never seeing the light of day make me sad. Get out in the open. Look at the sky. Drop your iPod/iPhone/whatever. Think of nothing.
crazygringo 13y ago
I'm personally not a fan of beer at the office as a regular thing, just because I think it's one more amenity to get employees to spend longer hours at the office. But that said, there was usually beer where I last worked, and in no way was it "a recipe for mixed signals, disagreements, misunderstandings." It basically served as a way for devs to unwind at the end of the day (after 7pm) being social with each other, while they played video games or board games or watched movies on the conference room projector. Especially on Fridays. It had nothing to do with a frat culture, I never saw drinking during the day, and I never heard of anyone getting drunk. It was no different from cheesecake in the fridge, or pizza in the fridge, or wine, or soda.
jdludlow 13y ago
There’s no reason to have beer. On tap. In your business. Reasons #1 through #999: I'd like to have a beer. Why do freedom of choice and personal responsibility never factor into these types of blog posts? This entire thing reads "I don't want beer, so you can't have beer." I was fixing some bugs last night. And I was drinking a pint of Wall's End[1] at the same time. I felt zero effects from the alcohol (it's a 4.8% session brown ale), the bugs got fixed, and the sun rose in the east this morning. [1] http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30076/89553 http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30076/89553 If you're in Minneapolis / St. Paul, and you like brown ales, get some of this.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
Flagged. Stop commanding people what to do, who are you anyway?
squozzer 13y ago
Here's a snippet from the carefree happy days of the previous century, before 9/11 and the New Earnestness -- Baumholder, Germany, 1986. The daily march to the motor pool. Yes, I was in the Army. A little later than usual for reasons no longer remembered. Early summer, it might have been 70-F, considered a heat wave back then. A local work crew was pouring new concrete to replace some crumbling pad. They were on break drinking beer, at 1030. To those of you who do not habla, that's 10:30 AM. They did seem to work a little slowly compared to the crews I have observed since. But I've never used a stopwatch, so I could be wrong.
Zikes 13y ago
Everybody's talking about it as though everyone goes on a raging bender at work every evening. It's as though offices offered free cake and you're all imagining meeting rooms full of rotund programmers stuffing half a bundt down their gullet. If beer in an office is causing issues it's because someone doesn't know their limits, and that is an entirely individualized and likely very marginalized issue. The author's immediate correlation of beer and "frat culture" is easily the most sexist thing I've read this week, and the implication that "raging hormones and inexperience" combined with an occasional afternoon beer automatically means I become a raging pervert bent on harassing any woman in sight is ludicrous.
- davemel37 13y ago
  I think her point is not "everyone goes on a raging bender" her point is more...if one person, one time, goes on a raging bender... was the tradeoff worth it. The answer of course is ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Culture decisions should be in the best interests of everyone in the office. If you have one recovering alcoholic in the office, or one person who might act irresponsibly... This little harmless perk becomes a massive liability, and more importantly...is completely unnecessary and possibly inappropriate.
  - zacaltman 13y ago
    Interesting aspect i'd never thought of. When you haven't working in (or with) HR before I guess you might not think of things like recovering alcoholics - or even company liability. It seems a lot of startups ignore these issues for a hope of garnering another scoop from the talent pool.
  - Zikes 13y ago
    If that's the point, then it is moot. If one person, one time, goes on a raging bender, then they probably would have done so regardless. It's an individual and rare issue which should be judged independently of the whole. We're not children, we're adults. Generally people know how to drink responsibly, if they choose to drink at all, and while I'm aware that there are a very large number of people who do not they are still very much a minority, else there would be pandemonium in the streets every time a liquor store comes to town. As others here have already pointed out, if you go to a lawyer and ask for an enumerated list of everything in your office that could become a "massive liability" then you'll probably decide to just shutter the doors before the list is even half completed. Stop applying unfounded "what if" morals to a perfectly legal and benign office perk. Trying to act in the "best interests of everyone" will ultimately serve no one, your office will end up being another cookie cutter cubicle farm that the legal department has determined is the statistically least likely (but not entirely!) to cause problems and all your talent will eventually get tired and move on to greener pastures.
kin 13y ago
Everyone in my office knows how to enjoy beer. As a result, we have a fridge full of it. Do we ever get drunk at work? No. Do we ever let it affect our productivity? No. Do we drink it every day? No. That being said there are numerous occasions where we've just fought some fires and feel like unwinding for the last 2 hours of the day. So we all grab a beer and hang out in the kitchen to socialize and bond. It's been a great team builder. No one grabs their 3rd beer. After 1 or 2, everyone goes back to their desk. And you know what? Every company I've spoken to works in a similar manner. So, I really don't think it's a problem, nor have I read of it being a problem in any work environment. It just so happens to be a common thing many people love, man or woman, and as responsible adults I don't find it inappropriate to advertise an in office keg.
gweinberg 13y ago
Having beer in the office fridge isn't that different from having a ping pong table. I can see how many people would never use it, but I'm not understanding the hostility.
mooreds 13y ago
I think that there are two ideas worth separating in this post. 1. Having ready beer (a keg) available in a work setting can cause issues. Ready alcohol impairs judgement and blurs boundaries. 2. Having Friday afternoon beers (or any other kind of gathering) can be beneficial to company bonding and communication. Frankly, I don't care if it is ice cream (as suggested in the comments), beer, weekly lunches, or kite flying--I want a regular low pressure social atmosphere for a) getting to know my team mates and b) exchanging work ideas in an informal cross department setting. I think having types of events outlined in point 2 is beneficial to everyone in the company. Disclaimer--I work in a small company that does Friday afternoon beers, but we are not a startup.
zacaltman 13y ago
I wonder why there's no wine, or mixed drinks on a company's perks list. Time to diversify!
vinceguidry 13y ago
I have worked at my current job for 3 months. I've seen alcohol served 2-3 times during town hall style meetings. And yes, some people get drunk. I do not work at a tech company but rather at a cosmetics company, at least half of the employees are women. I would not be surprised if there were a few lushes at the office who keep a bottle in their desks. Our culture is pretty laid back. But I imagine it would tighten up pretty quickly should an incident occur. I wouldn't rule out serving alcohol at the office, but make sure everybody's really cool with each other first. If you had an instinctive reaction like "oh of course everyone's cool!", then they're not and you're about to find out what it's like to be Michael Scott.
lotsofcows 13y ago
s/beer/caffeinated drinks/g
annelibby 13y ago
Thank you all. I learned a lot from your comments -- mostly about the diversity of views out there.

