Man wins court case against employer that fired him for not liking boozy, forced 'fun' culture "Fun" may not be a word many associate with the IT coalface but in the glamorous world of consulting it is mandatory, according to French court papers that absolve an employee of being an alleged party pooper. The ruling in the Court of Cassation – an appellate court and the highest in France – says that the man, referred to …
The corporate idea of "fun" is usually a million miles from a rational human being's idea of fun. Personally I'd regard any web site that emphasised "fun" as a major red flag against applying for a job there.
[I remember the time a US corporation tried introducing its corporate song book to the UK subsidiary I worked at.]
Not to mention that their website figures the words Six Sigma multiple times - one basic entry in my Bullshit Bingo card.
Then there's the fact that they apparently have a rating for managers lifted directly from Judo : yellow belt, green belt, etc. First time I've heard of such a notion, but they'll happily explain it to you (for a fee, undoubtedly, even if it's just your phone number).
You're right that (the threat of) publicity is often the only way companies will end up doing the right thing, but Cubik is not off the hook yet as far as financial compensation goes in this case.
"Cubik was ordered to pay Mr T €3,000, with further damages to be determined at a later date."
Too bad this case wasn't in the US, though. Dreading the company dinners after the pandemic - always seem to be one or more coworkers who get drunk and insist on driving home themselves. HR Handbook says managers must step in at that point and call a taxi, but I've yet to see that happen. One wonders why these events are even organized when even management admits that certain people are likely closet alcoholics.
Place I'm at, a few years ago the manager of the customer service department was caught, yet again, touching the ladies up under the desk at the Christmas party, I wish I'd never gone. Whats worse is instants like this had been reported before, but nothing was ever done. Because the "me too" movement was at its height, they finally took action and he was given a choice to resign or be fired. They should of fired him. He should never had been in any of the positions he was in at this place. Considering his history he should never have had access to the data he had. Ironically, a couple or so years on, he's now in prison for a similar issue involving a minor.
One cannot help but wonder if the issue with the minor would have been avoided if the he had been fired instead of being allowed to resign.
Along the same lines, how many more victims did he make at subsequent jobs because he was able to hide the reason for leaving the job where he was caught?
ta, prof WTS, super BFTP...cheers...Mandatory Fun
“Weird Al” Yankovic Released July 15, 2014
Lyrics&audio at genius.com/albums/Weird-al-yankovic/Mandatory-fun
[this ol' mechanic's fave-]
Handy
“Weird Al” Yankovic
Track 1 on
Mandatory Fun
The opening track of Mandatory Fun is
an ode to the do-it-all handyman and a parody of Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”.
Handy Lyrics
[Verse 1]
First things first, I'm a craftsman (Craftsman)
Remodelling is my only passion (It's my passion)
And I'm the greatest in the business
Want referrals, yo
My clientèle will bear you witness (Right, right)
I can help when your door jamb sticks (heh?)
There is nothing in the world I can't fix (yeah)
I do tiles, I do stone, I do bricks
Call me, I'll come rushing over with my bag of tricks (bag of tricks)
Where you go when your disposal is rusted (rusted)
Termite problem making you disgusted (yuck)
When your front window is busted (hey hey hey)
Just one name that's always trusted
[Chorus]
I'm so handy, you already know
I'll fix your plumbing when your toilets overflow
I'm so handy, I'll bring you up to code
When your dishwasher's about to explode
[Verse 2]
Now you say that your furnace is needing some service
I'm fully bonded, no need to be nervous
Perhaps you would like a new counter Formica
Maybe I'll hook up this here combo washer-dryer
But all your pipes are antique
Your water pressure's too weak
You got an attic full of dry rot
Because your roof sprung a leak
Your fridge is starting to reek
Your hardwood floors really squeak
But don't you worry I'll just show you my amazing technique
Now let me glue that, glue that and screw that, screw that
Any random chore you got, well I can do that, do that
Or maybe I'll just rewire your house for fun
I got 99 problems but a switch ain't one
[Chorus]
I'm so handy, everyone said so
I'll grout your bathroom, resurface your patio
I'm so handy, I'm the guy to know
When your leaf blower doesn't blow-oh-oh-oh
See “Weird Al” Yankovic Live
Get tickets as low as $77
You might also like
Lame Claim to Fame
“Weird Al” Yankovic
Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye
Epic Rap Battles of History
Rich Flex
Drake & 21 Savage
[Bridge]
Patch the drywall, clean your gutters and mow the lawn
Make that phone call, I'll install anything you want
Yeah, check my big staple gun, my socket wrenches are second to none
I won't quit 'til I'm done, don't even care if I hammer my thumb (OW!)
