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Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

wsj.com

41–50 of 83 posts

Re: Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

#42
post #15

Only fair way to do this is just start during the last hour of the work day. You're not asking for donated time but people will probably stay a bit later if they're enjoying themselves. If they're not what's the point, anyway. But there's so much negativity in these comments. Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what?

> Only fair way to do this is just start during the last hour of the work day.

Why is that the only way?

> Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what?

What’s with the trend to hypernormalize human agency and preferences?

Why are alternative approaches to life forbidden? There seems to be a religious like statefulness in people where we see a typical human and assume “they must be like me, and they’re being negative if that’s not true.”

Re: Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

#44
I've been on ... 4-5 "after works" (as we call it here), since the pandemic. But even then we usually get going around 16.00 and the night is over before 20.00.

But if the company is planning something after work hours? I consider that to be a "team-building" activity, a part of my 8 hour work day.

Re: Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

#45
post #27

I get that the WSJ needs to run these sort of pieces every so often to sell papers, but "No One Wants [Whatever]" think-pieces should be treated the same way as the overly-speculative question headlines that led to "Betteridge's Law" in the early 2000s. Office culture, like the rest of culture, is cyclical. People are reactive, and tend to move in herds. Given an intense external stimulus like the pandemic, we should…

[deleted]

Re: Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

#46

I think the part that's not talked about is how much more risky it feels in 2023 to drink with co-workers than it did 10 or 20 years ago. Am I just getting old? Drinking culture has largely changed for the better and I think workplaces are safer than they used to be. But I also think you'd have to be an idiot (or risk-blind) to get loose at company events like a lot of people used to do.

It's not more risky for decent people. Just the people who can't stop being perverts & sexually harassing people while drunk actually get held accountable rather than it being swept under the rug. For those of us who don't participate in such behavior nothing has changed or become any more risky.

People getting loose at parties used to mean harassment and it was deemed ok because "men are being men" but it was never ok. Just treat people as they deserve whether you're drinking or not and there's no issue to be had.

Re: Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

#47

> “The flake-out rate is so much higher at events now,” says Gretchen Goldman, a research director in Takoma Park, Md. > This summer Goldman sent an invite to 100 colleagues for casual after-work drinks at some picnic tables just outside the office as a goodbye party. She was taking a new job with the federal government. Fewer than 10 showed up. Maybe don't have an event where people have to BYOB at work?? If I'm doi…

Here in LA - below the Valley - a lot of people are dry or drastically cutting down their alcohol intake. Not a selling point.

Why is that? I’ve personally been drinking a lot less, but that’s because I absolutely hate hangovers and it just doesn’t feel worth it to me. I do enjoy a nice drink, I just never find it worth it anymore. It’s interesting to me that it would be happening more broadly.

Re: Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

#48

> “The flake-out rate is so much higher at events now,” says Gretchen Goldman, a research director in Takoma Park, Md. > This summer Goldman sent an invite to 100 colleagues for casual after-work drinks at some picnic tables just outside the office as a goodbye party. She was taking a new job with the federal government. Fewer than 10 showed up. Maybe don't have an event where people have to BYOB at work?? If I'm doi…

Assuming most of these people were going to be driving home office in evening traffic, perhaps many realized that a couple of drinks weren’t worth risking a fender-bender with bonus DUI for.

Re: Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

#49

I think the part that's not talked about is how much more risky it feels in 2023 to drink with co-workers than it did 10 or 20 years ago. Am I just getting old? Drinking culture has largely changed for the better and I think workplaces are safer than they used to be. But I also think you'd have to be an idiot (or risk-blind) to get loose at company events like a lot of people used to do.

It's not more risky for decent people. Just the people who can't stop being perverts & sexually harassing people while drunk actually get held accountable rather than it being swept under the rug. For those of us who don't participate in such behavior nothing has changed or become any more risky. People getting loose at parties used to mean harassment and it was deemed ok because "men are being men" but it was never…

Okay, you could jump straight to sexual harassment. But lots of people do dumb shit that has nothing to do with sex while they are drunk. "Letting loose" means lowering your inhibitions which makes you more likely to do something regrettable. And I don't want to hear anything about "decent people" unless you're the 1 human on this planet that's never done or said anything they regret.
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