92 points by mathattack 13y ago

Probably not great in the office, but having a nice craft beer shouldn't be discouraged - it opens up the thoughts, creates an aura of relaxation and can promote conversation and creative collaboration pretty damn fast. Not everything must be productive, productive, productive all of the damn time. Creative thoughts are an important part of the ability to execute them. Just relax and have a beer every now and then.

mathattack 13y ago
At my prior employer, there was a legend of two guys who wrote the companies email system (before commercial packages were available) in 6 weeks. There method was to hit a pub for 4 hour design sessions every few days, followed by a few days of marathon coding. As soon as they'd get stuck, back to the pub. This was an uber-conservative employer, so beer in the office would have been cause for celebration. I'm with you that if you're going to have beer in the office, it should be good beer. A trend I've seen lately is scotch at work. It's more an end of the day relaxer than anything else. I've seen both sides of the argument, and don't have a definitive opinion. If it works, keep doing it. If not, don't. If beer in the office costs you employees, don't have it. If beer in the office cuts your turnover, it's cheaper than hiring new people.
- xentronium 13y ago
  > A trend I've seen lately is scotch at work. Watching Mad Men I always wondered whatever happened to strong beverages in the offices. Was it cultural? Have people decided that drinking during workday is faux pas? Was it some campaign against alcohol, similar to what happened to tobacco?

bosstwizz 13y ago

Buzzkill.

blueblob 13y ago

I'm a student so take it with a grain of salt, but when I have precisely 1 beer, I tend to be a little more relaxed and program better. That being said, I wouldn't want to have beer constantly available, especially at work.

hijinks 13y ago
It's not as bad as you think. I work at a place with a fridge full of craft beers but the culture is really in place that we do beers late Friday afternoons for a time when the company can all hangout and talk. I've also worked at a place full of Russians where my boss would randomly show up at 11am and ask if I wanted to help drink cognac with him.