[Verse 3]
Still rocking my screwdriver
Got the whole world thinking I'm MacGyver
Your heating bills are shocking
I can solve that with some duct tape and some caulking
Your house is a disaster, huh?
Need a guy who's a master with the plaster, huh?
Let me be your stripper
Taking off lacquer, no one does it quicker
[Chorus]
I'm so handy, you already know
I'll beat all price quotes, my hourly rates are low
I'm so handy, you should call this pro
I'm in the phone book and se habla español
The Belts are a standard part of the Six Sigma philosophy.
The US corp with the song book also had Six Sigma. My (brief, I left shortly after the takeover) experience with them taught me how class based US employment practices can be. Their rule was that monthly salaried employees all had to do Six Sigma training, but weekly waged didn't. We were a UK software house – of course all our employees were on monthly salaries, so they insisted everyone had to do Six Sigma, including the part time receptionist who only worked three half days a week. Bloody ridiculous.
I used to joke about who would win in a fight between a Six Sigma black belt and an Institute of Professional Innovators (IPI) certified black belt. This is after working for the federal government and TQM/QAT had been all the rage. If you have to "force" process improvement or innovation, it doesn't work well at work.
I was more than happy to step outside corporate BS during the pandemic (aka made redundant). Now semi-retired on zero hours that I control, I have not looked back. I had a suspicion the Executive Team had self importance and wealth over the welfare of the company and employees, and have realised it can only be true. Why on Earth would you still keep working after your first $1M bonus?
"Personally I'd regard any web site that emphasised "fun" as a major red flag "
Wasn't that one of the major attributes that Twitter, Google, Facebook etc al advertised when recruiting ? Fun, cool environment..
And then we had all those viral videos of people showing us their typical days... I can't find the originals I think that they were Tik Tok vids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0lgRPaLC1U
What I don't understand about this guy though is why did he remain for 4 years ? He's a techie in Paris, it's not like there are a lack of jobs, hell companies are crying out for good employees.
If you read Cubiks website it doesn't actually appear to be that unusual or strange. Half way down their landing page we see the title "Apprendre en s’amusant : fun & pro, telle est notre devise !"
If you go to work for one of these "dynamic cadres" companies then I can understand that you would be expected to participate in the "events".. It's part and parcel of those environments, they need them to be that way in order to sell.. It's like working in the fashion industry or hollywood and being surprised to see people doing lines of coke.
Translation : Learn whilst having fun, Fun & Pro, this is our motto..
It's just another small line of marketing blurb, it's one line amongst several pages, that no one ever believes.
Ha - thankyou - you just reminded me of the "how many otters can you fit on a plane" segment from the most excellent "Cabin Pressure" Radio 4 sitcom - sadly they don't make 'em like that any more. Clip attached.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmlXLU-1E6Y
That's made my morning :-)
Jim
The song book was not distributed at the location I was at when I worked for the company in question, but one of my co-workers had done a stint in one of the New York locations and had a copy. It had photos of choruses of besuited employees dutifully singing away. The fun simply radiated off the page.
(Where I worked, most people didn't even wear suits. Regional management types always had an air of disgust when they visited.)
“I remember the time a US corporation tried introducing its corporate song book to the UK subsidiary I worked at.”
That brings back a memory for me - joining a large US company’s UK operation and being introduced to the company song. The UK management included it in the induction and training programme because that was the corporate line, but never any intention to actually sing it on this side of the pond. Any exposure to the song was limited to the US produced videos.
We got our own back when some of the subsequent training videos (one memorable one on interviewing, for all company supervisors) starred John Cleese!
They weren't even free: the stupid pointy-haired boss we ended up being lumbered with blew the entire departmental budget on this sort of crap and various other vanity projects so there was nothing left to spend on stuff we needed. And no, I didn't attend the FREE team working events because absolutely the last thing I want is to go karting with someone with the social skills of a coked-up trustafarian when I just need to GTFO of London and relax (and purge myself of black bogies).
But these are not typical IT Engineers, they are those "Six Sigma" full of shit hyped up on Coke/Bonuses/Crap ISO Methodology type of Engineers that would be better working as Door to Door Insurance Sales rather than actual engineers..
Very few actual engineers can support these guys being on the premises, they usually provide endless powerpoint slides about how they are going to radically improve your business, with cheesy smiles and expensive overheads. At they end of the day they just move some chairs around, create a couple of new titles/roles and it's BAU for all concerned.
And this guy must have known this before taking on the job.
Many moons ago I worked for a 'large' UK multinational and they sent a team of people to our site to teach us about the 'standard operating framework' they were rolling out as part of 'excellence in delivery' (we had a different E word for it...). Lots of new middle management positions with impressive titles were created.
