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Socializing For The Win?
The Living Fractal notes: "Yahoo! Business has an article about workplace socializing. Apparently, those who drink alcohol and socialize make more money on average."
According to the article:
"Regular drinkers make 10% to 14% more money than those who do not drink, according to the study, conducted by the Journal of Labor Research, published quarterly by the Department of Economics at George Mason University, and the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think tank."
Fractal wonders: "This article spawns a few questions. Do those 'regular drinkers' end up spending that extra 10-14% on booze? Who here is a social drinker? Finally, have you noticed this in your workplace?"
Who in the company has the most opportunity to socialize and drink on the job? If you work in a normal office, most likely the managers and sales departments. It's part of their job to work with customers and engage them not only professionally but also socially. "Greasing the wheels" of business, so to speak.
So you, in your little basement office with the desk pushed all the way to the wall, get to churn out KLOCs until your fingers cramp up with CTS for a fixed salary. They, in their windowed corner offices with lovely assistants and fresh flowers, meet with customers and hammer out deals over a fifth of Wild Turkey and get paid a commission of their generated revenue. When you get to selling million dollar contracts, those margins add up really fast.
Yeah, no one told you life was going to be this way. Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA. Shoulda studied management, eh?
No, you don't understand. It's the peers of a poor coworker who get that coworker promoted. Why? Cause its a hell of a lot easier than getting them fired. The trick is to get them promoted to someone else's team.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Correlation is not causality. There's three factors here: drinking or not, being social or not, and making more or not.
Are you making more because you're being social? It would not be surprising - if you're social you have a greater contact network, and you make a better early impression, so you'll tend to end up in better (higher paying) positions over time.
Are you social because you make more money? Perhaps to a small degree (don't discount it entirely), but on the face of it it should not be nearly as strong an effect as the opposite - and you can argue that with money comes power and there's no need to be nice anymore so you'd be just as likely to become less social instead.
Do you drink because you're social? Quite probably. Being social means getting along with people, and that includes spending time with people and doing what they do. And not infrequently social gatherings include drinking.
On the hand, does drink promote sociality? Yes, it does. For most people, moderate amounts does loosen inhibitions and relax the mind, making alcohol the renowned social grease it is.
So you can argue that if you're more social you make more. And you become more social by drinking, and if you're more social you're more likely to drink as well.
I don't think anybody would seriously try to argue that alcohol directly is connected to earning power. I'd like to hear a coherent argument in favour though.
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Yes. As a former smoker, I will hang out with the smokers anyday,
I have seen company's fold in the parking lot over cigarettes and seen people get rich on IPO's during the same. The big decisions are often made in the smoking room rather than the board room. It's a weird little club.
As a college student, you probably don't even have an idea yet how much money things really cost. Once you are out of college, many things get more expensive FAST.
- you don't want to live in a student hall forever
- you realize that you need some savings for retirement
- you don't want to call daddy if you need a new computer
- health insurance is much more expensive (students get special rates where I live)
- girl friend and family planning cost money
- jobs suck, so you might consider having your own company. Startups cost money, too
- jobs suck, wait how you feel if the clueless guy next to you makes five times as much money as you do
on and on...
You don't have to strive for a life in vanity to appreciate having money.
I have seen this happen where I work, but isn't it a bit backwards?
I hardly ever drink, so I turn up to work on time and am alert, ready to do my (complicated) job. One of the other guys turns up with a hangover, feeling really bad and spends most of the day sat in his chair reading email and Wikipedia. Yet, because he spends more time socialising with the boss, he gets more perks and money.
Surely someone who is a reliable worker should be rewarded. I suppose it's a bit like how tall people tend to do better.
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just one last question - where would your job be without those deals and those sales?
Where would their job be if they had nothing to sell?
Although I see your point, I think the main issue is to strike a balance between how rewards are distributed.
And - my highly subjective view - generally sales makes more than their fare share of it.
If, say, a coder makes something that has a high impact on company productivity he might go - probably - unnoticed. If a sales guy/gal makes a big sale, (s)he normally is a hero. That is, at least, what I tend to see.
Disclaimer: I'm in the academics "business".
Apparently, those who drink alcohol and socialize make more money on average.
Funny, I would have worded it differently:
Those who make more money on average drink alcohol and socialize more.
To get paid more you need to be promoted, and it's a fact of working life that to be promoted you need to be liked or at least known to those that do the promoting. It's a harsh fact, but a fact non-the-less, that if you only ever see someone behind there desk your not going to relate to them as much as the person you socialise after work with. And then when you get a choice to promote one or the other it isn't unfair to promote the one you *actually* know.
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I also have no motivation to seek a higher salary based on anything other than job performance. Everything else reeks of ass-kissery.
Nice to know I'm not the only one. If social networking and ass-kissing is what it takes to move up the corporate ladder, then I'll just stay on the ground.
"The amount of intelligence on this planet is a constant. The population is growing." -Cole's Axiom
Getting your boss drunk tends to make them be more intimate with you (not in the sexual sense) and they feel they can trust you more. They trust you more, so they feel safe promoting you or giving you a raise.
People hate the guy who doesn't do squat at the office yet is very charismatic and sociable and rises to the top. But what they don't realize is that being that sociable can actually be a lot of work. Especially across your entire network. You have to go out to lunch all the time to catch up with people...go to bars at night...throw get togethers...etc.
For an introvert like me, that's a lot of friggin work. But you know what? I recognize that that is how the game is played, and I play it, and play it well. And it has rewarded me. So I guess there's that.
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This could be a misconstrued causation. While the article talked much about the benefit of socializing, it could be that since some folks are making 10%-14% more, they have more potentially-disposable income with which to buy alcohol.
(no the original poster, just figured i'd chime in) :-)
I'm an IT contractor. I'm *always* in the position of being in a job where I'll be laid off in the next month or three (maybe 6 if I'm really lucky).
And sometimes I don't even get a desk of my own or even a basement. Sometimes I have to provide all that myself.
But besides all that, what kind of job security does a full-time position provide in this day and age anyway? Isn't that really an illusion for most folks?