badman_ting 13y ago

I work at a place that doesn't have beer on tap, but people will frequently have beers in meetings on Friday afternoons. Which never really struck me as a "fratty" thing to do. It would be interesting if places switched to wine, then the frat angle would be a lot more incongruous. But probably other problems would result :)

tptacek 13y ago
Drinking glasses of beer from a tap during a working meeting sounds very frat-y to me, and I'm a drinker.
- badman_ting 13y ago
  I mentioned the wine thing because I wonder how much of this is about the alcohol, and how much is about self-consciously avoiding the "aesthetic" (such as it is) of the frat house. You specifically mention glasses of beer from a tap, and I wonder why. It seems like it shouldn't matter if the beers are fancy stuff from Whole Foods (which is what happens here), or crappy stuff from a tap. But I guess it does.
- oh_sigh 13y ago
  Okay. Now we have two opinions.

jiggy2011 13y ago

Amongst companies that keep beer on premesis what is the culture surrounding it? If you come into work on monday morning and everyone is already onto their 3rd Carlsberg export by 12:30 then I can see why that might cause problems. OTOH companies that I've worked at that have kept beer in the fridge it has always been something that might be enjoyed with lunch on a friday or at 7PM when one has stayed a little late finishing some milestone on a project before heading home (assuming they are not driving).

mathattack 13y ago
At my current employer, there's rarely a lot of beer in the fridge, and people won't grab one before 4:30 or 5:00 or early in the week. Outside of interns, the people most likely to grab 1 or 2 are the hardest workers in the office.
- dfxm12 13y ago
  Are you implying your interns are the hardest workers (aside from those who grab 1 or 2 beers) or are you implying that interns grab 1 or 2 beers, just like your hardest workers?
  - mathattack 13y ago
    The latter. We actively discourage interns from doing overtime.
    - dfxm12 13y ago
      So now you are implying "working hard" means working more hours? sheesh...
bbarn 13y ago
It's been present in the last three places I've worked. At one, it was definitely the "after 4 on Fridays" type of thing (115 person company at the time), at another it was the "start at lunch and go till the end of the day" type (8 employees, bad work environment outside of the beer), and at the last, it was pretty much in the fridge and the same regular group would grab one at 3 or 4 every few days or so.

Karunamon 13y ago

FTFA: It’s a recipe for mixed signals, disagreements, misunderstandings. So are endless meetings, endless emails, emergencies at 4:55p on a Friday, upper management, the phase of the moon, and tidal activity. We get it. Your vision of "professional" explicitly doesn't allow for any kind of alcohol ever, but how about not dictating that for everyone else, eh?

tptacek 13y ago
You are responding to the tone of the post and to your presumption of who the author is and what they represent, but you're not really responding to the message of the post.
- Karunamon 13y ago
  That's exactly my point. The message of the post of the author's opinion. There's no message to respond to because you can't argue with an opinion.

tptacek 13y ago

Is the subtext here about hostile frat culture, or, worse, about harassment? That's what I think it is. Like a lot of things, I think beer is fine if you're adult about it. We've got quite a lot of beer in our Chicago office (we haul crates from Russian River and Three Floyds and Jolly Pumpkin). But nobody drinks while they work, and nobody drinks whole bottles; we open a bottle and a bunch of people taste. If it's Friday, we might open a couple bottles. I can't imagine this creating a problem. For one thing, nobody's getting drunk. For another, nobody is OK with disrupting anyone else's work. And finally, I don't think many people here would be sanguine about seeing someone get harassed. On the other hand, maybe that's because so many of us are parents. Maybe there's an argument that your culture needs to be mature enough to handle beer, and maybe there's an argument that if you've got kegs and people are drinking during the working afternoon, that's a sign that maybe the maturity isn't there.

mathattack 13y ago
Perhaps there's a difference in culture between bottles versus kegs? The former suggests restraint, the latter doesn't?
- JTon 13y ago
  I agree with this. And as a side note, it brings me back to the days where my student house would come together to try and finish a torpedo keg. We always failed our mission. But I believe we came out the other end closer friends
- lazerwalker 13y ago
  It all depends on the context. Out of the beer-friendly offices I've worked in, I've preferred the ones that have kegerators because it means I can pour myself half a beer at 5pm instead of going for a full 12oz.
- rev_null 13y ago
  A really classy startup would stock wine, or perhaps a collection of single malt whiskeys.
- 13y ago

lmm 13y ago

Fuck that shit. I like beer. If I have a choice between a job where it's supplied and a job where it isn't, guess which I'm going to choose. You say "investors aren't backing frat houses", but they must be seeing decent returns from companies with a beer supply or they wouldn't be funding them.