I swear that one of the people was on speed the ENTIRE TIME! They could not stop moving, would not sit down and could not explain anything in a coherent manor. They also had NO documentation. About a week after the team left we'd gone back to BAU.
Said multinational has now been sold off and broken up.
It is so easy to tell when a ladder climbing middle manager wannabe has been reading management for dummies books. 5S, kaizen, catchball... An operations manager decided to 5S the workshop that included binning all the tooling and test jigs for some old products. This would have been fine if the company had actually EOL'd those products and stopped supporting them. I snagged the tools and jigs for some of the products I'd designed and stashed them away before they could go in the bin. Not long after I get a call from ops, 'do you have a test jig for xxxx as a customer has sent in a broken one and we promised a repair?'....
"Which you had passed on to your brother as an interesting piece of modern industrial kitsch, but he has very reasonable hourly equipment hire rates."
Too late! He sold it as an 'installation' to the New York MOMA, and for US$$$$ Millions. Oh? You 'want it back' do you. Well, let's see ...
I've long believed that the best business to be in would be the garbage contractor for a company going through their first 5S experience. Just rent a warehouse near their facility and sell their stuff back to them over the next 2-3 years.
5S (to most manglememt):
Sniff around the labs, workbenches, etc.
Scan for things that trigger your OCD
Scream at the nerds who want to keep stuff you don't understand.
Shitcan the lot
Sod off before anyone notices the value of the tooling you disposed of.
I'm still salty at the 5S inspections we used to do in our lab. A lab isn't a manufacturing workstation, the tasks change from day to day, so my work area's setup will also change. Oh, and I shouldn't have to label my oscilloscope. If you don't know that's a 'scope, get the hell out of the lab before you hurt yourself (or worse, break something I'm working on! )
Ever notice how every 5S project "saves" an oddly specific figure like $573,717?
"I snagged the tools and jigs for some of the products I'd designed and stashed them away before they could go in the bin."
From the Field guide for Identifying Engineers....
* Saves "obsolete" tools, "just in case".
* Reads manuals, even for things they don't own/use (that was in a previous El Reg article).
I worked for a large electrical engineering company that made and serviced high current contactors for Southern Railway (among others). We had a change of ownership, and the new manglement decreed that we would no longer be in the heavy current business, everything would be electronic.
Very soon thereafter, all of the jigs and spare parts were skipped, and the factory floor was emptied of all its machines. Then a lorry appeared laden with contactors from SR, intended to be refurbished using the jigs and spares that had just been dumped. Said incoming contactors were similarly skipped, and all went quiet.
For about two days, when SR heard about the fiasco, and the fertilizer hit the ventilator in a big way. The whole manglement team was fired, and most (but not all) of the previous team was reinstated, but a trawl through the local scrap merchants failed to produce a workable amount of equipment, so a lot of money had to be spent to replace it.
My own pet product was also part of the cull, but our one and only customer (a chemical plant in Northern Germany) didn't ask us for any further product until about five years later, during which time the Senior Engineer concerned had retired (back to Poland), the Development Engineer had died, and I had moved on to other products. Regrettably, the customer scrapped the lot, as we couldn't supply replacements.
Thus was the demise of a ground breaking development through manglement incompetence.
(I don't know what SR did, they probably took their business to one of our overseas competitors).
"And this guy must have known this before taking on the job."
How, exactly? The only clues I can see are the stupid motto. The problem with that is that every company has a boiler plate descriptor of their environment that looks similar to everyone else's and means nothing. It often involves an attempt to praise the company as doing great work and to entice applicants by pretending the company cares about their happiness. Whatever the environment, whether it's the dream job where you do only the stuff you enjoy for a massive salary in a perfect environment or a job where you have a mandatory few hours unpaid overtime per day helping with the demolition of the company's old office, their website blurb will look about the same. You can't use that to know what the environment will be.
How does one tell what a company's environment is before taking on the job? I have two options. You could look them up online (which works badly if they're small enough that few have posted about it and also works badly if it's large because there will be a lot of conflicting reports from different teams that have different environments. You could also ask the people interviewing you, who will probably lie about anything negative because they think they want to hire you. I don't think it's that surprising he didn't know what their idea of fun was or how often they would subject people to it.
I've done the Six Sigma training, and most companies use it in the wrong way. It's for measuring and correcting the process when you repeat it alot. So having ten clients and doing some sort of six sigma methodology on how good/bad you are in solving their problems isn't going to cut it.
It's for when you make 10,000 or 10 million identical widgets and you want to make sure you understand their variance and how they fit the requiremetns. This is why it was invented by 3m (as I recall, could be wrong) for helping them make their product efficiently, and with the proper controls in place to keep it consistent.
One off projects aren't really the focus for this tool. The stats get all dogy when you have small numbers.
