4 ms·

Drinking is a Public Relations Vehicle

76 points by tortilla 17y ago

JacobAldridge 17y ago
Work hard. Play hard. Recognise when what you're doing is a blend of the two, and always know which of them is the primary aim of any activity. Massive respect for this quote as a way to back your team: "Truly, it may look like we’re constantly out drinking and goofing off, but I dare you to find anyone on our team that doesn’t work their ass off and care deeply about our service...you’re only fooling yourself if you think otherwise."
ojbyrne 17y ago
When I was at digg, where a significant aspect of our audience was under 21, I was concerned about the exclusionary aspect of drinking. I think that probably applies here too. I can still be found going to all-ages shows and appreciate the democratic aspect.
- krschultz 17y ago
  I experienced this a bit before I was 21, but interning at a company that went out after work a lot. The solution is the venue. Not all bars are 21 y/o and over only, usually only the ones that are strictly bars or nightclubs have that restriction. Your average hamburger & burger place with a bar will let anyone in most hours except maybe thursday/friday/saturday nights.
  - lucumo 17y ago
    Which is a good idea anyway, since those places have less social pressure to drink. It's not just the people under 21 (well, 16 here) you can be excluding on an alcohol party. There are also people that don't drink or drink very little. (To be fair, I only got weird looks and remarks once for not drinking alcohol and that was at a student bar where drinking seemed to be the norm. Normally it isn't too big a deal, but I can imagine some people - especially younger ones - feeling uncomfortable being the only one not drinking alcohol. Even more so when a group just gets a pitcher of beer.)
    - tlrobinson 17y ago
      I doubt most people ever really notice if someone isn't drinking, even at an event where the majority of people are. Or maybe I'm just not very observant. I usually do drink at these kinds of events, but when I don't I've never felt pressured to (at least not since college). Maybe it's different for people who sometimes drink vs. never drink.
      - tekkub 17y ago
        People notice, but only to a small degree. When I was out in SF back in July I didn't intend to drink much at the meetup. I think I had 4 drinks total, all were bought by someone else for me. If I had declined the drinks, or gotten something non-alcoholic instead, I doubt anyone would have made a fuss about it. Well.. and PJ did shove like $15 in the jukebox and demand I pick songs, and gave us money for the taxi ride home which also paid for a nice pizza back at the hotel.
      - lucumo 17y ago
        I don't think the problem is other people noticing as much as thinking they're noticing. You can feel a bit weird if someone goes "beers for everyone?", everyone's agreeing and you're the one that has to go "no thanks, a coke would be nice". Or worse, just order it and put it in front of you. People do tend to assume everyone drinks beer. (For me, that's not true. I don't mind alcohol, but I can't stand the taste of beer. I can't finish a zip of it, let alone a glass. I do sometimes have to explain that. Since I'm old enough to have a driver's license I sometimes have the nice excuse that I still need to drive. Works a bit better in that it requires less explanation.)
      - steveklabnik 17y ago
        It's possibly because I just got out of college, but it really bothers people when you don't drink. A lot. I didn't drink the entire way through, and I got a lot of comments later on. People weren't very forward about it, but after some prodding, they stopped inviting me out because they felt that I was judging them by not drinking, and therefore I was a buzzkill. I didn't draw any attention to it at all, I had a Coke in my hand the entire night, but it still made people upset. People are silly.
  - ojbyrne 17y ago
    I totally agree, but at the time the rationale was those places typically weren't "cool." Which is obviously also exclusionary.
benatkin 17y ago
Nice post. I'm glad he didn't bother to say that they're responsible drinkers. At best, it wouldn't be necessary to say it because clearly they're in control. At worst, it might offend some who think that the only way to drink responsibly is to drink moderately (according to gov't guidelines) or not at all.
markbao 17y ago
It's also good for loosening people up a little bit. I've been to a number of networking events with alcohol and it's pretty effective.
erlanger 17y ago
Quite a few seem to care a great deal about the private lives of others...it seems really strange to me. Why would anyone worry about what these guys do on their free time, if at all?
- lucumo 17y ago
