"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that.
It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." Drew Carey
I would have to say happy hours (from here on out--"HH") bring out the best and worst of coworkers--the side they only show after 5pm on weekdays and weekends (i.e., their "real" side).
The Good: I would like to reference here those sticklers in the office place, who appear to be all business, reserved, and conservative and quite frankly appear to "not have a life". But HH humanize these powerhouses and business mongers to a common level of humanity that yes, they do have lives and can socialize (of course with a little help of their good friend, Al Cohol). Then you have those coworkers that you generally get along with in the office and wouldn't mind hanging out with outside the office, if it weren't so random, weird, or awkward. HH are those happy mediums where it isn't so weird and you're still surrounded by familiar office faces but yet feel less constricted to joke around, and dangit to simply just let loose and have fun. HH bring people you wouldn't normally associate with to a socially acceptable environment.
The Bad: This is where things start to get messy. The more inebriated the coworkers are, the more likely you'll hear about office gossip, rumors, and interesting tidbits on your colleagues. No, scratch that. Many times it's just TMI (too much information). Sometimes it can be interesting--hearing about one of your manager's directing for high school musicals, or 2 of your colleagues that surf, or your colleague that does stand-up comedy, or another manager that used to be in the Philly Boys Choir, or another colleague that used to be in a band that opened up for Luther Vandross and went on tour and eventually had solo side projects dj-ing/making music, which eventually got played on MTV. But I digress here because then there are some things that you just didn't want to know. The line has been crossed and now it's becoming more personal...intimate even. It's one step you can't look back on again--what's done is done. And now you have these images, stories, and gossip running through your head when you see that coworker the morning after.
The Ugly: This is sheer pandemonium. Your colleagues dancing on top of tables, ties around their heads, singing obscenely out of tune, and macking it to a third party. Fortunately, I haven't witnessed this shenanigan--maybe with friends but definitely not with coworkers.
Conclusion: Sometimes life hands you a bowl of apples--gotta make juice out of it. Hmm..not sure if that's correct? Anyways, you get my point...you have to make the most of situations. Hence, the reason behind HH and why there needs to be some kind of support group w/fellow colleagues to take that load off you've been harnessing for 8-10 hours that day.
2 comments:
Wow, I can't say that any of the happy hours I've been to have gone to the "ugly". I sympathize with the "bad" however: I get especially uncomfortable when they start gossiping and ripping into other people in the department and on the program. After you hear enough stories, its hard to not look at those people in a professional setting and not think odd thoughts about them.
haha yes, most def!
how are you!?!
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