Comment On Meet Burt

i like root beer

But mixed with vodka?

So, "Alcoholic caught drinking at work" now counts as a front page WTF does it?

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

A friend of mine once had a co-worker who had his own office, with a wooden door and no windows on the inside walls.

Every time a person knocked on the door, there was the sound of a drawer closing, and the soft clunking sound of glass bottles. After a few seconds the door would be opened.

No surprise then, that they later found out about is alcoholism.

The REAL WTF is.....

ummmmm....

errr....

Hmm.

TopCod3r:

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

You must really pay great with all that overtime. If you expect someone to be working 24x7 and be at your beck and call you darn well better be paying them overtime. If you pulled this speech with me I'd pour you a nice glass of STFU from which you could freely quaff.

I used to work for a smaller company. One day the boss said he was going to drug test the whole team, and fire anyone that passed.

That does not sound like great job, being on call all the time and not being allowed to drink yourself silly when you want to.

I once appeared at work almost drunk still from the night before, but no damage ever occurred apart from the website I showed earlier, http://www.lablines.com.

But the rules depend on the environment and the kind of software you're writing, of course.

Didn't you comment a few days ago about a high-rate of turnover in your team... I think I'm beginning to understand why.

Sir Meowmix III:

TopCod3r:

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

You must really pay great with all that overtime. If you expect someone to be working 24x7 and be at your beck and call you darn well better be paying them overtime. If you pulled this speech with me I'd pour you a nice glass of STFU from which you could freely quaff.

Congratulations, you have been trolled.

Well that sounds like a cool boss, must've been Dutch!

Sir Meowmix III:

TopCod3r:

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

You must really pay great with all that overtime. If you expect someone to be working 24x7 and be at your beck and call you darn well better be paying them overtime. If you pulled this speech with me I'd pour you a nice glass of STFU from which you could freely quaff.

Didn't you post a few days ago talking about high turnover in your team? I think I'm beginning to understand why.

This guy is awesome. Anyone that has anything bad to say about Burt can go to hell, because Burt may be my hero. To be able to be perpetually drunk at work for a lengthy period of time (enough to gain the moniker "root beer guy") is quite a feat, and he should be commended. I wonder if he was any good at his job? If so, even more kudos should go towards him.

By the way, being drunk at work makes the day go by so much quicker. At my last job they half encouraged us to go out and get beers at lunch. On fridays, beer was brought in to the office in the afternoon. I recommend it. Also, no cop will ever expect a drunk driver during the morning rush hour commute, so your safe so long as your not absolutely retarded.

This guy had such a strong alcohol addiction that he was carrying it around with him at work, drinking it all day long -- and nobody smelled it on his breath? Drink that much of any alcohol and never mind your breath, people can smell it coming out your pores.

MechanicJay:

Didn't you comment a few days ago about a high-rate of turnover in your team... I think I'm beginning to understand why.

Sounds like an independent TDWTF report is in the making...

Burt is my hero.

The Real WTF is Vodka and Root Beer! Yeech.

Gabelstaplerfahrer:

MechanicJay:

Didn't you comment a few days ago about a high-rate of turnover in your team... I think I'm beginning to understand why.

Sounds like an independent TDWTF report is in the making...

The only power someone has over you is the power you choose to freely give them. If TopCh0d3r pulled this speech on me or even pretended like he could tell me what to do on my free time I'd summon the hatred of the ancients and soon he would be overwhelmed.

This thread makes me thirsty for some whiskey.

MechanicJay:

Didn't you post a few days ago talking about high turnover in your team? I think I'm beginning to understand why.

He keeps hiring Billy Goats...and they don't see eye to eye....

TopCod3r:

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

Wow...that sounds like the worst job evar. Also, remember to wipe your nose after you get done kissing your bosses azz

TopCod3r:

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

While I agree with you that drinking on the job is reprehensible, I What someone does on their own time is their business. Nor should your entire staff be on call 24/7. Stagger it so someone always has a guarenteed night of not on call. I would never put up with a boss making such demands. Thus I probably would also not make your ideal employee. I drink and I smoke and thats my business.

Reminds me of my favourite helldesk call. Normal sort of stuff "User forgot password". Couldn't get them on the phone so went down to see him only to find him, passed out and slumped over the keyboard.
I closed the call with the comment "user too inebriated to test new password".

TopCod3r:

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

dude, sounds like a fun job!

You are a moron and no one in their right mind would wish to work for you.

Good day.

Code Dependent:

This guy had such a strong alcohol addiction that he was carrying it around with him at work, drinking it all day long -- and nobody smelled it on his breath? Drink that much of any alcohol and never mind your breath, people can smell it coming out your pores.

Strong addiction doesn't necessarily mean high content. There are a lot of alcoholics that just have a low buzz, but have it constantly. It's the constancy and *need* that's the main physiological problem. The psychology is well defined, too. The large quantities go along with the liver problems.

FIRST!!!!

what was the story about again?

Addiction to alcohol is always a problem and leads into strange situation during work. Usually alcohol is strictly forbidden on company premises, or like in Germany allowed, but ruled (only allowed during business meetings with customers or private parties after work)

Anyway, I came across alcohol addiction during my work twice.

