Drinking at the Office Holiday Party? Proceed With Caution

Kim Scott
6 min readDec 13, 2024

While parties can be productive if people on your team really want them, it is best to remember that mostly you get to know the people you work with on the job, every day, as an integrated part of the work rhythm, not at the annual holiday party. Make it clear to your team that social events, including the office holiday party, are optional.

When you do organize a social event at work, bear these warnings in mind: even non- mandatory events can feel mandatory. And booze can land you in dangerous territory. Ask 10 people to think of a sexual encounter with a work colleague they later regretted. Now ask them if alcohol was involved. I bet you’ll find that, nine times out of 10, it was.

This section may seem strange to you if you are not familiar with the boozy workplace culture I experienced in finance and in tech. I spent most of my career in Silicon Valley, where there is a great deal of alcohol, and often drugs, in the office.

The company chef at one place where I worked routinely made hash brownies. In the middle of another office where I worked was a bar stocked with high-end spirits and fine wine. I worked at two different companies that had regular lunchtime kegs. This kind of behavior, while shocking to some, is routine in many industries around the world.

Early in my career, I loved the heavy-drinking culture at many of the companies where I’ve worked. Looking back on it, though, I don’t think the fun of those boozy office parties was even remotely worth the harm that was done by them.

Here are some of the things I’ve seen happen, fueled by alcohol at work events: a rape in the office, a suicide attempt, a marriage destroyed by unwanted sexual advances, a drunk engineer shat himself on a company bus, security called me at home at 3 a.m. when they found one of my employees passed out drunk in the office, keyboards and computers ruined by drunken vomit, and a drunk colleague getting hauled off from a company off-site to jail after punching a cop.

It would be denial to say that alcohol in the workplace doesn’t greatly increase the likelihood of everything from an unwanted, creepy hug to sexual violence. Perpetrators must be held accountable for their actions whether they are drunk or sober. Blaming alcohol rather than the person is an unacceptable abdication of personal responsibility.

Drinking at work or at work functions is undeniably risky — for the employees, for their peers, for their boss, and for the company. I don’t recommend it. But if you’re going to do it anyway, here’s how I recommend managing it, depending on your role.

For People Harmed

If this were a just world, you’d be able to pass out drunk and be safe. The first person who saw you would make sure you were OK, not rape you. If you get drunk, even blackout drunk, this does not give anyone the right to harm you. If you get blackout drunk and are raped, it is the fault of the person who harmed you, full stop.

But even if it’s not your fault, you’re still the one who gets hurt. So if you love to drink, and/or you work in a culture where drinking to excess is part of how people bond, it’s a good idea to think explicitly about how you are going to manage the risks.

I’m not telling you that you should or shouldn’t drink. That’s your decision. But whatever you decide to do, understand the risks. You may think you’re safe with people you work with, but people you know are statistically riskier than strangers. So it behooves you to plan.

If you go out drinking, go with people you trust and have some explicit agreement to keep an eye on one another. Make sure there’s a designated driver who also plays the role of designated decider. That way, there’s always a sober person to keep you, or at least deter you, from doing anything you’ll regret later.

For People Who Cause Harm

Drinking impairs your judgment, just as it impairs your ability to drive safely. Your friends may be able to take your car keys away, but they can’t take your sex drive away. Can you trust yourself not to harm another person when you’ve been drinking?

Alcohol poses another risk as well. If the person you want to have sex with is drunk, the person may be too impaired to give consent. If you have sex anyway, in most jurisdictions, you are committing rape. What’s more, you may be too impaired to judge accurately whether the person has given consent or not.

But you are still guilty if you push someone to have sex when the person is too drunk to give consent — just as you are still guilty of drunk driving even if your judgment was so impaired by alcohol that you drove despite your intoxication. So make a plan before you go out drinking for how you are going to manage all these risks.

If you’re under 24, this is especially important. You’re likelier to engage in risky behaviors, and that likelihood is more pronounced when you are with peers or friends. Follow the advice of Rob Chesnut, former chief ethics officer at Airbnb and author of Intentional Integrity.

He warns employees, “If you wait to think about how much you are going to drink until you’re at the party, you’re in trouble. Know your limits and decide how many drinks you can have — one or two — before you go. The worst time to think about how much to drink in a work setting is . . . while you’re drinking in a work setting.”

For Leaders

I would recommend not allowing alcohol in the workplace at all. Creating a culture of workplace partying is a recipe for everything from awkwardness to disaster. Even workplaces that limit alcohol to special celebrations often find that bad things happen on these occasions.

If you do serve alcohol, remind people to drink responsibly. Don’t worry about being the literal buzzkill. Nothing ruins a celebration like a drunk person assaulting a colleague or killing themselves or others in a preventable car accident.

If you want to prevent these sorts of things from happening on your team, it is your job as a leader to calculate the benefits of alcohol as a social lubricant against the risks that too much of it can lead to seriously bad behavior. Another important thing for leaders to know is that a heavy-drinking culture often creates a hostile work environment for historically disadvantaged people, especially women.

Vanessa Kaskiris, who worked in the IT department at UC Berkeley, described “a culture where employees would go out drinking every night, which led to hostile treatment of women if they went, and ostracization if they didn’t.”

Also, let’s not forget people who don’t drink, for a variety of reasons.

For some, a work culture revolving around alcohol may be uncomfortable because their religion forbids alcohol. Some people have a terrible physical reaction to alcohol and are likely to wind up ill after only a few drinks.

And if you have a person struggling with alcoholism or in early recovery or sobriety, such a culture can be more than insensitive; it’s dangerous.

Leaders can avoid a lot of problems by not serving alcohol or making explicit policies that limit alcohol consumption at the office.

Radical Respect is a weekly newsletter I am publishing on LinkedIn to highlight some of the things that get in the way of creating a collaborative, respectful working environment. A healthy organization is not merely an absence of unpleasant symptoms. Creating a just working environment is about eliminating bad behavior and reinforcing collaborative, respectful behavior. Each week I’ll offer tips on how to do that so you can create a workplace where everyone feels supported and respected. Learn more in my new book Radical Respect, available wherever books are sold! You can also follow Radical Candor® and the Radical Candor Podcast more tips about building better relationships at work.

Originally posted on Radical Respect

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Kim Scott
Kim Scott

Written by Kim Scott

Kim Scott is the author of Radical Candor & Radical Respect and co-founder of Radical Candor which helps teams put the ideas from the book into practice.

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