Americans, behaving badly

[jay]

Things *were* calm here... I made paella for dinner, then breakfast for the guys, then we went back to drilling today, right? Not so... sigh. (link to comment in patgreene's journal)

[Update: the miscreants were fined on the spot as well as having to pay up-front damages, all in cash... they are free to go, but 1200 euros poorer. Which is painful, but hopefully they've learned from it... ]

Comments

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. I still can't believe they did that... what's going to happen next? What is CS going to do?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

They're free now, but had to make lots of ATM cash advances to pay damages and fines... ;)

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

yikes! Is the concept of "do not get drunk while at work" something that they understand? My god, this sort of behavior could, in theory, jeopardize an entire project, if the wrong people were harmed in the process. Eeeeeek!

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

Is the concept of "do not get drunk while at work" something that they understand?

That's a pretty hard one I imagine. There's a LOT of drinking going on out there from all past reports. You'll see that I'm sure while there. And while a good rule for around the home office and on regular hours it is a challenging one to navigate while on weeks-long international travel, no?

I'm pretty amused at the rephrasing though: Is the concept of "do not vandalize or otherwise damage other peoples' thing" something that they understand?

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

This may be a matter of different fields having different norms, and this may also be a gender-based thing, but I still think one ought not to get drunk at work/around co-workers. If you can't hold your liquor, it reflects poorly on your decision-making skills, ability to know your limits, etc.

(I'm also defining "drunk" here to mean "so plastered that you do stupid shit" rather than "have a few drinks and act animated and sociable")

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's our working definitions of "drunk" then. I'm of the opinion that drinking with coworkers is a muddy issue anyway. I tend to think that if everyone goes out for a drink, then there's an implicit agreement that mild lapses in judgement are generally forgivable. That when the office crew "goes out drinking" (which to me implies heavier drinking) then some inibriated lapses are expected, and the more extreme ones are accepted with a little more forgiveness and understanding than they would be in a "just out for a beer" context.

Adding international travel, speudo-shared living accomodations, the historic drinking culture, Cosiano's hospitality re: drinking, etc - this group has done a LOT to blur the lines of approriate, tolerable, and forgivable.

And well - I don't think it was the drinking/being drunk that's the real problem/embarasment. It's the hooligan vandalism - that it was exposed while drunk makes it no less it's own problem, nor IMO does it make alcohol a contributing or excusing factor.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm thinking that the hooliganism wouldn't have occurred absent the intoxication, and if one is choosing to get so drunk that one will not be able to curb inappropriate impulses (sure, I've thought of smashing a window, but I've never _done_ it), one is engaging in behavior that is detrimental to one's employment.

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

But is the case especially different if they'd done it while in their home town? Or on non-work travel abroad? Or on a weeklong vacation to a different foreign locale in the middle of a long work trip?

I note that in this case it wasn't drunk with coworkers, it wasn't drunk at work, and it didn't impact his work or workplace performance - it was his last night in Spain.

But again, my core disagreement with you is that I don't see this as a "don't drink (to excess) with coworkers" problem as much as a "don't drink to the point of violence" problem. Different scales involved in my perception. Shrug. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe.

[geekchick]

they are free to go, but 1200 euros poorer

And very lucky, it seems.