Thursday 9 July 2009

On drinking with colleagues

Last night was our summer party at work. Well yesterday afternoon. And it was great, we had a lovely late lunch somewhere on Portobello road, coupled with plenty of drinking and then watched Public Enemies. Which by the way isn't great. I just found that I couldn't get emotionally invested in any of the characters... But I digress, we then finished off with cocktails in a bar somewhere down the road.

I feel like crap today.

Anyhow, what I was really thinking about was that I'm very lucky to get on with all the people I work with. We have a small office, somewhere around 15 people and everyone is really nice, so it's fun to go out drinking with them. Although of course you do have to change your behaviour slightly just to make sure you don't say or do anything too ridiculous.

And it got me to thinking this morning about the sense of drinking with the people you work with. In many ways it's the perfect opportunity to get to know them without the constraints an office brings. But in other ways it can make it harder to manage people when you know them too well and let personal feelings get in the way of management.

What do you think about it? Is it something you do regularly or something you try and avoid?

And my apologies for the rather disjointed post, my brain is not in fully functioning order.

5 comments:

Janine / Being Brazen said...

I actually dont try to avoid it, but i dont really socialise with the people i work with. I have a real crazy mix of people in my office and alot are older then me too.

Very cool that you get along with your co-workers.

Color Me Green said...

i find that managerial distance a bit awkward because i don't like reining myself in when i speak. but i too am lucky enough to have lots of other cool ppl my age to chat and go out for happy hours with at work.

the un-bride said...

I don't mind socializing with people on my same "level" (that sounds wrong, but I don't know how else to describe it ...) but drinking with my manager would be weird. But I think that's more a function of our personalities? Dunno -- interesting question, though!

kadler said...

Haha, no problem. I'm currently working at a place where I don't necessarily get along with my coworkers (just don't have anything in common) so I don't socialize with them much. However, I used to, and I miss it!

Marie said...

Drinking with managers is weird and I tend to let loose with the tongue a little too often so have had to learn how to control myself... But it's tough!

Thanks for your thoughts. M x