I read absolutely nothing in the judgement or the complaint that mentions "sexual harrasement"..
At worst the following was cited which makes no mention at all of anything sexual:
"par des pratiques prônées par les associés liant promiscuité, brimades et incitation à divers excès et dérapages."
Can you clarify exactly how you managed to reach your conclusion ?
The world is moving towards a very sorry place to live in where even the wrong look can get you in trouble.. No wonder people are losing their social skills, they are becoming frightened to death of making a wrong movement.. This in itself will ensure the reduction of the population.
The more I think about the phrase "good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." the more I believe that it is true..
In a world where everyone is offended or triggered by such events, who will defend us in times of real problems ?
I agree with you in the general sense but not in this specific case.
Being "strong" ≠ being a twat.
If they insisted on "having fun", I think trashing the boss office and setting his car on fire could well be my idea of "enforced fun".
— Hey boss, if you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined.
Something strange in this case all the same, this guy was promoted to the status of Directeur in 2014. It's extremely rare that one would invite a Directeur to one of those evenings.
Wasn't his boss aware of this culture ? It's hard to believe that during 4 years he had never wanted to participate or had never refused to participate durinhg all this time and still managed to get promoted... Why would the company promote such a person who was obviously the odd man out.
Talking without the benefit of knowledge here, but…
> Why would the company promote such a person who was obviously the odd man out.
Because he was good at his job?
I was promoted multiple times and had my arse saved a couple of times by someone who absolutely hated my guts. Taught me a lot about fairness, I owe that man a lot.
It is great to see the parade of moral warriors passing by.
How much the views of many got clouded by the US suburbia way of thinking.
US suburbia is what it is, France is what it is.
Maybe French can be them selves, and if one doesn't like what is going on during a company party, one can always leave with an excuse ?.
Maybe he was the real sigma guy, he was getting the stuff done but not particularly liked because he didn't fit in, while the others were having fun and being generally useless but hey they are fun guys. Having read some of their website it's very typical of a corporate bs website. They make out what they are doing is something new, just throw a few manglement keywords in there that look good and are meaningless mumbo jumbo. Lean management ... Lol no management is far better or put another way. If who ever manages the programmers or software guys isn't himself a damn good programmer or engineer then he's in the wrong job. The engineers will have zero respect if your eyes glaze over because you don't understand what the f they are talking about. And you are supposed to be managing them when you don't understand what the hell they are talking about.
When I was still working in education as a teacher/manager we had the "benefit" of a management consultant. Apart from making us wonder "If he was so great why wasn't he running a multi-national?" he was a believer that management was a profession in its own right and that you didn't need to know about the work you were managing. I still think that's bollocks. If you don't know what they're meant to be doing how do you know they're doing it right/efficiently/etc.
*I was a teacher and like all heads and deputies ( until recently at least) started at the chalk face. When I had a dud staff member to deal with I could recognise what they were doing wrong and set targets accordingly. My dad was a factory worker and became a successful manager by working his way up from the machine.
My daughter is an NHS professional and has just become a team manager by promotion due to the quality of her clinical work.
The idea that some knows-fuck-all professional manager could do our jobs just makes me want to explode </rant>
Anon because family job mentioned - however vaguely. Apologies.
Methinks maybe you need to read the article a third time. If you still can't figure out bits that could be considered sexual harassment, and/or ripe for sexual harassment (even sexual assault) then maybe you should schedule a refresher course with your HR department. Take a copy of this article with you and have them walk you through all the problems they see with the behaviour described.
> That's a lot of supposition.
Would I be wrong in surmising that you are French?
One thing I was going to comment is that this is a mildly surprising judgment coming from France, where a rather backward attitude towards women sadly still persists.
And no, I'm not suggesting that we need American style newspeak bullshit (which tries to hide the problem rather than solve it). I'm suggesting that we should be more aware of the ingrained machismo in many sectors of French society (and do something about it, obs)
"One thing I was going to comment is that this is a mildly surprising judgment coming from France, where a rather backward attitude towards women sadly still persists."
Oh really, have you actually ever been to France, that is a very bold statement to make...
Personnellement je pense que c'est les Etats Unis qui ont besoin de revoir leur propre politique interne et leur incessant envie de pousser leurs valeurs sur le reste de la planète.
Les Américains ont bien du travail à faire chez eux bien avant de regarder ailleurs. J'ai vecu dans le 2 pays donc je parle avec connaisances.
> Oh really, have you actually ever been to France
Yes.
> les Etats Unis qui ont besoin de revoir leur propre politique interne et leur incessant envie de pousser leurs valeurs sur le reste de la planète.