mathattack 13y ago
This seems to be the best argument for it. Or rather - would you leave a place that had beer for one that didn't?
kylec 13y ago
This is exactly why companies provide it. Like programminggeek said, it's a signal that they're trying to look cool. They would probably prefer if you didn't actually use it (impaired mental function, cost of operation, etc), but simply having it attracts and retains employees like you. There's beer on tap in my office, but I never actually see anyone have any at their desk or during the day. I've only ever seen people drinking at the end of the day before going home.

drtse4 13y ago

Maybe it's because i'm european and not living in the US, but this kegerator in the office thing looks like something that gets old fast. The first weeks it may sound fun, beer in the office, branded beer glasses,etc... but i don't understand how someone could care as the novelty wears of. And i hope i don't need to comment on that "devs need beer" thing, c'mon, childish stuff. Does a subset of the employee likes beer? Ok, let's go outside to taste some nice craft beer after work. I don't see anything wrong with that.

jemka 13y ago
Alcohol makes me sleepy and lose the ability to concentrate. I have no idea why people enjoy drinking when they're trying to get stuff done. Especially if any of that "stuff" requires significant brain power.
- oh_sigh 13y ago
  Maybe because different people react differently. That might be it.
dfxm12 13y ago
It has nothing to do with being European. My (multinational) company has offices in the US and Belgium. There's beer on tap in Belgium, and not in the US. Every time I visit, my colleagues in Europe always make a big stink like "how do you get stuff done over there with no beer?"
- bbarn 13y ago
  I worked for a company based in Germany, and when I'd go visit I remember the big bottles of beer in the cafeteria. I think the whole time I was there I witnessed maybe 2-3 people ever drink a beer outside of the Wednesday weisswurst lunch day (You want to talk about workplace culture being oppressive try to eat that awful stuff). It wasn't especially prohibited, it just didn't seem like anyone did it. Now, the minute we were off work, I could find half the company at the same bar in the city having a great time together nearly every day of the week.

programminggeek 13y ago

Beer in the office is not something anybody needs and yes it requires a level of responsibility about how you use it, I would argue the same thing is true of having free soda in terms of the long term health of people in the office. I'm a guy and I could care less about if there is beer or not in the office. If anything it's a signal that the company is trying to look cool. It doesn't mean that the company is in fact a cool place to work. Also, it is completely sexist to say that beer is the fault of guys or that it is keeping women away. The place where I worked where they had beer on tap, just as many women drank as men. Many of the women were as vocal about supporting the beer keg as the guys were, so even though it is popular to claim that it's a gender thing, it's not. Some people like beer in the office some don't. I don't think gender has a lot to do with it. Alcohol consumption is very much a personal preference that doesn't correlate well with gender from what I can tell.

tehwalrus 13y ago
Sure, it's not necessarily sexist (although it may happen to appeal to more women than men in job adverts). But, alcohol and soda are not on a par - only one impairs your ability to think, act and discuss properly[1]. [1] yeah yeah tolerances, but ultimately it's wearing down peoples inhibitions - we're definitely more likely to be rude (or accidentally rude) when drunk.

jlarocco 13y ago

Seems like a non-issue to me. If a person doesn't want beer, they don't have to drink it. As long as everybody is getting their work done and not getting drunk, who cares? Soda and junk food aren't great either, why not complain about them?

jbondeson 13y ago

The better question is: why would you have people on staff who you wouldn't trust to be mature enough to handle the situation?

kaitai 13y ago
We're all human and we all mess things up. Most people most of the time are fine people. That's not really the question: the question is about costs and benefits when things go wrong. I'm a mature, responsible, smart, amazing, blahblahblah person much of the time. And then other times I'm not, and my failures are largely non-malicious -- just stupid. I'd guess the same is true of all of us.
- jbondeson 13y ago
  Yes, we all mess things up, but that remains true with or without alcohol. But the fact of the matter is that there will be alcohol present at some time with company events, be it a summer picnic event, holiday party, or dinners. Not to mention the fact that your employees are going to be going out for happy hours together, and just because it doesn't happen on company property doesn't make it any less a company issue if two employees have an incident. So I ask again why you would want to have someone on staff that you would think twice about giving access to beer in the office?

zeffr 13y ago

Don't fix what ain't broke? Beer causing problems in the office is a personnel problem, not a "beer in the office problem".

