Does Our Industry Have a Drinking Problem?

[ezl]

No, our industry has a blogging problem.

Tech (is that our industry?) is not unique in it's practice of hosting happy hours, especially after conferences.

People like drinking. We could ask more conferences to host 5k jogs as an alternative meeting event, and it would be novel and fun, but it likely wouldn't ever be as inclusive as a happy hour (Also, it's hard to get 5 people in a circle talking while on a jog).

Not everyone drinks or likes drinking, but as a practical matter, it's:

    1. convention
    2. inexpensive for organizers
    3. easy to organize
    4. likely to encourage mingling and conversation

Which are important goals for organizers that aren't as easily met by alternate activities.

[saturdayplace]

And people like me who don't drink can still happily grab a soda, hang with folks who are, and get all the social benefits.

[aarondf]

I upvoted after the first sentence of your comment. The rest is good, but that first sentence is gold.

[the_watcher]

>> People like drinking.

This is the one sentence rebuttal to any complaints about drinking in any industry.

[pandemicsyn]

I absolutely agree. I don't often drink, and even when I'm not actively drinking just hanging out and socializing is a huge component of what makes many conferences worth while.

[ExcitedByNoise]

I run 5k and 10ks pretty often. I don't think I've been to one that didn't have free beer at the finish.

[timje1]

Almost anyone, regardless of age, weight, sex, health or ableness can sit around in a bar sitting a soda.

Although I've got muslim friends who are uncomfortable being somewhere where alcohol is being served.

I'd agree that a 5k run is vastly less inclusive.

[wcummings]

Has anyone considered that blogging might be a disease?

[danso]

You said exactly what I was going to post. It's strange to me that a group of ostensibly rational/scientific thinkers would be so oblivious to basic concepts of bias here. You of course notice the problems in your own group way more than you do, say, in the Steampunk Civil War Re-Enactment Association. Second, this group, developers, happens to be one very skilled with the Internet and a higher percentage than usual are the type to use the Internet to communicate, sometimes very often.

There is most definitely a gender imbalance and the problems that come with it in tech. But is the drinking and sexual harassment proportionally worse than it is in marketing or law or medicine, or academia? It's very possible that the reason why you don't hear about those conferences is because those are groups more reticent about blogging their dirty laundry.

(just to reiterate, before anyone jumps to a conclusion here: I'm not saying there isn't a problem...but it's not particular to our community. Which is not something to be happy about, if you care for more than just your own group)

[twoodfin]

Is this phenomenon unique to the information technology industry? I don't know what they do for fun at pharmaceutical conferences, but I suspect alcohol is often involved.

[mathattack]

Certainly conferences have a drinking problem. I've been to conferences in many industries: Software, Consumer Products, Consulting, Financial Services... There are very hung over audiences in each.

I think the common theme is you have two audiences: Young people who like to party and overdo it, and old people who have a rare night out and inadvertantly overdo it.

I don't have empirical numbers, but I'd say many (half?) of the folks attending major multi-day conferences will have at least one rough morning.

Hard to pin this on just technology. And many folks don't act this way at home. (With small kids, anything more than 2 drinks can become an issue)

[fennecfoxen]

Society has a bit of a drinking problem. (Some other societies, like Russia, have a bigger one. Some have less.) Next question? :P

[atwebb]

My thoughts exactly, perhaps better phrasing would be:

Does our Society have a drinking problem?

[epochwolf]

I've been to a couple of insurance conferences. This is not unique at all. There was at least one sexual assault that I know about. There are probably far more that weren't reported.

[mattdeboard]

Does our industry have an anxiety problem?

Does our industry have an overgeneralization problem?

Does our industry have a busybody problem?

Does our industry have a problem with emotional overindulgence?

[badman_ting]

"Hey, don't look at me, I'm just asking questions!"

[joezydeco]

Every trade show I've ever been to has some kind of "reception" near the end of the first day, if not the night before the opening. Everyone is finally in one place and there's a bit of socializing going on at this point.

European trade shows tend to have fully stocked bars and bartenders in the booths.

[LeafStorm]

Here's a point that gets forgotten in a lot of discussions of this issue:

> We’re also underlining that our events are for over-18s, maybe even over-21s, by holding them in licensed premises. Most of us know students or even those who are working professionally in our field long before they are “adult.” Should they be excluded?

[xradionut]

Depends. Many conference I attended are professional, expensive and don't offer any alternative resources or attractions for younger participants. There are exceptions like some of the Python conferences and Maker Fairs but I doubt there would be many minors into a SQL DBA or serious embedded electronics event. Plus there is a liability issue to be considered when you mix immature adults with minors and blend in alcohol.