  It seems that it's not so much what they do with their free time, but that they "take" it at all. I've seen people going completely crazy because they didn't get a response from developers within an hour or so. On Sunday. At 0400h (am).
- Perceval 17y ago
  The complaints weren't about the private lives of others per se. The alcohol related activities are at GitHub sponsored events where the team mingles with customers. Customer development is part of business. Frequent posts to their business blog about said alcohol related activities makes it part of their public-facing image. GitHub made what might have been 'extracurricular' or 'private' activities into business activities. The public image of a company is significant, and acts that some wouldn't notice can rub others the wrong way. Seems like the GitHub people don't care if a few of their customers move to other services that don't talk up their parties where they drink a lot. To each their own.
  - pjhyett 17y ago
    I'm not sure where you got the impression that we don't care, I wouldn't have written the post otherwise.
    - Perceval 17y ago
      My impression that you don't particularly care about losing that client comes from your blog post discussing the matter. If you wanted to keep that customer, I wouldn't have written a defensive blog post about it. I would have had a private email exchange with that particular customer, and maybe offered them some freebies or a discount for their troubles. Taking the time to single their comment out and write several paragraphs on why 'it's totally justified to blog about partying' and why 'partying and service problems are totally unconnected phenomena because we work our asses off' seems dismissive not understanding. The bottom line is that the blog post doesn't do anything to resolve the commenter's complaints. It's really just a long excuse, and not likely to persuade someone who begins from the premise of being dissatisfied with the level of service already being provided. So, my impression is that since you're providing an excuse rather than a solution, you ultimately are willing to say, "we're okay with losing a customer or two in order to continue blogging about our events where we drink with customers, we'll make up the loss by attracting more customers with the parties." That's a valid business decision to make. But there may be a low cost way of managing your public image such that you can continue to have customer development parties with drinking and also keep frustrated customers.
tsally 17y ago
Alcohol is a major part of the social fabric in America. Business deals, hacker meetups, weddings, reunions, all have alcohol at them. Hell, the writers of the constitution consumed a ton of alcohol to celebrate when they finished. Alcohol serves a useful social function and it's been that way in this country since inception. Yes people are moronic and abuse alcohol, but that's hardly the case with the Github crew. The only reason why anyone would think that 'alcohol = failure' is some stupid notion about booze formed in college where abuse is actually rampant.
- Perceval 17y ago
  >Yes people are moronic and abuse alcohol, but that's hardly the case with the Github crew. How do you know? >The only reason why anyone would think that 'alcohol = lazy' is some stupid notion about booze formed in college where abuse is actually rampant. Eh, I don't drink, and whereas all my friends did in college, I wouldn't have said that lazy was a typical outcome of their drinking. That's not to say their drinking didn't have pretty major downsides on a number of occasions, but they all studied their asses off and were diligent when shit needed to get done. I do think that people tend to associate people that talk up their drinking habits with thoughtless, reckless, or stupid behavior. Whether that's a fair or unfair stereotype is for each person to decide on the basis of their own experience. Apparently some of GitHub's clients have that stereotype. Public image management is part of developing any business. GitHub uses alcohol to loosen customers and potential customers up, which may bring in new clients and maintain current clients. But that strategy will also lose them certain clients, and it's doubtful that writing a blog post about how "it's totally unfair to judge us for posting on our business's blog about how much fun we have drinking with customers" is going to convince otherwise skeptical clients. If the complaining customer is correct that GitHub still suffers from "frequent outages, slow queues, occasional inability to push/pull, frequent breakage after code pushes, etc", then the onus remains on GitHub to demonstrate that they work their asses off. Proof is in the pudding. At the end of the day, GitHub folks can do whatever they like, and people are free to disagree with that and switch services if they like. But there may be better public image strategies out there, perhaps ones that are more discreet at the very least.
  - 17y ago

