How Not To Drink With Colleagues At Work

Anonymous 2m 493

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

I work with one of the top reputed financial banks in USA. I had recently got my masters in Business Finance and was like a baby in the corporate world. All I knew was that I had to come on time, be dressed in sharp suits and always finish your work before time because the only time your boss remembers to give you additional work is near the end of the day. I was getting a good grip of things and how things worked in my office and the things in my advantage was that I dearly loved my job. I would get up every morning buoyant to go to work in my expensive suits and of course the money was also very good, which later on proved to be the best motivator to get up every morning.

My profile was of a risk analyst. It may seem boring for most people, but for a reserved person like me, it was a perfect job. I was always very good with numbers, I loved playing with them and my job largely revolved around the same. After a couple of months, you start to feel like you belong to that place and the nervous jitters are replaced by suave confidence. You start you find your way around the office even with closed eyes and you tend to ignore the smoking room gossips, the office politics and whatever goes behind the closed doors of the copying room. You either join the gossip or you are the gossip, I was the latter. I was rather interested in my work, but my boss never appreciated my work and it was starting to get to me.

One fine evening, I was invited for drinks by my colleagues to the neighboring bar after work. I liked to drink so I could not say no. I had a great time with all of them, made new friends and I started to open up. Unfortunately, I had drink after drink, and ended up drinking too much for my own good, and said some not so good things about my boss and a few others. The next morning itself I realized that I had made a big mistake and was very embarrassed to even show my face to those colleagues in the fear that they might tell everything to others and it would eventually reach the ears of people I desperately wanted not to hear. Luckily, those guys did not say a word and the drunk bashing of our bosses became a monthly thing. But, I still regret the things I said on that day. As a professional person, I now strongly feel that alcohol have a somewhat negative effect on the people surrounding us and when at corporate meetings, we should try to strictly avoid getting too drunk for the sake of ourselves. I even think that I should start learning about alcoholism treatment in case my drinking goes out of hand.

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