One fellow co worker was addicted to alcohol. No problem as long as he was doing his job fine. But those poor people needs a certain level of alcohol even in the morning or during the day. First he had bottles of hard liquor in his desk, but he was asked to remove it. So he did. After that, he was consuming apples. One day he accidentally offered the wrong apple to another co worker. This co worker realized, that the apple was "tuned" with an injection of really strong liquor. After that, he was forced to detox before he returned to work again. He actually never have been laid of.

Another strange instance was during a job interview. I was responsible to test a candidates technical knowledge during an interview. The HR person handed out his cv beforehand and I was confused by it. The candidate had studied medicine and left university right before making his MD and been able to work as a doctor. He successfully completed a re-training in IT and we were desperately seeking for employees. We instantly recognized a strong alcohol odor of the candidate and so I didn't had to test him at all.

I wouldn't care what the pay is. My time is my time end of story. A glass of STFU is way to nice for this guy. I think something along the line described in the BOFH articles is more apporiate.

So this is front page Daily WTF material... why exactly?

Alcoholism is sad, but the only real WTF is that most of the comments are related to a (rather clever) troll about no drinking 24/7 in his shop.

fruey:

Alcoholism is sad, but the only real WTF is that most of the comments are related to a (rather clever) troll about no drinking 24/7 in his shop.

Either DailyWTF readers in general are incredibly unobservant, or else we get a fresh batch of newbies in here every day.

fruey:

Alcoholism is sad, but the only real WTF is that most of the comments are related to a (rather clever) troll about no drinking 24/7 in his shop.

His troll-craft is strong.

ObiWayneKenobi:

The Real WTF is Vodka and Root Beer! Yeech.

No kidding. It's Bourbon and Root Beer. It gives it a nice Birch Beer taste.

Sir Meowmix III:

fruey:

Alcoholism is sad, but the only real WTF is that most of the comments are related to a (rather clever) troll about no drinking 24/7 in his shop.

His troll-craft is strong.

And you're all going to ruin it! If all of you spoilers keep posting enough, nobody will respond to him, making me feel all vindico.

ObiWayneKenobi:

The Real WTF is Vodka and Root Beer! Yeech.

I would normally agree except Trader Joes has this vanilla bean cream soda which when mixed with a decent non-flavored vodka is pretty amazing...

This is just sort of sad. I was expecting it to end with some bizarre piece of code that he wrote while loaded...

TopCod3r:

That is a prime example of why on my development team, I have told everyone they are not allowed to drink. Because even if you drink while you are away from work, it could affect your code the next day. Also, on my team you are on call 24x7, so if you drink while you are away from work, you are still technically drinking on the job so to speak, which in my opinion is a fire-able offense. And when I recommend someone gets fired, I think my boss will listen to me.

Yeah - well I made all my developers become Mormons - so if they drink not only will they get fired - they go to HELL!!!.

The prohibition against caffiene is somewhat more problematic.

Crabs:

Also, no cop will ever expect a drunk driver during the morning rush hour commute, so your safe so long as your not absolutely retarded.

According to a friend of mine who is a police sergeant, they regularly catch people over the limit during the morning rush hour. Alcohol doesn't burn off as quickly as some people think.

Alcoholism isn't really all that funny. These guys are wrecked and risk death during detox. He needs help, not someone to laugh at his expense.

I'm with the "how is an alcoholic caught drinking at work a WTF?" camp.

my company had to fire a sysadmin for smoking crack in the hall

Code Dependent:

This guy had such a strong alcohol addiction that he was carrying it around with him at work, drinking it all day long -- and nobody smelled it on his breath? Drink that much of any alcohol and never mind your breath, people can smell it coming out your pores.

Vodka is has one of the weakest odors- in fact, straight Vodka shouldn't smell like anything. Mixing it with Root Beer would certainly diminish the smell- and so drinking it nobody would be none the wiser.

I don't know about you, but my nose is really sensitive to ethanol. In fact, it is so unpleasing for me, that shots of vodka and other neutral spirits is just plain gross.

Sir Meowmix III:

This thread makes me thirsty for some whisky.

Fixed that for you.

Golf clap Top Cod3r! Nice troll my man.

TRWTF is that I'm bothering to comment on how this has nothing to do with "Curious Perversions in Information Technology" even though I'm sure dozens of you before me have already done so.

My wife had to work with a girl who started going through a messy divorce and was drinking at work (but subtly, like nipping out to her car every half an hour for a can of gin and tonic - cos nobody noticed that....).

Anyway they all felt sorry for her to begin with, despite the stench of alcohol and the huge mistakes in her work, because she'd been abused by her husband and he was treating her really badly and threatening her and so on. A couple of times they refused to let her drive home as she was so wasted and blocked her in in the car park and called a cab.

Eventually it got so bad that they had to give the ultimatum of leave or be fired. She left.

We found out later she wasn't being abused or treated badly. It was actually her doing that to him because of her alcoholism.

Bottom line - Alcoholism is not a WTF. It's a disease.

We had a guy in our office who showed up drunk for years, would pass out in the bathroom and disappear for hours as well. Well, because of the minority status of this guy (I assume), they couldn't just fire him without "hard proof", or in HR's concern, "repeated hard proof"... the 3rd time he got caught with alcohol in his desk, the finally walked him out.