76 points by tortilla 17y ago

Work hard. Play hard. Recognise when what you're doing is a blend of the two, and always know which of them is the primary aim of any activity. Massive respect for this quote as a way to back your team: "Truly, it may look like we’re constantly out drinking and goofing off, but I dare you to find anyone on our team that doesn’t work their ass off and care deeply about our service...you’re only fooling yourself if you think otherwise."

ojbyrne 17y ago

When I was at digg, where a significant aspect of our audience was under 21, I was concerned about the exclusionary aspect of drinking. I think that probably applies here too. I can still be found going to all-ages shows and appreciate the democratic aspect.

krschultz 17y ago
I experienced this a bit before I was 21, but interning at a company that went out after work a lot. The solution is the venue. Not all bars are 21 y/o and over only, usually only the ones that are strictly bars or nightclubs have that restriction. Your average hamburger & burger place with a bar will let anyone in most hours except maybe thursday/friday/saturday nights.
- lucumo 17y ago
  Which is a good idea anyway, since those places have less social pressure to drink. It's not just the people under 21 (well, 16 here) you can be excluding on an alcohol party. There are also people that don't drink or drink very little. (To be fair, I only got weird looks and remarks once for not drinking alcohol and that was at a student bar where drinking seemed to be the norm. Normally it isn't too big a deal, but I can imagine some people - especially younger ones - feeling uncomfortable being the only one not drinking alcohol. Even more so when a group just gets a pitcher of beer.)
  - tlrobinson 17y ago
    I doubt most people ever really notice if someone isn't drinking, even at an event where the majority of people are. Or maybe I'm just not very observant. I usually do drink at these kinds of events, but when I don't I've never felt pressured to (at least not since college). Maybe it's different for people who sometimes drink vs. never drink.
    - tekkub 17y ago
      People notice, but only to a small degree. When I was out in SF back in July I didn't intend to drink much at the meetup. I think I had 4 drinks total, all were bought by someone else for me. If I had declined the drinks, or gotten something non-alcoholic instead, I doubt anyone would have made a fuss about it. Well.. and PJ did shove like $15 in the jukebox and demand I pick songs, and gave us money for the taxi ride home which also paid for a nice pizza back at the hotel.
    - lucumo 17y ago
      I don't think the problem is other people noticing as much as thinking they're noticing. You can feel a bit weird if someone goes "beers for everyone?", everyone's agreeing and you're the one that has to go "no thanks, a coke would be nice". Or worse, just order it and put it in front of you. People do tend to assume everyone drinks beer. (For me, that's not true. I don't mind alcohol, but I can't stand the taste of beer. I can't finish a zip of it, let alone a glass. I do sometimes have to explain that. Since I'm old enough to have a driver's license I sometimes have the nice excuse that I still need to drive. Works a bit better in that it requires less explanation.)
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      It's possibly because I just got out of college, but it really bothers people when you don't drink. A lot. I didn't drink the entire way through, and I got a lot of comments later on. People weren't very forward about it, but after some prodding, they stopped inviting me out because they felt that I was judging them by not drinking, and therefore I was a buzzkill. I didn't draw any attention to it at all, I had a Coke in my hand the entire night, but it still made people upset. People are silly.
- ojbyrne 17y ago
  I totally agree, but at the time the rationale was those places typically weren't "cool." Which is obviously also exclusionary.

benatkin 17y ago

Nice post. I'm glad he didn't bother to say that they're responsible drinkers. At best, it wouldn't be necessary to say it because clearly they're in control. At worst, it might offend some who think that the only way to drink responsibly is to drink moderately (according to gov't guidelines) or not at all.

markbao 17y ago

It's also good for loosening people up a little bit. I've been to a number of networking events with alcohol and it's pretty effective.

erlanger 17y ago

Quite a few seem to care a great deal about the private lives of others...it seems really strange to me. Why would anyone worry about what these guys do on their free time, if at all?