spindritf 13y ago

Most programming is nothing like operating heavy machinery or heart surgery, there's no reason not to have beer on tap. Working conditions have been improving greatly over the last century. I for one welcome a bit of pampering. Small doses of alcohol actually improve mood and cognitive performance[1]. Athletic too but that's less relevant. If some people like it, let them have it. What happened to "live and let live"? If some people like more frat-like atmosphere, why not let them gravitate towards those places? [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9833014 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9833014

drtse4 13y ago
[1] Mood and cognitive performance improved by a small amount of alcohol given with a lunchtime meal.
- mathattack 13y ago
  Everyone is different here. I used to work in Paris periodically, and it did work well there. People never got drunk, but frequently had wine for lunch. Then I worked in Australia. You knew better than to try and get a serious question answered on a Friday afternoon. I personally find that I get tired with alcohol, and while my creativity may go up, my focus goes down. As such, I don't like alcohol at lunch, but that's a personal choice.

seanhandley 13y ago

We have a beer fridge in the office. If we’re hosting a barbecue event in Summer or some other kind of social we can offer them out. We’re free to take them if we want. Very, very rarely does that happen – and we’re a hosting company with software and hardware folks, aged 20-40 on average, the kind of people demographically some might expect to be all for beer at work. Maybe after a hard day, a beer happens. But never, ever, ever during. Frankly, If you think you can work and drink, you’re mixing business with pleasure. Never a good call. Having a drink at work at the end of the day is a nice option to have, especially if there’s something to be thankful for (we fixed the issue, so-and-so is having a baby etc). It’s a case of knowing when it’s appropriate, and when it isn’t. If you don’t know when it’s appropriate to have a casual beer your sensibilities are way off. Worse, if you think it’s ok to be flat-out drunk in the office then you probably shouldn’t have a job at all. It’s not beer’s fault. Nobody forces you to drink it, either in small or large doses.

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Dirlewanger 13y ago

Great, another nannying article that says their way is best and all other ways are poison. Throw in a few links to inflammatory articles to "back up" their claim too. Nope, absolutely no chance at all that an office full of mature adults can enjoy a beer here or there throughout the week without someone getting sexually harassed and their life ruined.

donretag 13y ago

Beer is the new ping pong.

nicholassmith 13y ago

As long as it's good beer, not the wishy washy stuff. I've worked in offices where there's been alcohol in the fridge at times, it was always for a Friday and only acceptable after 4pm (with a finish at around 6pm most people aren't going past one beer). It's not an essential, and I don't think a company should provide it as a perk, why not pay for your team to hit a bar once every now and again, get out of the office.

Tichy 13y ago

Beer doesn't rape people. People do. I think if somebody wants to have beer in their office, they should be free to do so. If they want to smoke in their office, the same (not sure if this is still legal, though) - I just would like to know in advance, because I wouldn't like to work there. But other people might. Also, this seems to suggest beer leads to rape/harassment. So as an implication, rape/harassment in bars are fine, just not in the office? Doesn't make much sense imo.

nilkn 13y ago

The office I work in has beer and I often forget we even have it. There's no pressure at all to drink it and I've never once seen somebody drunk (or even nearly so) in the office. And we don't have bottles. We have a keg. Honestly, the free soda is a much more legitimate issue than the free beer. The beer has caused no problems and I don't know of anybody who overconsumes it. The soda, though, is unhealthy and far too easy to overconsume. I've been guilty of that myself.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

Devs don't need beer, they need coffee, :D On a more serious note, I don't get the point of this post. Beer and pizza being listed in job adverts? Yeah, that's a sign that the job itself isn't actually attractive enough to draw people in. Second, I for one wouldn't want to work anywhere that had a continuous supply of beer and pizza. Maybe as a friday afternoon event. Beer and sexism? I don't see it. For one, women drink beer too. Although to be honest, not everyone's into beer; "drinks" would be a better term. Good wine, for example. Beer and immature, juvenile 'frat boy' behaviour? Only if you're working with immature, juvenile frat boys. We have beer at the office (I work offsite though, curse you consultancy!), but nobody drinks during the week days, and most people just want to go home at 5 on fridays. Maybe they have a beer at 4. But most just want to go home to their families and pasttimes. It really depends on a lot of factors, and whether your job is a place where you go to work, or something that doubles as your entire social life. or something. If people, as hinted at in the article, drink tons of beer during their working hours, then those people have a problem, imho. Who here does? Also, does the author have experience working in a place that serves beer during working hours? Or people that become complete tards when they've had a couple?