Au contraire, de leur point de vue, ils ont besoin de maintenir et répandre leur politique de domination. De notre point du vue, et je parle en tant qu'européen, on a besoin de casser notre dépendance coloniale. De Gaulle avait bien compris quelles étaient les intentions des EUA après la guerre et pour cette raison, entre d'autres choses, il a mis la France hors le commandement intégré de l'OTAN (jusqu'à ce que Sarközy Miklós décide de faire un cadeau aux américains en échange d'un morceau de Libye).
> Les Américains ont bien du travail à faire chez eux bien avant de regarder ailleurs.
Tout à fait d'accord, cependant ça n'empêche que la France a aussi du boulot à faire concernant la discrimination des femmes.
Casser la dépendance coloniale est équivalent de dire que nous allons retourner dans les guerres, parce que les ressources seront toujours recherchées, si ce n’est pas nous ça sera les Chinois, et eux ne sont pas les enfants de bon cœur, donc c'est n'est pas une solution. Il faut éduquer les gens, il faut augmenter les connaissances partout, pas qu'en France ; mais malheureusement aujourd’hui, j'ai l'impression qu'on privilège le contraire.
> Casser la dépendance coloniale
On parle de la dépendance coloniale de l'Europe par rapport aux EUA, le plan Marshall n'étant une autre chose qu'un plan de colonisation.
> est équivalent de dire que nous allons retourner dans les guerres
Nous somme déjà en guerre, au cas où t'avais pas remarqué.
> eux ne sont pas les enfants de bon cœur
Nous non plus.
> Il faut éduquer les gens, il faut augmenter les connaissances partout, pas qu'en France ; mais malheureusement aujourd’hui, j'ai l'impression qu'on privilège le contraire.
Tout à fait d'accord.
Don't you remember the time when a man was innocent until proven guilty
Ah yes the old "boys will be boys" defense, you can't penalize a man for making aggressively sexual advances or harassment because he's a man so it is in his nature to do this! Even if you have him recorded doing so he'll claim "I was just joking, why can't anyone take a joke anymore", and apologists will make a stink about "innocent until proven guilty".
From the same people who excused "grab 'em by the pussy" as "just locker room talk". There's no proof unless you have him on 4K video and audio grabbing the pussy, and even then we'll be told "she was asking for it" by the way she dressed or the way she had acted around the office.
So if person A tells person B a joke that starts "two niggers walk in a bar" and person C is offended that's too bad because it was a joke privately told between person A and person B?
Perhaps person A and person B should tell off color jokes on their own time, not on the company's dime where co-workers can overhear them?
It is just basic respect for other people as human beings. I know that's too much to ask of some, but too bad!
> So if person A tells person B a joke that starts "two niggers walk in a bar" and person C is offended that's too bad because it was a joke privately told between person A and person B?
Well, no. Person C has every right to be offended. It's *into* a bar.
Don't people know their prepositions anymore?
> I work in the UK.
You have my heartfelt commiserations.
> In one of our manadtory diversity training courses, we were told
Lots of stuff that may or may not be true but which is never intended to prepare you to make informed decisions, it's intended to keep your employer's arse covered.
Can be but sometimes isn't,
Don't sound like it's about harassment but instead about the perception of harassment by others.
Human perception is limited only by the imagination and internal associations of the person perceiving.
So is it harassment? Irrelevant
Can someone else successfully portray a behavior as an harassment and propagate that perception to a enforcement entity? That is the more relevant question.
Doesn't matter to consequence if it is harassment or not.
What matters is if management or law enforcement can be gamed into believing it is so within that particular situation.
It is quite possible to feel harassed even though no one is actively harassing you.
It is also quite possible to attempt to harass others and fail do so due to no one being bothered to pay attention to you.
I
Ah, the "work hard, party hard" type of company.
Reminds me of the gaming company I naively interviewed for a few years ago. I was unaware that "gaming" actually means "gambling", and since they work exclusively for other brands there was nothing on their website to suggest the true nature of their business. Anyway, before the interview proper started I was subjected to an enthusiastic managerial type explaining why they were the best place to work. Since I'm either a massive cynic or perhaps just well attuned to bullsh*t, I translated his pep-talk as "it's a crap place to work, but we get pissed up every evening".
Having a satisfactory social life already, and a loathing of gambling after one of my family members lost everything through an addiction to betting shops, I politely turned down the subsequent job offer. A few months later, the company were all over the news after several of their executives were arrested while transiting through a US airport. Turns out they'd fallen afoul of the US laws about gambling and foreign companies. A dubious law from what I understand, but given the level of arrogance and smugness I encountered at the interview with them I did feel a bit of schadenfreude.
Once I interviewed for a then American, what I naively considered a "respectable" IT consulting company (which by now might be based in Japan). In the first interview, the HR manager slobbering over their frequent staff parties, inviting me to their Halloween party, and hitting on me were already three sufficient reasons not to join them.