lucumo 17y ago
It seems that it's not so much what they do with their free time, but that they "take" it at all. I've seen people going completely crazy because they didn't get a response from developers within an hour or so. On Sunday. At 0400h (am).
Perceval 17y ago
The complaints weren't about the private lives of others per se. The alcohol related activities are at GitHub sponsored events where the team mingles with customers. Customer development is part of business. Frequent posts to their business blog about said alcohol related activities makes it part of their public-facing image. GitHub made what might have been 'extracurricular' or 'private' activities into business activities. The public image of a company is significant, and acts that some wouldn't notice can rub others the wrong way. Seems like the GitHub people don't care if a few of their customers move to other services that don't talk up their parties where they drink a lot. To each their own.
- pjhyett 17y ago
  I'm not sure where you got the impression that we don't care, I wouldn't have written the post otherwise.
  - Perceval 17y ago
    My impression that you don't particularly care about losing that client comes from your blog post discussing the matter. If you wanted to keep that customer, I wouldn't have written a defensive blog post about it. I would have had a private email exchange with that particular customer, and maybe offered them some freebies or a discount for their troubles. Taking the time to single their comment out and write several paragraphs on why 'it's totally justified to blog about partying' and why 'partying and service problems are totally unconnected phenomena because we work our asses off' seems dismissive not understanding. The bottom line is that the blog post doesn't do anything to resolve the commenter's complaints. It's really just a long excuse, and not likely to persuade someone who begins from the premise of being dissatisfied with the level of service already being provided. So, my impression is that since you're providing an excuse rather than a solution, you ultimately are willing to say, "we're okay with losing a customer or two in order to continue blogging about our events where we drink with customers, we'll make up the loss by attracting more customers with the parties." That's a valid business decision to make. But there may be a low cost way of managing your public image such that you can continue to have customer development parties with drinking and also keep frustrated customers.

tsally 17y ago

Alcohol is a major part of the social fabric in America. Business deals, hacker meetups, weddings, reunions, all have alcohol at them. Hell, the writers of the constitution consumed a ton of alcohol to celebrate when they finished. Alcohol serves a useful social function and it's been that way in this country since inception. Yes people are moronic and abuse alcohol, but that's hardly the case with the Github crew. The only reason why anyone would think that 'alcohol = failure' is some stupid notion about booze formed in college where abuse is actually rampant.

Perceval 17y ago
>Yes people are moronic and abuse alcohol, but that's hardly the case with the Github crew. How do you know? >The only reason why anyone would think that 'alcohol = lazy' is some stupid notion about booze formed in college where abuse is actually rampant. Eh, I don't drink, and whereas all my friends did in college, I wouldn't have said that lazy was a typical outcome of their drinking. That's not to say their drinking didn't have pretty major downsides on a number of occasions, but they all studied their asses off and were diligent when shit needed to get done. I do think that people tend to associate people that talk up their drinking habits with thoughtless, reckless, or stupid behavior. Whether that's a fair or unfair stereotype is for each person to decide on the basis of their own experience. Apparently some of GitHub's clients have that stereotype. Public image management is part of developing any business. GitHub uses alcohol to loosen customers and potential customers up, which may bring in new clients and maintain current clients. But that strategy will also lose them certain clients, and it's doubtful that writing a blog post about how "it's totally unfair to judge us for posting on our business's blog about how much fun we have drinking with customers" is going to convince otherwise skeptical clients. If the complaining customer is correct that GitHub still suffers from "frequent outages, slow queues, occasional inability to push/pull, frequent breakage after code pushes, etc", then the onus remains on GitHub to demonstrate that they work their asses off. Proof is in the pudding. At the end of the day, GitHub folks can do whatever they like, and people are free to disagree with that and switch services if they like. But there may be better public image strategies out there, perhaps ones that are more discreet at the very least.
- 17y ago