I agree that people shouldn’t drink while on the job. But I think that you need to decide what is the biggest concern to you in this situation. If it’s your coworker’s health, reporting him might result in him getting fired, which might actually negatively affect his health. If your biggest concern is the effect on the workplace and the employer’s liability, reporting him might or might not meet your goal of stopping the coworker’s on-the-job drinking. If you’re concerned about your own job, I concur with the suggestion that you report your coworker anonymously.
Why might it matter that someone is hypervigilant against alcohol (for personal or cultural reasons)?
Well, consider this: in a brief stretch of days we went from OP’s mere smelling alcohol to this thread’s collective fever dream of imagining our poor 21st century Bartleby the Scrivener swilling vodka in his Kia all day, every day. We even read the insidious suggestion that the other smokers in this lil outfit ought to observe their fellow traveler and report
back to the Boss man.
Why does it matter? Because OP clearly doesn’t like the guy and his “highly incompetent” performance and resents the boss’s approval of our alleged drunk or Listerine user. S/he suggests investigating “innocently” when in fact this thread is an admission of strategic “knowing” – knowing with zero evidence, by the way. The only innocence worth thinking about here is “innocent until proven guilty.”
It’s a pretty classic corporate witch hunt in the making. It’s the start of a joke: Foucault, Joshua Ferris and George Saunders walk into a bar…
It very well could be mouthwash. Or even hand sanitizer. My friend is a smoker and he smells more like a boozer than a smoker because of the mouthwash. He is ashamed of the smoking and knows the smell is offensive.
I don’t know what OP’s workplace policy is and I don’t care. But as far as performance qua performance goes, alcohol can actually improve it.
For instance, I would far rather have had the honor to work next to the late great boozehound Christopher Hitchens than a cubicle cluster full of resentful Nosey Parkers.
Would HR consider way too much time observing a co-worker time theft, by the way?
Just quit the job and be done with it. You have stated in previous posts that you do not like your manager. Time to more on.
Which is worse- to smell like alcohol or cigarettes? Thats kinda sad…
Asked DH, who used to work for a large well known company, about invoices. The required contractual turnaround, in order to do business with this company, was to accept a 90 day turnaround for payment. Guess the small companies who cant float a 90 day cashflow are out of luck.
Anyone “needing” a sip of alcohol to “improve” performance is an alcoholic. Denial that this is a problem is one of the first signs of alcoholism.
I would reiterate that, from what you have told us here, you have only the flimsiest actual evidence that the person is actually drinking during the workday, and you have not cited any negative behavior on the part of this person. Moreover, you have made your negative feelings toward this person on completely separate grounds very clear.
From personal experience, I can say that negative and inebriated behavior need not ascend to the point of shouting at people or literally staggering around.
If you are genuinely concerned that this person is drinking on the job, by all means go to HR and say so. Maybe you will succeed in getting a person you resent fired. Maybe you will end up helping a person with an addiction problem. Maybe you will just find out you were wrong.
If you genuinely think this is something you need to do, do it.
@binky17 “For instance, I would far rather have had the honor to work next to the late great boozehound Christopher Hitchens than a cubicle cluster full of resentful Nosey Parkers.” – to each their own…
Did any of you watch the Madmen TV series? DH and I just could not get over the amount of day drinking that went on in that firm. Amazing that they could get anything done at all.
Apparently in the old days, even (or especially?) the bosses were drinking at their power lunches and brainstorming sessions. At least that was the case in certain industries like advertising.
I worked in France at a research facility for a few months. Wine is norm at cafeteria lunch. McDonalds in France also include wine or beer or soft drinks as part of their "meal or used to when I was there. I am also in the MYOB camp if the coworker doesn’t show any outside symptoms, physically or in work.
That whole “3 martini lunch” thing that apparently went on in the 60’s through the mid 80’s seems kind of dangerous to me. I am sure financial and business decisions were made during some of those lunches. I would not want to be cognitively impaired when negotiating or making agreements – 3 martinis would do it for me.
Save the martinis for the celebratory lunch or dinner once the deal is done.
