Both of my examples were after work. So we're not talking about being at your desk answering support tickets and calculating bridge loading equations.
My point about taking a narrow view is that "the workplace" is not only at-your-desk time. Its geographic-but-after-hours, related but off-site social events.
On a related note, a lot of the discussions around software project codes of conduct are based on the fact that software projects fundamentally are human endeavours. It's not just about the code you churn out. If you want to employ humans you have to let them be human. That means some degree of socializing. If you want to employ machines you have to maintain them too.
My coffee counterexample was to illustrate that your approach seems to be binary, zero tolerance. With humans involved, I think it's just not that simple.
:P I don't understand why you are insisting that I have a narrow view of the workplace, I've read what you've written and agree. I can tell that your examples are after work, we're not talking about sitting at your desk. I'm talking about geographic-but-after-hours and related but off-site social events too.
> a subsidized bar
And if an employee does something stupid after being in that bar, it requires an absolute contortion of language to say that maybe the presence and cheapness of the grog wasn't a contributing factor. Say in a bad case a male employee sexually harasses some female coworker - the woman involved (and, I suspect, a judge) might well question why the company was enabling this. I personally think that the company should be held responsible as much as the drunk employee.
It is simply too easy to link subsidised alcohol to someone acting inappropriately due to alcohol.
> official conference social meet-up
Ditto. If the meetup is official, there should be no alcohol. Learn to socialise over a lemonade. I've seen a very large number of professionals who, somehow, manage to do just that.
> My coffee counterexample was to illustrate that your approach seems to be binary, zero tolerance. With humans involved, I think it's just not that simple.
If I, in a capacity as an employer, am going to have some responsibility for some employees actions then that employee, whilst I am responsible for them, is not going to be drinking alcohol. There risk far outweighs the hypothetical employee who can only socialise with a glass in hand.
I'm not even making that decision on any specific risk factor - alcohol leads to worse decisions, in a way that coffee does not. We live in an age where companies are often responsible for outcomes in a _very broad_ definition of "workplace". If the company might be responsible, then employees have a responsibility to be making their best decisions.
If you want to drink with your workmates the process should be organise it unofficially, go find a bar and don't wear a hat with a corporate logo on it. It isn't hard to do. If drinking is mandatory to having a career then that is the problem, not my hardline approach to alcohol.
My point about taking a narrow view is that "the workplace" is not only at-your-desk time. Its geographic-but-after-hours, related but off-site social events.
On a related note, a lot of the discussions around software project codes of conduct are based on the fact that software projects fundamentally are human endeavours. It's not just about the code you churn out. If you want to employ humans you have to let them be human. That means some degree of socializing. If you want to employ machines you have to maintain them too.
My coffee counterexample was to illustrate that your approach seems to be binary, zero tolerance. With humans involved, I think it's just not that simple.