ksikka 13y ago

The point is that there is a long list of variables more important to get right than the decision to have beer at the office, and getting those variables set correctly would be MUCH more significant than the Beer variable. So just eliminate the variable altogether and save yourself the trouble. That seems to be the point here. Forget about beer in the office and focus on the things that really matter.

mgkimsal 13y ago

The beer culture is very very weird to me, and something I just don't get. I don't understand why companies don't promote an ice cream culture. Have custom flavors available throughout the day, a stocked freezer, etc. Sit back and have a sundae while discussing code problems. Try new toppings/sauces now and then, etc. I don't drink beer. When I was younger, it was mostly a financial issue. As I'm older, I just don't like the taste. "Oh! But try this one - it's got a bold whatever with a hint of foo aftertaste". I don't care. It's beer. If it tasted so radically different from beer, it would be called something else. It's still beer. Tech conferences often revolve around a subcontext of beer. "Let's go grab a beer!" Beers provided at open bars. Etc. I get it - it's a social lubricant. But... it's so ingrained in many cultures and subcultures (much like sports) that not participating is an odd signal. With more pushy types, ordering a non-beer gets a weird look and I have to explain myself multiple times. I shouldn't have to. Ordering food, there's generally no such pushback - even vegans at the table generally don't say anything when I order a chicken sandwich. But order a water or coke when the rest of the table's ordering specialty beers, and 7 times out of 10 there's someone who questions you. Again... I don't get the beer culture, and would love to see it replaced with nothing, or something else like ice cream. EDIT: Sometimes people ask me if my non-beer attitude is a religious thing. It's not. I occasionally drink alcohol (wine/spirits) because I like the taste. EDIT 2: What I was trying to get at above was that promoting a beer culture will necessarily be somewhat exclusionary, and some people may be on the defensive or feel like 'outsiders' at the outset. If you know you're doing that - you only want to hire people with a shared love of beer - that's great. But... that's probably not the point of your business. For pintlabs.com, for example, that is the point of their business (local startup focusing on beer - gentle plug for them)

andrewcooke 13y ago
coffee seems like a decent substitute. or rather, cafe culture. which could include a beer, or wine, of course, but widens the options.
- evacuationdrill 13y ago
  I've seen posts on /r/coffee where people's workplaces have half a dozen or more brewing methods available to them, including grinders, espresso machines, and steam wands. If my work had that, you can guarantee I'd have a spreadsheet to track what tastes best to me.

thaddeusmt 13y ago

Alcohol is a very polarizing subject, even outside of the workplace. And rightly so - it can be a destructive force, and does require more personal responsibility than many people have to use it "appropriately". And beer especially is loaded with gender baggage as the drink for choice for men. In light of all the recent discussion about gender equality in tech (not to mention "rape culture") having a keggerator in the office can easily be construed as throwing your company's hat in the male-privilege ring. Beer enjoys a better reputation than liquor, at least, but would the conversation change if the office stocked wine? Or drink with the opposite gender stereotypes, like maybe strawberry margaritas on tap? I like beer (and homebrewing) and have no problem with it in the office. But I'm a young, white, male, developer; so no surprise there. It would appear I am who these companies (think they) want to attract and retain. But assuming my demographic is not the only one who should feel comfortable in the office, I could see erring on the side of sensitivity and "professionalism", and not having beer on tap in the office.

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nawitus 13y ago

Don't fix it if it ain't broken.

ap22213 13y ago

To me, having beer on tap just says, 'hey we have a relaxed, carefree, creative culture here.' And, I'm attracted to that.

shanac 13y ago

Just as a caveat - I know Anne. I'm also a lady, so, some of the sexism arguments both do and don't ring true. I'm not sure what I think. I've drunk alcohol in the office that had beer as a way of thinking through a problem. It worked. I also know a few engineers and other tech people who are alcoholics, and have admitted to me they spent serious time (and still do) in AA. I'm not sure the continual serving beer at pretty much every tech event I've ever been to is good for their careers. I'm 90% sure theire are events where they just bow out of because of temptation reasons (not every event, but still) I personally wouldn't mind a dry event just for calorie count/i don't need it reasons on occasion. I also know that other countries drinking during the day is much more normal (an example here :http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2010-04-08-carlsberg-beer-drinking-limit_N.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2010-04... ) I also think other countries have very different feelings towards alcohol. The US still has some puritan motifs in its alcohol culture. Finally, the one thing that does bother me - beer in tech companies usually means they want you to be there 24/7. Fine, ok - but you can do business elsewhere. For all you know interacting with some bartender may help you - and it isn't going to happen if your work life is also your social life, as implied by the kegs.