One of the 'rules' about these work events is that you're supposed to forget what people tell you when they're drunk - whether it's about their personal or their work life.
Probably an easy thing to do when you're drunk yourself, but quite impossible when you either don't drink or drink responsibly.
Yikes - the idea that anyone ever had to say that once, let alone make it a rule! What kind of people even think that they can "impose joy"?
Then again, I've never been blessed with anyone explicitly talking about "UX" when I've been writing UIs; although one requirement was "must be fully functional whilst user is wearing gloves" and if they really, really enjoyed wearing their work gloves (and who am I to judge)...
The management were probably trying to motivate their staff into believing that the company was a great place to work, and their co-workers were wonderful people who were 'fun guys to be with'. It demonstrates an immaturity sadly prevalent in young, enthusiastic owner/managers. The company is their 'baby' and they want to feel that every employee has the same emotional attachment to its success, and will sacrifice as much as they will to get the job done.
So when you get told there is a company weekend of events at an expensive country hotel (karting, quizzing, treasure hunts etc.) with evening meal, overnight stay all paid for by the company (the first time I paid over £5 for a single shot G&T) you think gosh! Then you discover that the office staff do not get private health care, and have fewer days paid holiday, but were invited to the event, and you think WTF? (Which would you prefer: a weekend away or annual private health care for you and family?)
I once had an interview for a job at the now defunct GEC Computers. The interviewers claimed they did not pay over the odds, expected people to work unpaid overtime and wouldn't pay extra for my (relevant) PhD, because it was such a wonderful place to work. I had to decline their 'offer'. I just wonder how these people think they come across.
It's a sign of severe depression and loneliness when managers use a company as a some sort of way for providing paid for friends.
I am surprised workers don't feel being abused by this behaviour, because in reality they become nothing more but escorts.
If people go to pub for a drink with their work colleagues, that is an extreme red flag.
Yeah. That's fairly universal, voluntary, moderate and enjoyable for most people, and you don't all have to go or every time, or stay for long.. But it's a far cry from compulsory, after hours, enforced drinking and synthetic jollity. Which even if you like it when you're new and young is going to get pretty horrible as soon as it becomes a routine drag on your private life or you grow up a bit.
"It's a sign of severe depression and loneliness when managers use a company as a some sort of way for providing paid for friends."
I suspect that it is more of a sign that the company owners / managers believe strongly in the feudal model, and think they somehow 'own' their employees, although I grant you it could also be due to loneliness - they have probably invested their entire waking lives to their 'baby' for several months or years and miss the social interaction which us plebs / 'normal people' get. Don't forget that in the days of factory workers' holidays, the whole company would decamp to the seaside for one or two weeks of communal holiday every year.
> in the days of factory workers' holidays, the whole company would decamp to the seaside for one or two weeks of communal holiday every year.
And those holidays were the polar opposite to the "enforced fun"! Not only were they family affairs but the choice of the seaside came from the temperance movements and a paternalistic attitude from the employers.
"And those holidays were the polar opposite to the "enforced fun"! Not only were they family affairs but the choice of the seaside came from the temperance movements and a paternalistic attitude from the employers."
I am old enough to remember those times, and to be perfectly honest, it was fun being in a child because there were lots and lots of other children to play with and we had free reign to do almost anything we wanted..
My parents were happy because they could be with other parents and not have to worry about the kids..
The world wasn't black and white and dreary as some might imagine.. People today tend to forget that only 50 or 60 years ago things were far different.. And it could easilly go back to that again. The end of the last world war was only 77 years ago, it's really not that far back when people were living is some pretty poor situations because of the war. Yet somehow people today are not grateful for anything, everything has to be handed to them on a silver plate ..
Anyone that doesn't like the idea of corporates controlling their lifes in a western culture only need to look at how the other side of the world does things..... We are definately the lucky ones....
"It's a sign of severe depression and loneliness when managers use a company as a some sort of way for providing paid for friends.
I am surprised workers don't feel being abused by this behaviour, because in reality they become nothing more but escorts.
If people go to pub for a drink with their work colleagues, that is an extreme red flag."
100% in agreement with the first two paragraphs. But the last one? No that statement is something of a "red flag" in itself. It's one thing to value your own privacy, and respect others', but you can't be completely antisocial. I've worked at a couple of companies that organised "pub evenings" and the occasional weekend getaway and they were always fun - because no-one forced anything on anyone.
And of course there is always the Christmas party when at least one (ahem, non-)couple end up "hooking up" for a quickie in the bushes. But I think that's a separate discussion.
> If people go to pub for a drink with their work colleagues, that is an extreme red flag.
