excessive long lunches on Friday by a certain clique -they are the favorites, and rest of us have to work through lunch
eeayeeayo
Jul 24, 18 12:39 pm
"have to"? What happens if you don't work through lunch?
OneLostArchitect
Jul 24, 18 12:45 pm
the axe?
eeayeeayo
Jul 24, 18 12:47 pm
In the current climate that's unlikely. And if that did happen, it's probably for the best. You're a professional - you don't need permission from your employer to take a lunch break. If your employer is treating you like a fourth grader then that's a bad employer, and now is a very good time to find a better one.
Donna Sink
Jul 24, 18 3:49 pm
Agree with eeayeeayo here. Take your lunch break.
randomised
Jul 24, 18 4:14 pm
Nobody has to work through lunch, yeez, stand up for yourself, your mental slavery is a fucking choice...
OneLostArchitect
Jul 24, 18 12:47 pm
a former place I used to work out used to hand out bud lights every Friday afternoon. By 1-2pm there were acouple stumbling idiots down the hall. Then we hired a HR personell once the firm grew larger and they put a end to the fun.
eeayeeayo
Jul 24, 18 12:48 pm
Really? In my firm it's HR who initiates and organizes that - and it seems to be collective HR wisdom that 1 PM puts the firm at less risk of liability than if they started at 4.
Peter Normand
Jul 27, 18 12:02 pm
Yes we have sanctioned once a month firm party / lecture presentation on some thing followed by socializing. It helps keep us tied together as a firm despite the very different jobs and teams we are on. We also do a Cinco de Mayo party and each set of cubicles has to build a miniature gold course out of office supplies samples and old sets of drawings for the party.
bowling_ball
Jul 27, 18 3:54 pm
We do happy hour every Friday starting at whenever. It usually begins at lunch, though some are more responsible than me and start drinking at the proper hour of 3:30. All paid for by the firm. Somebody comes to each of our desks with a beer and tells us to stop working. I like our firm culture.
OneLostArchitect
Jul 24, 18 12:51 pm
another firm I worked at during the Great Recession had a Christmas party where we were told that we weren’t allowed to bring our significant others due to costs. The night of the party... it was an open bar and a dance floor! Well I don’t need to say anything more on what happened that night. Wow
archiwutm8
Sep 6, 18 5:24 am
Did you all engage in a orgy party?
thatsthat
Jul 24, 18 2:11 pm
The firm I work for allows you to bring your dog to work as long as you can keep him/her confined to your work space when IT guys and the mailman come to visit and the dog is potty trained. Our other office had a cat that lived at the office. We also have ice cream parties periodically during the summer.
We are a wild and crazy bunch.
Miles Jaffe
Jul 24, 18 2:37 pm
My old man told stories about working for Johnson. When Johnson was out of town there was a lot of goofing off. The day before he returned was a huge charette often late into the night to get the work done.
That never really happened in my father's office. The atmosphere was pretty relaxed and real deadlines were pretty much about pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
The office cat was a grey tiger named Graphite.
Anon_grad2.0
Jul 24, 18 2:59 pm
dragging the most mundane task throughout the day to not do any work.
YouTube all day by certain people
Adults forming “cliques” that spend all day talking bad about each other
I asked for work once and some people started saying that now they’re going to be expected to work harder
curtkram
Jul 24, 18 8:37 pm
remember when people would draw a line in autocad, then erase it and redraw it over and over to fill hours? nothing like that anymore. just pan/zoom and spin the model.
I'm not a robot
Jul 25, 18 8:59 pm
you do the "stretching task" BS at my office and you'll find yourself constantly dumped onto other PMs until you're at the point where you're forced to explain to the staffing manager why we should keep you.
OneLostArchitect
Jul 25, 18 9:26 pm
I’ve developed a software that randomly zooms in and out in drawings while I take cat naps at work. Fortunately for me I’m a corner desk and no one can see me except for my screen
mtdew
Jul 24, 18 3:07 pm
My former boss gave me a bag of weed for a X-mas gift. His son was epileptic and they used to smoke a lot.
JLC-1
Jul 24, 18 3:36 pm
slow clap....
OneLostArchitect
Jul 25, 18 12:16 pm
Wow very nice
bowling_ball
Jul 27, 18 3:57 pm
Hypothetically, this is my situation too. And has extended past weed, though I've always abstained on anything harder. Golf is always a riot.
Donna Sink
Jul 24, 18 3:55 pm
We literally have a tap built into our reception desk, supplied by the brewery next door.
Five Fridays is a thing, and anytime a client wants to hang at the bar we are exceptionally hospitable. I love where I work!
JLC-1
Jul 24, 18 4:22 pm
I love where you work
citizen
Jul 24, 18 4:31 pm
That sounds (and looks) a bit like a workplace of mine in the '80s. Except it was lines on the marble counter, in a restaurant. But it wasafter work.