mathattack 13y ago
Finally, the one thing that does bother me - beer in tech companies usually means they want you to be there 24/7. Fine, ok - but you can do business elsewhere. For all you know interacting with some bartender may help you - and it isn't going to happen if your work life is also your social life, as implied by the kegs. This is very true, and includes other benefits too. Dinner is a cheap price for a few hours of developer time. Laundry service? Much cheaper than a few hours of developer time. Package delivery at the office? Again much cheaper...
- shanac 13y ago
  I'm not sold that always being in the social context of work is healthy. And as my cofounder says "Keeping healthy is the cheapest way to get stuff done" Further, productivity drops if you work 24/7. On a personal level - time for other things (including laundry) outside of work does make me more productive because it gives me to time to think about work. The mind relaxes and you make connections you would not otherwise.

apazzolini 13y ago

http://xkcd.com/323/ http://xkcd.com/323/

peterwwillis 13y ago

What strikes me about this blog post is it's not actually making a point using supporting evidence. They don't even have any negative experiences to even use as example. This person just doesn't want beer in their (or others') workplace. I agree with all the author's points. But I have worked several places with not only beer, but liquor on hand. Nobody got drunk, nobody acted like an asshat (more than they were sober). They were responsible. Is that going to be the case all the time? Probably not. But then again, some workplaces are always just more shitty to work in than others, and when you encounter it you decide if you need to move on or not. It's unlikely that beer would be the single motivator driving you to that decision.

bambax 13y ago

> think about what your devs really need (...) Sunlight, on occasion I'm sure this is entirely tongue-in-cheek, but sunlight is extremely important; we don't get enough; all those people constantly attending "conferences" held indoors where they watch people talking on stage and slides flickering on a screen while never seeing the light of day make me sad. Get out in the open. Look at the sky. Drop your iPod/iPhone/whatever. Think of nothing.

crazygringo 13y ago

I'm personally not a fan of beer at the office as a regular thing, just because I think it's one more amenity to get employees to spend longer hours at the office. But that said, there was usually beer where I last worked, and in no way was it "a recipe for mixed signals, disagreements, misunderstandings." It basically served as a way for devs to unwind at the end of the day (after 7pm) being social with each other, while they played video games or board games or watched movies on the conference room projector. Especially on Fridays. It had nothing to do with a frat culture, I never saw drinking during the day, and I never heard of anyone getting drunk. It was no different from cheesecake in the fridge, or pizza in the fridge, or wine, or soda.

jdludlow 13y ago

There’s no reason to have beer. On tap. In your business. Reasons #1 through #999: I'd like to have a beer. Why do freedom of choice and personal responsibility never factor into these types of blog posts? This entire thing reads "I don't want beer, so you can't have beer." I was fixing some bugs last night. And I was drinking a pint of Wall's End[1] at the same time. I felt zero effects from the alcohol (it's a 4.8% session brown ale), the bugs got fixed, and the sun rose in the east this morning. [1] http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30076/89553 http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/30076/89553 If you're in Minneapolis / St. Paul, and you like brown ales, get some of this.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

Flagged. Stop commanding people what to do, who are you anyway?

squozzer 13y ago

Here's a snippet from the carefree happy days of the previous century, before 9/11 and the New Earnestness -- Baumholder, Germany, 1986. The daily march to the motor pool. Yes, I was in the Army. A little later than usual for reasons no longer remembered. Early summer, it might have been 70-F, considered a heat wave back then. A local work crew was pouring new concrete to replace some crumbling pad. They were on break drinking beer, at 1030. To those of you who do not habla, that's 10:30 AM. They did seem to work a little slowly compared to the crews I have observed since. But I've never used a stopwatch, so I could be wrong.