Maybe in your neck of the woods. There are many good reasons to go to the pub with colleagues, including the fact that some might genuinely be friends (or family!)
The rest of your comment was spot on though.
Many years ago I interviewed for this "trendy" and "vibrant" start up that "works hard" and "play hard" and holds regular "socials"...
They rejected me because as they said I wasn't a cultural fit.
I said I don't drink and I am not really looking to do clubbing after work as I have my own life and things to take care of.
Ladies from marketing department turned from flirty to disappointed in a split second and I think that sealed my fate.
Unless the job description was "provide business during the evenings to clubs and increase demand for alcohol", it's still a problem. Whether or not I drink isn't relevant to whether I can write code that solves your problems. It's not a legal requirement not to discriminate on drinking, but it is not only stupid for the company who will have more trouble finding employees but certainly won't feel fair to the candidate. If they're also stupid enough to fire or reprimand people who don't do it, then getting rejected during the interview is at least better than that, but I have to lower the bar so much to make that better that I'm not willing to condone the behavior.
What happens the first time a company with such an alcohol-driven culture has an interviewee who is (say) an observant Muslim (or a Methodist, or a Mormon)? Or a recovering alcoholic? Or someone on medication which disagrees with alcohol?
I would just love to be the lawyer opposing the company when any of the cases gets to court ...
> What happens the first time a company with such an alcohol-driven culture has an interviewee who is (say) an observant Muslim (or a Methodist, or a Mormon)? Or a recovering alcoholic? Or someone on medication which disagrees with alcohol?
They get offered a crack pipe instead?
Clarification request: By "managers global harassment training course" did you mean a course designed to help you identify and prevent harassment by managers, or a course on how to harass people (presumably without actually getting caught or obviously breaking laws)?
Oh, and, where is it you work?
Edit -- Ohh, I see what you did there, very clever. Where is that Google 'sarcasm decoder' when you need?
One company that had the benefit of employing me tried that cost saving measure. It was not universally popular. I think it was 'sharing a twin-bedded room' rather than 'sharing a "queen-size" m/hotel room bed', but the principle was pretty much the same.
I cited particular health reasons for needing my own room, which sufficed for me to be one of the few people on a particular course getting my own bedroom. The level of complaint about room sharing was such that the policy was subsequently quietly dropped as a cost-saving measure too far.
I remember when Walmart tried to get a foothold in Germany, and bought a small supermarket chain with about 70 stores, that was one attempt at money saving measures. Attempt, because the German store managers who were supposed to share hotel rooms did not. (Quote from a phonecall with a supplier: "Next Monday we will come and inspect your factory". "You're not." Didn't last long).
When I worked for an extremely numbers and KPI driven multinational, every year around this time we were forced to have to watch and listen to photo stories with voice acted scripts warning us of the evils of giving and accepting gifts in particular alcoholic spirits and complete a multiple choice questionnaire. We were then supposed to fill in a form if given a desk diary or stapler. Early in the new year the diversity training videos would swiftly follow.
Gifts received were all pooled and handed out in a draw just before Christmas. As the backroom boffins never had enough direct contact with The World Outside to be "gifted" anything, this was just jam to us.
But now you bring it up, it might have been a tad frustrating to have handed over the single malt in August only to get back a stapler in December.
The UK Civil Service has the concept of gifts of low monetary value. So were I to meet a civil servant and buy them a coffee and bun for less than £10, then no declaration would be required as the 'gift' was of little monetary value. However, were I selected to, for example, be present when royalty was doing some unveiling and personally be presented to the reigning monarch and receive a proper gift from them, well, that would be something else. I recall that when working for BT there was an article in the company internal newspaper about an engineer who had received a gift from HM QE II, after being selected to do some telephonic related activity for said eminence. A couple of weeks later, a letter in the next issue pointed out that staff were not supposed to accept valuable gifts from clients.
In Germany, a dozen police officers did security for some Saudi Arabian bigwig, and each was given a watch worth €1200. The police officers were told they were not allowed to accept presents. Then their boss was told that a very important Saudi bigwig would be mortally offended if his gift wasn't accepted.
I believe I'm working for the same company right now (or maybe some consultant is selling this concept as a package).
The seeming desire to reduce absolutely EVERYTHING to a number would be laughable if they weren't so serious about it. Constant requests for feedback, three levels of approval required for anything and ironclad restrictions based on your job title. Annual reviews are pretty much an exercise in job enrichment for the HR department, as the paperwork seems to have little to do in regards to evaluating how well you're doing your job.
And, yes, annual required training videos (outsourced, of course) on IT security, harassment, bribery, proprietary information, and many, many more. I think I go through at least 20 a year...EVERY year. Fortunately, you can click through or ignore most of the videos and just answer the questions with the obviously correct answers. But still, a royal PITA!
