Amen. I only got my first job in tech because i put away 6 pints in the pub after the interview.
We conducted interviews after lunch, for this exact purpose. I saw good candidates interview but decline the pub afterwards - they did not get offers.
That company had at least two pub sessions a week, typically running to six rounds or more. We hit our medically-recommended maximum weekly intake by Tuesday; Fridays were carnage.
This sounds like hell. At one place I worked, they had free pizza on Fridays so the developers could sit around and socialise. If only they realised that socialising was the last thing the developers wanted to do (many of us on the spectrum) and awkwardly standing around chewing whilst avoiding eye contact; I wonder if they still do it?
I know this sounds awful - but perhaps hiring people that would turn their workplace into what you just described was exactly what they (as an organisation, not necessarily individually) wanted to avoid, just, perhaps not by overtly saying it.
No, that's a bit reverse prejudice and also a bit wrong on assumptions. If you bring in people who are levels above they aren't inherently on the spectrum and it's once you bring them in that you have a dependence on finding more instead of working at a complexity and expertise level that might be more maintainable.
Of course, you don't have to be on the spectrum to be skilled. I was counteracting the argument that a company of developers who love chatting whilst eating pizza is the ideal for programming ability and maintenance of decades of code output.
Assuming that a love of social interaction equates to programming skill would be a mistake, as would assuming that lack of love of social interactions equates to programming skill. The two sets of skills are unrelated, but in a company of people who don't enjoy socialising, forcing a social interaction is counterproductive.
Their numbers might be dwindling, but I would wager there are still some devs out there burning the candle from both ends.
To be fair, I find US forced company events like this way more unbearable than UK/European ones. In the US, the incessant combination of excessive alcohol with neurotic self-awareness gets you to another level of hell.
In another FAANG, the L7s were complaining that the level of office machinations that were occuring stateside was off the charts compared to the offices overseas.
UK afterwork pub culture should be under UNESCO cultural protection at this point, I'm always surprised it's lasted this long. One would have to admit it's fended off the decreasing consumption of alcohol in the new generation impressively even though they may despise the tradition.
> I find US forced company events like this way more unbearable than UK/European ones.
I'm not familiar with European ones, but I agree that forced company events like this is the US are unbearable. I rejoiced once I hit a point in my career where I could safely skip attending them.
I see lots of small consulting companies doing weekly/monthly lunch/dinner events with "everyone" and then boasting about it on LinkedIn, with pictures of the tables.
You can clearly see who are the consulting people, and who are the HR/marketing ones based on who's got fake smiles, and who looks like they are dead inside.
Not only it's more of a redflag than anything, but also, since they are all doing it, what's the goal?
Not trying to go ad hominem, but that's a very ignorant statement.
1. Which ones? I used to be able to stereotype with the best of them, but I cant quickly come up with any protected class that is assigned as teetotalers.
2. Saying you're not hiring someone because they don't drink is a perfectly valid reason for not hiring someone, even if it's a cover for not hiring them because of protected class membership. The laws protecting protected classes are super weak. It is virtually impossible to prove that is the sole reason they weren't hired. All you need is an actual other reason to not hire them--and of course don't put into writing that the real reason is their protected class membership.
Saying they won't get the job if they don't come out for drinks excludes (on characteristic) recovering alcoholics, pregnant women, and about a quarter of the world's population on religious grounds.
And just more broadly, some people have lives, family where they can't just be expected out on the piss in the afternoon.
Admitting it on forum is the in. Just like admitting you've been working while up on ket.
Religion is a protected class, and many religions don’t drink. If the reason they don’t drink is their religion, it isn’t a valid reason to state for not hiring them. Yes, most hr people in this case would use some other alternate reason that isn’t linked to the protected class.
Indeed, and I kinda miss it. My first couple IT jobs were right in Central London and we would all religiously meet at the pub after work, along with hundreds from other companies of all kinds. The banter was glorious.