[nraynaud]

Or stop this stupid age limit? Stop being crazy on rules around alcohol and use this craziness against violence and weapons?

[philbarr]

Under-18s can still enter licensed premises. At least here in the UK they can. And they often do, if my local that is more "5-year-old's playground" than "pub" is representative.

[bluedino]

People drinking at a social event? Who would have thought.

[yodsanklai]

I would say it's our society that has a drinking problem. It seems to me that overall, people drink less in our industry.

[misiti3780]

I agree - if you are go to school in the US you're exposed to binge drinking on a weekly basis - also - software engineers seem to drink a lot less than other industries like Finance, etc.

[tbrownaw]

Almost every conference’s second day opens with attendees being asked how their hangovers are. Second day early-slot speakers joke that no one will turn up anyway, or they’ll all just be staring into their coffee. It has become normal, in fact expected, that drinking and staying out late is what we do while at conferences.

There are a number of issues here: drinking (to excess), staying out late, and scheduled events early the day after these are known and expected to happen. I would think that drinking is actually the least of them.

Of course it’s possible to attend these events and not drink, but being the sober person at a party gets tiresome.

It's also possible to drink without ending up drunk, by not drinking too much. Alcohol is metabolized at... I think it's around 1h20m/drink or so.

I attended Monitorama EU recently, where one attendee had proposed a 5K run around the Tiergarten in Berlin on the morning of the second day.

It sounds like this actually worked, which I find surprising (really, talking while running?). Something to note tho, is that it was a "small group" that did this which sounds even less all-inclusive than leaving out underage participants is.

Photo or history walks around cities can be attractive to a lot of people in our industry

Yes.

These are all good examples of simple things that can be organized around conferences to create alternatives or additions to the parties.

Something to keep in mind for these is that they're outdoors. Which means they're subject to weather and to daylight hours. They also involve moving around / doing things in an organized fashion.

That said, I am still struggling to find good alternatives to the pub meetup, particularly in the UK. Other than taking over the corner of a larger coffee shop for a daytime meet, what kind of things are possible and inexpensive for small groups? In particular I find it hard to organize alternatives for the type of meeting where the numbers that might turn up are hard to predict.

The thing about coffee shops and pubs is that everyone is in one place with no organized activities to pay attention to. This is the important part, and the drinking only comes in because that's what society says to expect when you have a group of people "hanging out" with no agenda in the evening.

[russgray]

The only drinking problem I see here is that people are drinking whiskey out of plastic cups. Philistines.

[ranit]

Conference (a.k.a. Symposium) is “by definition” a place for such activities. :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium

[jjoe]

Interesting. Drinking isn't confined to "this industry." But, aren't most technical people control freaks more or less? Wouldn't they rather keep tight control of their thought process? Maybe being tipsy is the only way out of the exhausting, taxing aspect of continuous over-analysis and wanting to remain in control; the occasional forced-break that would otherwise be consciously difficult to attain.

This is veering a tad bit on the ironic side...

[enoch_r]

Personally, as someone who has a strong aversion to drinking to excess and has never been to a conference--the fact that I hear so much about drunken partying at these events is the single biggest reason I have never attended one. I keep hearing about fascinating conferences. Then I hear people talk about their experiences at conferences, which sound essentially like stories about partying in college, and think--well, if the main social activity is "partying," then I'll miss most of the social aspects of the conference. So I just watch videos of the talks online instead. (Maybe this is dumb, so I'm open to suggestions that my impressions are incorrect.)

The reactions here--which range from "everyone does it" and "there's no solution" (which may well be true!) to "stop being a whiny busybody," are unfairly dismissive. The author didn't say that drinking should be banned. She simply suggested a few alternative activities that didn't involve drinking, many of which can be organized by attendees themselves, and pointed out that a culture of partying may turn off some people, which is certainly true in my case.

[Dirlewanger]

Nice link bait by the author, wow.

[pbhjpbhj]

It's a curated collection of articles with only a byline to the author. It seems a worthy subject of introspection. So do you think it's really link bait?

[Leander_B]

Uff.. I haven't read A list apart in some years now as my interests shifted. But, is this what a once quality website/blog has become? Don't even want to open the article with such a bogus title.

Also, I have read and heard what has happened these last few weeks and can't seem to change my mind that the US folks are much more 'sensitive' to this kind of things then in EU.

[arprocter]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

[epo]

Betteridges Law of Headlines is applicable here. What a remarkably silly and sanctiminous piece.