Today, my coworker buddy and I were going to have lunch together. My boss and her boss invited themselves/each other along, so we had lunch with them too.
Her boss is an officer of our company, a guy who seems really attractive until you get to know what a goofball he is. At some point, he was telling the story of how he paid his wife $5000 to sing with the band at some party they were drunk at.
And then he told how he drove home drunk. He demonstrated how he was covering one eye and squinting down the road. He admitted "I shouldn't have been driving" but was chuckling as he told us of this feat.
My boss smilingly said, "That's not a good idea, you know..."
That was nearly an hour ago and I'm still pissed off about it. I don't think drunk driving is defensible for anyone, but certainly not for someone who is so rich that a taxi fare wouldn't even register. I don't think it's funny or makes for a charming story to tell over lunch. It just lets everyone know you're a fucking asshole with no regard for others.
6 comments:
I totally agree. Also, bragging about drinking and being drunk are thing you do in high school and college, not when you are an adult.
How old is this person anyway?
40-ish, if you can believe that. I thought kids who talked about that stuff ("like we were in like Galveston last Friday and like I don't know how I got home, I was sooo drunk") were idiots even in high school (although as an adult, I wouldn't write off a kid for that now; at least it's age-appropriate).
Wow, I don't remember ever hearing a co-worker brag about driving drunk even when I was working with a bunch of silly kids with an average age of about 27, many of whom drank (this was the place with the mandatory Friday Beer Bash parties, though only your attendance was mandatory, not actual drinking). Even they seemed to realize that driving drunk was the kind of thing that if you do it, you really shouldn't be telling people, especially at work.
It's a good way to come off to people as a complete jerk with no consideration for others, poor judgment, and a scarily low degree of self-preservation instinct (in the widest sense).
I wouldn't hate somebody forever for driving drunk a time or two, when they really weren't thinking clearly at all, but would seriously question why any adult would think it's amusing rather than embarrassing/shameful after the fact. We're entering guilty confession territory here.
And even if you secretly think you are Mr. Big Balls for how you can totally handle driving while completely blotto, you never know if someone in the group has a brother who was killed by a drunk driver. That could make for a horrible conversation. If you truly think your feat was brag-worthy, save this kind of crap for the type of immature loser who would be impressed by it.
Does this person have children?
Another thing that irritates me about this story is that since this guy's the boss, and has all kinds of power over you, there isn't even any good way for you to call him on it.
And what was his point in telling this story? Does he just think this is so obviously a delightful, awesome tale that he doesn't even consider his audience? Or is just another way of saying "fuck you, I can live outside the rules"?
Children: yup!
He's not actually my boss, though he does rank above me in the scheme of things. But yeah, I'm not about the chew out an officer of the company.
(not that I generally go around chewing people out at work)
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