Same - in Soho on a nice (or even not that nice) Friday (or Monday, or Thursday) the whole place would just be one big open air pub. You'd meet so many great people - the atmosphere was just wonderful.
Then COVID came around and I also moved to Finland where that sort of thing is just unheard of.
Similarly I moved to Germany. The office here is mostly deserted by 16:00. In a way I respect their ability to completely split their work and social lives, but it's not particularly fun for me - especially starting from scratch in a new city.
While the alcohol consumption can be a bit nuts, the UK has a relatively strong cultural tradition that what happens in the pub stays in the pub. That makes it a useful low-risk way to air work issues that would not be raised in a work meeting, either because criticism would be taken as an offense, or just because the person raising them would not get to speak to the person that needs to hear.
Of course, there's nothing enforcing that managers respect it. The main mechanism is that many managers realise it's in their interests to be able to hear unvarnished truths, and for their team to be able to relieve their feelings outside work instead of inside. And for them to be able to get to know their team better. But not all have the integrity or humility to do so.
I was in London a couple of months ago. That day there were 2 (or demonstrations), something to do with Palestine and the other with internal UK politics, around the Big Ben / Buckingham palace. Ended up dragged into to the current of the latter on, could basically body surf If I had an inclination. It seemed everyone was drunk, women / men, old/ young. I didn't know you get so drunk on beer. Also, was the first time I've ever seen portable open urinals, where grown man took out their Johnsons in public and released the beer back into the wild.
My first job out of university was with a large local news organization. It's the only place I've worked that had beer on tap in its cafeteria (from 11am). You haven't seen workplace alcoholism until you've worked with a county cricket correspondent.
It was pretty mad in the 90s, but I don't recall anyone ever being forced into it at companies I worked for. A company mandated "alcohol bus" sounds ridiculous then and now.
More unhinged and better, especially in banks. I had one senior stakeholder that would come back from the Pub on a Friday and complete change all his previous decisions.
I think my lunchtime record was 4 1/2 pints. Another IT guy on the same session had keys to the building's small data room so let himself in and had a kip.
When I joined the UK division of a bank, back in 2016, we had the help staff wheel drinks carts around the house evey Friday at tea time. Adding Bombay Sapphire to your tea was pretty much the norm.
Didn't stay long because I got a PE offer at an American firm in their London office very quickly, and the culture there was so staid and lonely in comparison.
Part of the reason why we have an office bar with a bartender too set up at my current office. I don't drink, but nothing like drinks to help with bringing people together right after work.
I doubt I could walk properly after having 4+ pints in a 1-2 hour window. Presuming it's 4%+ alcohol. You either need to be pretty young or have a pretty accustomed liver, or is it just me?
More unhinged - but a lot of people preferred it that way. To be really clear it's still pretty unhinged and even a decade ago it was much more unhinged.
> UK had the most unhinged work drinking culture I had ever seen
I prefer the term 'enlightened'.
Here in Blighty, if somebody got rat-arsed at an office party, photocopied their arse and puked in the Yucca plant, they would be regarded as an absolute legend (providing they didn't make a habit of it).
Have the recent studies indicating just how dangerous alcohol consumption is made any impact. Losing a few neurons was one thing but some of the studies don't put it as much less dangerous than tobacco. New guidance in the US is there is no safe quantity and no one should have more than one serving a day. I know a lot of younger sw devs in the US that simply do not drink ever. I once would have said that was a little unusual, but now it is the norm. I suspect it will be stigmatized akin to smoking not that far into the future.
Yeah, but its always a trade right? Heroin would kill me too fast for the upside. The trade on alcohol wasn't what I thought it was. I think there are better options. Says I as I lift a cider.
We conducted interviews after lunch, for this exact purpose. I saw good candidates interview but decline the pub afterwards - they did not get offers.
That company had at least two pub sessions a week, typically running to six rounds or more. We hit our medically-recommended maximum weekly intake by Tuesday; Fridays were carnage.