Another data point: Lived in the Bay Area my whole life and while people still make the “well, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere” joke when ordering a beer over lunch, alcohol is indeed present and plentiful at events, parties, etc.
My current company often has beer and wine in the fridge, leftovers from parties, etc. I don’t believe we stock it on a regular basis, though. However, we have a room that is stocked with alcohol (approx. 10 bottles of bourbon, whiskey, etc) that people partake of occasionally (when the work day is over). I think they were originally given to the CEO and they donated it to the “drinking room.” Dunno what is going on now since I haven’t been to the office for over a year, so maybe it’s run dry!
The company I used to work for sort of modeled itself after Google (they put in a big-ass staircase connecting the first and second floors that we would sometimes have meetings on). When the space was built, they put in a cafe of sorts on the first floor (near the footsball and ping pong table) that has two beer taps and an industrial refrigerator full of wine and beer. So that was a thing.
I suppose it depends on the individual, the company, the culture, all of that. Personally, I’d be quite happy to have alcohol totally absent from work premises, period, and definitely would prefer that no “working” meetings or events included booze. That’s just me though. Over the years, in several industries, I’ve seen far more negative impacts than positive ones from mixing work and drinking. But I would not seek to impose my feelings about this on anyone else, nor am I particularly put out when there is drinking at a work function (we’re excluding social functions like receptions or celebrations, etc., though those can go south fast too).
I only get worked up when people expect me to drink and I don’t want to. Not because I’m a teetotaler but one, I usually don’t want to spend the calories that way, and two, I’m not a huge drinker and when I do drink I’m very, very particular, and most free company booze sucks.
Alcohol on premises for after work, Friday evenings, special events, etc., is pretty normal in tech and games. I’ve also worked in Canada where a beer or even two at lunch is totally normal. If you can’t handle acting like a professional, don’t drink. And don’t ever drink to excess at work or a work event.
My experience sadly has been that far fewer people actually know how to drink responsibly than just know how to drink. The problem with telling someone don’t drink if you don’t want to/shouldn’t is that in cultures where drinking is part of the social fabric, people who don’t drink get ostracized, even if it isn’t necessarily conscious or deliberate. In effect, it makes drinking a condition of professional success too often.
But as I said, to each their own, If your workplace culture works for you, that’s what matters.
Would it shock you to see a bottle scotch next to the coffee machine in the work break room? Not saying this is common, but I’ve seen it. (at a startup company)
It is fasincating how different the Japanese view drunk behivor. As long as you can show up on time the next day, they don’t really care if you drank a lot and acted like a complete fool in front of your co-workers / boss.
Meanwhile in American, not only will it be gossiped about the next day, it will reflect poorly on you. (also: shame on you)
I met somebody who spent a bit of time in Japan teaching English. One of the gigs he picked up was teaching conversational English for business. The company wanted their staff to be able to speak in a more natural way when doing business in America . So rather than a formal classroom, a more informal social setting was used. The result was a bunch of Japanese businessmen with expense accounts getting roaring drunk in a bar with the teacher.
That sounds like either the best or worst teaching gig ever.
There is no middle ground really.
The lack of a temperance movement, and Prohibition, combined with non-existant public drinking laws probably helps. The United States was actually similar before that all went down. Probably a lot worse actually. By worse I mean the omni-presents of booze for men. Which is probably why the temperance movement was overwhelming led by women.
Who bore the brunt of the violence, economic hardship, and social fallout from alcohol abuse. Not that I am endorsing the WCTU or anything; Prohibition was a disaster and ill-conceived from the get-go. And the Progressive focus on “cleaning up” the cities by trying to eradicate working class drinking had more than a whiff of classist elitism to it. But it remains that alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs we have. It’s also a really great lubricator and relaxant, in moderation.
Humans though don’t do moderation very well.
At a tech company, one of top two in its niche, hardware & software, there was a group of management that used to have “Cabinet Meetings”. The more senior of the managers, male, had a liquor cabinet and at the end of the day he’d invite some other male managers and they’d have a social drink. No one was harassed, no one was an idiot.
Some years back this was stopped by HR. He didn’t invite women, or Muslims or teetotalers for that matter. It was deemed risky from a discrimination point of view, so the decision was made to ask them to stop it for that reason. The reputation of this place, at least the location nearest me, isn’t that it is overly women friendly either. But it is considered a sane place to work.
I feel your frustration. I’d also like to point out that in mentoring one of the question that comes up with women is “How bad should it be before I consider going to HR, or complaining at all?”. The only thing that’s changes is that bar is a little lower than it was. We’re aware nothing is changing in a day.
My comments in this thread are more about Blizzard specifically, and perhaps gaming at large, which has a reputation as an industry to work in for women, with women. It seems particularly resistant. It also seems like there were no effective tools when the situation crossed the line at Blizzard.