Coming from a small company, where we were accorded the latitude to what we needed to do to get the job done, it's quite a shock.
Generalisation here, but I have found in the past that most IT departments have at least 1 or 2 ASD people who the department totally depends on to keep their sh!t going, that are not interested in the social side of work and just want to do their job and get back to their cave. I worked for 14 years with an IT manager who refused to attend Christmas parties because he did not want to witness the depravity that went on ( working for a stockbroker during the "Wolf of Wall Street" years).
This problem is caused by the Extroverts in our midst who think all of life should be 'fun' - while those of us who are Introverts have 'fun' doing what we like doing, which is generally for IT people their JOB among other hobbies & pursuits ! I was a programmer for 20+ years, and had to tolerate all that 'jolly' nonsense from those who thought that getting people to 'work together' meant having them get drunk together ! I HATE, HATE, HATE fake jollity & cannot stand people who think happiness is a rip roaring party. My happiness is far more likely to be watching the trees blowing in the wind, or the smile between friends who do not need anything more than sharing a view. Such a lot of screaming hysteria to try & convince themselves they are 'happy' does not do anything but make me want to leave asap - generally 2 hours of any 'party' is all I can stomach ! I know I'm not alone as any Introvert will agree with this synopsis of "what is happiness?". To all Extroverts I am boring as heck, but my life is such a huge world of interest & knowledge & appreciation of small things it cannot be bettered !
had to tolerate all that 'jolly' nonsense from those who thought that getting people to 'work together' meant having them get drunk together ! I HATE, HATE, HATE fake jollity & cannot stand people who think happiness is a rip roaring party. My happiness is far more likely to be watching the trees blowing in the wind
Some, I suspect most, come between these extremes ( bell curve). Yes to a nice Xmas party. Yes to a trip to the pub after work from time to time. Yes to a bit of a do when it's Mavis from accounts' engagement or Fred's leaving to go to a new job etc. i.e when there's a specific reason- and it's not enforced jollity and you don't have to stay all night/get pissed if you don't wish to.
I don't understand some extroverts I know who think that fun is not only a massive party, but one at which no type of social interaction is practical. Aren't they supposed to be energized by interacting with people, in which case why did they decide that music loud enough to cause hearing damage and mandatory screaming directly into another's ears being the only feasible mode of conversation would work? In such parties, conversations naturally break into pairs, because it's difficult to have a larger group and understand one another.
There are lots of things I've seen companies do to encourage morale and friendships, and by far the most successful have been the most optional and flexible. Probably the one that worked best was just having a group who chose to eat lunch together, and the company didn't even have to pay for it.
I intensely dislike working with Optimists. You know, the "Everything is AWESOME!" types who are full of gush and spray it around like they can infect everyone else. That whole "positive attitude" guff smells of fermented egg-yolk & cabbage excrement to me and often seems to be used to cover up incompetence. I have been accused by them of being a Pessimist but I have always considered myself a Realist. A Pessimist is always down on everything, whereas a Realist is down on what is obvious guff and up on anything that improves life. As a Realist I take life as it comes and deal with it but I will ALWAYS call bullsh!t when I smell it. I have declined 2 jobs before now because my bullsh!t detector has sounded off at interview stage.
My glass is neither half-full, nor half-empty,.. it is at 50% capacity. Here's a 100% capacity pint for all my fellow Realists.
Based on the rough timescale, that would be about the same time a manager I was under came up with the same aphorism. He was most definitely the type to only ever read the first paragraph of each subject in the Management for Dummies book. Lots of catchphrases and no substance! Unlike our previous manager, who was always ahead of the curve and gently introduced us to all the new buzzwords and management speak when they were still fresh from the oven then calmly told us to be aware but ignore because it would just be BAU under new names.
I know how he feels. I worked in a busy and very male workshop for 20 years, and I dreaded the time of year when the 'Works Night Out' came along. Even though I spent most of that time as a well-respected service manager and got on with everyone, refusing to go would have me marked down as a 'miserable git', so I reluctantly donned the gladrags and went along with it every year. They all started out OK with just a handful of us doing the rounds of the local pubs, but as the night wore on the Boss (who certainly liked a drink) would engineer things so that we went for the obligatory curry at around closing time. I was never keen on the curry as it seemed a bit much on top of the booze, but once again there was no way out without having to face the derision of the crew. Trouble is it didn't end there, as Bossman by now had the bit between his teeth and happened to be in the local 'Round Table' which seemingly allowed him to knock up any local publican to get sneaky booze out of hours. So another session started. By this time I was flagging and wishing I could be home in bed. Awful nights, no-one should be forced into them. There were some fun times which we still talk about whenever we see each other, but generally I hated the whole thing.
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