Zikes 13y ago

Everybody's talking about it as though everyone goes on a raging bender at work every evening. It's as though offices offered free cake and you're all imagining meeting rooms full of rotund programmers stuffing half a bundt down their gullet. If beer in an office is causing issues it's because someone doesn't know their limits, and that is an entirely individualized and likely very marginalized issue. The author's immediate correlation of beer and "frat culture" is easily the most sexist thing I've read this week, and the implication that "raging hormones and inexperience" combined with an occasional afternoon beer automatically means I become a raging pervert bent on harassing any woman in sight is ludicrous.

davemel37 13y ago
I think her point is not "everyone goes on a raging bender" her point is more...if one person, one time, goes on a raging bender... was the tradeoff worth it. The answer of course is ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Culture decisions should be in the best interests of everyone in the office. If you have one recovering alcoholic in the office, or one person who might act irresponsibly... This little harmless perk becomes a massive liability, and more importantly...is completely unnecessary and possibly inappropriate.
- zacaltman 13y ago
  Interesting aspect i'd never thought of. When you haven't working in (or with) HR before I guess you might not think of things like recovering alcoholics - or even company liability. It seems a lot of startups ignore these issues for a hope of garnering another scoop from the talent pool.
- Zikes 13y ago
  If that's the point, then it is moot. If one person, one time, goes on a raging bender, then they probably would have done so regardless. It's an individual and rare issue which should be judged independently of the whole. We're not children, we're adults. Generally people know how to drink responsibly, if they choose to drink at all, and while I'm aware that there are a very large number of people who do not they are still very much a minority, else there would be pandemonium in the streets every time a liquor store comes to town. As others here have already pointed out, if you go to a lawyer and ask for an enumerated list of everything in your office that could become a "massive liability" then you'll probably decide to just shutter the doors before the list is even half completed. Stop applying unfounded "what if" morals to a perfectly legal and benign office perk. Trying to act in the "best interests of everyone" will ultimately serve no one, your office will end up being another cookie cutter cubicle farm that the legal department has determined is the statistically least likely (but not entirely!) to cause problems and all your talent will eventually get tired and move on to greener pastures.

kin 13y ago

Everyone in my office knows how to enjoy beer. As a result, we have a fridge full of it. Do we ever get drunk at work? No. Do we ever let it affect our productivity? No. Do we drink it every day? No. That being said there are numerous occasions where we've just fought some fires and feel like unwinding for the last 2 hours of the day. So we all grab a beer and hang out in the kitchen to socialize and bond. It's been a great team builder. No one grabs their 3rd beer. After 1 or 2, everyone goes back to their desk. And you know what? Every company I've spoken to works in a similar manner. So, I really don't think it's a problem, nor have I read of it being a problem in any work environment. It just so happens to be a common thing many people love, man or woman, and as responsible adults I don't find it inappropriate to advertise an in office keg.

gweinberg 13y ago

Having beer in the office fridge isn't that different from having a ping pong table. I can see how many people would never use it, but I'm not understanding the hostility.

mooreds 13y ago

I think that there are two ideas worth separating in this post. 1. Having ready beer (a keg) available in a work setting can cause issues. Ready alcohol impairs judgement and blurs boundaries. 2. Having Friday afternoon beers (or any other kind of gathering) can be beneficial to company bonding and communication. Frankly, I don't care if it is ice cream (as suggested in the comments), beer, weekly lunches, or kite flying--I want a regular low pressure social atmosphere for a) getting to know my team mates and b) exchanging work ideas in an informal cross department setting. I think having types of events outlined in point 2 is beneficial to everyone in the company. Disclaimer--I work in a small company that does Friday afternoon beers, but we are not a startup.

zacaltman 13y ago

I wonder why there's no wine, or mixed drinks on a company's perks list. Time to diversify!

vinceguidry 13y ago

I have worked at my current job for 3 months. I've seen alcohol served 2-3 times during town hall style meetings. And yes, some people get drunk. I do not work at a tech company but rather at a cosmetics company, at least half of the employees are women. I would not be surprised if there were a few lushes at the office who keep a bottle in their desks. Our culture is pretty laid back. But I imagine it would tighten up pretty quickly should an incident occur. I wouldn't rule out serving alcohol at the office, but make sure everybody's really cool with each other first. If you had an instinctive reaction like "oh of course everyone's cool!", then they're not and you're about to find out what it's like to be Michael Scott.

lotsofcows 13y ago

s/beer/caffeinated drinks/g

annelibby 13y ago

Thank you all. I learned a lot from your comments -- mostly about the diversity of views out there.