ETA: yes our family lived in France for a short time and it is the custom to have a glass of wine with lunch. But they also indulge in large lunches that sometimes go on for hours so a glass or two of wine may not have much impact.
I was visiting our office in Geneva. I was very surprised when I saw beer/wine in the beverage section at the company cafeteria.
LOL I was in advertising in the late seventies into the early 80s when we did drink at lunch, one and sometimes 2 drinks and sometimes in the afternoons at the office if there was reason to celebrate. Personally I never even stopped to think about it and it was just the way it was. But you did come back to the office after lunch and you did do your job. Odd also to remember back how everyone smoked in their offices and meetings…heck that went on in college - the lecture hall tables had built in ashtrays. Things change. I think the OP just needs to figure out how much it all bothers them and how far out the OP is willing to stick their neck…especially if the “supposed” day time drinker is NOT screwing up at their job.
@fendrock Is this the same job you’ve had where the boss’s micromanagement was making your life highly unpleasant? If so, is your relationship with the boss any better? I can see how the addition of this person whom you do not respect but who has the approval of the boss could make an already-unpleasant situation worse. Since your HR person is, I gather, still a temp, it doesn’t sound as if s/he has the skill set or the support to deal with this kind of situation. It sounds as if s/he probably does stuff like payroll, processing vacation requests, and that sort of thing.
I think that you are between a rock and a hard place. I suggest you document your observations and keep it to yourself for the time being. Perhaps your coworker who agrees with you could do the same thing. Wait and see how things develop. If this person really is an alcoholic who is trying to maintain by drinking throughout the workday, it is likely that the situation will worsen and come to a head, at which point your documentation may be useful.
If not, I hope that you are successful in finding a more suitable and more compatible job and workplace. (I know that it is incredibly hard as one ages, believe me.)
Put in the MYOB camp. According to the OP,
Alcohol doesn’t dissipate from your lungs that quickly. Your body takes at least an hour, and in most cases more to dissipate one drink. I don’t think you have evidence he’s getting drunk during the work day. Maybe, he has one to two beers at lunch, and you don’t even have solid evidence of that. Unless it’s a safety issue, where he has to drive or operate heavy machinery, I don’t view it as your concern.
I assume your co-worker and his boss work in the same location. If the picture some posters have assumed of the stumbling drunk coworker taking multiple shots of vodka on every smoke break is remotely close to accurate, any half-way competent supervisor would have noticed by now. If the manager doesn’t notice an employee is slurring his speech: either the coworker isn’t as drunk as you and other posters have assumed, the manager is totally inept, or the manager just doesn’t care. Regardless, I would leave it alone or start looking for another job. If you see him drinking alcohol, not assume or smell, right at the end of the work day, take down his license plate and call the cops.
The OP has already stated that she believes her supervisor is aware of the alleged issue due to the proximity of their desks. My conclusion is that the supervisor may not think there is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Seems to me that the best course of action would be for the OP to flush out whether or not the supervisor thinks there is a problem. At the end of the day s/he has responsibility for the department and it is up to him or her to address the situation. Unless the alleged odor of alcohol is somehow impacting OP’s ability to do her own job or impacting her in some other way, her concern for company liability should be assuaged once she addresses the issue with the supervisor. Under common corporate reporting structures it is up to the supervisor to take it from there.
Myob as someone else put it.
Hope he isn’t driving drunk. A known hazard is a risk for the employer, I would think.
If it is group hystetia and a false allegation
It is slander. What if it is along the lines that was suggested earlier…new guy being ganged up on?
And no drinking is occuring.
Bull hockey. If there is concern that someone may be impaired, it is not unreasonable to express concern. There are several ways to address this. There is no hysteria or ganging up.
DH had an employee once when he was a manager at a big, well known company. There was one particular employee who had been put on performance improvement plans for a variety of sub-par performance issues. He was apparently suspected of having an issue with alcohol, and one evening called our home (the land line, not my DH’s cellphone), very obviously intoxicated. He had limited memory of it the next day when DH spoke with him about it. When HR did speak with him about his issues, he tried to say that he was 1/64 American Indian and claimed either harassment, discrimination or being in a protected class (I forget). Regardless, he was ultimately referred for treatment and hopefully is clean and sober now.