I’d also like to point out I was raised in the “Mad Men” era, by people deep in power in politics in DC. I saw plenty of adult women flirting, or more, for gain, social or otherwise. My adopted mom was a socialite who sometimes worked with intelligence until I was about 12. She was good at it. Several the men in that social circle mentored me. One well into adulthood. A later neighbor who was a CTO of a major corporation, conglomerate really, and male also took an interest in me and my career (ironically for my fellow geeks here due to my knowledge of medieval weaponry from DMing D&D and ICE games!).
One helped pay for all of my pre-college tests (PSAT, SAT, AP tests) when I entered college early. The CTO came to my thesis dissertation as “interested industry”, completely flooring my committee. He insisted all his companies interview me. None of these men ever acted the least bit off color with me as a young adult. No stray comments, nothing. This was 60s-early 80s.
I see the bad behavior as an indicator of social immaturity and in that light may make them less fit for positions of power if that flaw is serious. My male mentors taught me that. We may like to see the bad boys on TV more, but men who could act like men and not perpetual 12 year olds have always been around. Though one did have a long term mistress.
That falls more into the private lives of consenting adults, I suppose. I love your points, though–it’s not like behaving decently is impossible just because of your chromosomes.
Did you ever wonder why? I was friends with a guy that behaved a little like this - he’d shower his wealth on people seemingly randomly. As i grew to know him a little better, I realized it almost always wasn’t random, but calculated - either as a reward for something done, or as a incentive to moderate future behavior. But calculated isn’t really the right word, because he did it so well, and so earnestly, that you really couldn’t prescribe his actions to a motive. His particular skill wasn’t his wealth, or his charity, but he was fantastic at setting people at ease so that he could dispense his largess. He mentioned that he thought this came from time he spent in asia, where that sort of thing was commonplace (here, in many circles, it could called bribery). In fact, much later, when i paid a bit more attention to him, i marveled at the skill it which he gave things to people - even to people who were very well-instructed not to accept anything from anyone or risk their jobs.
Ha, yes. And with my three main mentors I do know why in each case. All three had different motivations. None particularly relevant to the thread, except the last one. The CTO, his was why I still mentor now. Once you get older you want to pass on what you can. He found me a worthy project, and the fact that I was female did not prevent it, nor cause bad behavior. It really never came up, which was fantastic in that era.
The motivations were in order:
- guilt/honor - he knew my deceased biological father through military intelligence and nominated himself the “guardian of this military orphan”. He felt the military owed that to other military. He was capable of extreme calculation. Making that decision was part of that side of him. But he grew to really enjoy me once I was big enough to have a personality and turned into the best doting grandfather (and was woefully unsuited to the role!). He felt teaching me to drink, cuss and shoot properly like any boy child was important! Ha. But the non-sexist message was loud and clear. His wife was less enthused with a child added at her age, but was always kind to me. It helped he said I was very much like my deceased father.
- no children of his own - and he wanted also wanted to pass on what he knew. He was a programmer, and started playing chess with me when I was only 5 to develop my logic He was also gay, and died thinking I did not know as he wanted to “protect” me from that. The era thought it might be contagious. Career wise I think I followed most in his footsteps, and hobby wise those of his partner.
- a desire to mentor, esp. as you age - the CTO He was delighted when I could name most of the weapons he collected and had on his wall. He was even more delighted when I knew what his wife’s Faberge Egg was but went right back to his weapon collection with more questions. He spent the evening after dinner showing me his extensive collection. He then asked me over to play chess and my college major. Upon finding out it was in STEM he was honestly enthused at prospect of a new mentoree. He never asked anything of me and passed away about 5 years after my thesis presentation. I did not take a job at any of his companies as I was keen to make my own way. And he understood and respected my declining.
Not that there aren’t master manipulators out there. My adopted socialite mother was one. In some cases the first two actually protected me from her as a child. As a child with no biological parents in the picture, and known as a minority in a white world, my position with regards to abuse and treatment was often precarious. So the excellent behavior of most of the men in my early life was really fantastic.
Even before EA’s “we see further,” Activision was the first to spotlight its creators as auteurs by devoting space to writeups in the Atari 2600 game manuals.
Jason Schreier was speculating on his podcast (Triple Click) this week that the shake-up at Blizzard will further entrench Activision’s influence over Blizzard. Bobby Kotick wants to turn Blizzard into a studio under Activision instead of an independent division, and depending on how the new leadership defers to him, he could get his wish sooner rather than later.
Call of Duty: Azeroth. Coming Summer 2023!
For The HordeZone: Battle Royale
I could see it. It’s been fairly well-known that Activision has not been pleased with the way Blizzard can’t seem to successfully monetize anything but WoW on a recurring basis.
Yes this move was pretty well telegraphed by promoting two people from outside Blizzard to lead the studio. The harassment stuff neatly cuts off any complaints about destroying Blizzard’s company culture by making the strong argument that it isn’t worth preserving.