OneLostArchitect
Jul 25, 18 12:16 pm
I want to work where you work!
atelier nobody
Oct 15, 19 5:34 pm
I don't even drink, and I want to come work with you.
zonker
Jul 24, 18 5:42 pm
I used to work in an office like that, the architect designed it in the 80's along with the entire building -
archanonymous
Jul 24, 18 6:27 pm
I usually try to stir up a bit of fun anywhere I work.
My favorite is around fall/ spring University Lecture Series poster release time making fake posters with co-workers on them and ridiculous lecture topics.
We also do beer after 5, though since I got back from vacation I've been drinking a glass of wine with lunch. When people ask if I'm drinking at lunch (I usually bring it and eat in the office break room) I just say "yup."
Miles Jaffe
Jul 24, 18 7:49 pm
Baseball with cardboard tubes and wads of trace, spears made from 1/32" square balsa sticks with a #11 X-acto blades (they stick in anything), the occasional weed lunch (back in the day before weed was lethal), hazing the new guy ("have you seen the electric X-acto? I can't find it anywhere ...").
archanonymous
Jul 24, 18 7:50 pm
"before weed was lethal" here here! Where can I get some of that "working weed" we used to smoke back in the day?
OneLostArchitect
Jul 24, 18 9:53 pm
back in the day when the boss leave work we would all play Counter Strike 1.4 multiplayer with like 10 guys in the office. Man were those the days!
randomised
Jul 25, 18 3:12 am
No shenanigans where I work(ed) :( mainly drinks..
Used to have drinks on Fridays at one job, with a YouTube estafette so everybody had to play one song, some people have weird taste in music.
At this other place it was a glass of whiskey almost every end of day for the entire office, the boss was Irish.
And there was this basketball court in front of this one office I worked, so during lunch we would shoot some hoops, but sometimes it got real and people got seriously injured, interns flying in the air etc. Was a great way to blow off steam.
So quite boring actually.
sameolddoctor
Jul 26, 18 12:13 am
At the crap office I am at, they have a once-a-month happy hour at 5pm on a Friday. Everyone goes back to work after. Sad!
Miles Jaffe
Jul 27, 18 12:12 pm
In a previous life I had a woodworking job. The boss offered to buy beer late Friday afternoon if someone would go get it. I volunteered, and after the beers he suddenly remembered something that needed to be done, which turned into a late evening in the shop. Some months later he offered to buy beer again and I volunteered to get it. I took the money and went home.
sameolddoctor
Jul 27, 18 5:10 pm
I like!
dominiond
Sep 5, 18 11:50 pm
Man- architects really are a boring bunch of bros- the old white dudes that run our joint think that the weekly Friday HH are part of an epic "culture". They are surprised that fewer than 10 people show up now (out of 90) and kvetch about the the good ol' days in the 90s when their wives still let them go out.
OddArchitect
Oct 15, 19 12:03 pm
Not all at one firm but . . .
Nerf gun wars
Day drinking after 4pm on Fridays
Co worker affairs
Chili cook offs
Gingerbread house building
atelier nobody
Oct 15, 19 5:30 pm
One day at a firm I worked at, the owner brought his young daughter for "Take Your Daughter to Work Day." The little girl though it'd be fun to menace us with her squirt gun, only to discover that every one of us had a squirt gun at our desk and returned fire. Her dad then warned her NOT to try rubber bands...
GridBubbles
Oct 15, 19 4:16 pm
Not sure where y'all work but many of these shenanigans sound seriously unproductive. HR at my place would not approve of many activities in this thread.
Non Sequitur
Oct 15, 19 4:38 pm
Time to find a better employer. I would hate to work in a place that requires a HR department.
Everyday Architect
Oct 15, 19 4:48 pm
I see nothing wrong with an HR department. The human resource is the most expensive cost and the most valuable asset to the firm. It's only logical that there are professionals hired to manage it.
It's only when HR starts to infringe on the firm's culture all by themselves that I start to see a problem. Of course, if the firm owners want the firm culture to be that zero shenanigans happen and everyone is noses down hard at work all the time ... that's fine too. But I wouldn't enjoy working for a firm like that.
GridBubbles
Oct 15, 19 5:22 pm
I'm not saying that you can't have "fun" at work but casual drinking should have some boundaries. People loosen up when they're buzzed but they should not let their guards down just because it is a casual atmosphere. In general, everybody should be cautious with work relationships involving alcohol. Horsing around on the other hand is definitely not professional, let alone unproductive (seriously, Nerf gun wars? The work place is not a kindergarten).
GridBubbles
Oct 15, 19 5:25 pm
Also, I meant to clarify that HR wouldn't directly tell you "no" but would strongly suggest to keep these activities professional.
Archlandia
Oct 15, 19 6:06 pm
Now we know who files all of the anonymous complaints at your office
sameolddoctor
Oct 16, 19 12:17 am
NS, most offices with over 20 people need HR.
Non Sequitur
Oct 16, 19 8:37 am
Old Dr... I'm not saying your incorrect, but I've seen more use of the HR for abuse/personal gain than for it's intended purpose. The larger the staff population, the more abuse it gets.
b3tadine[sutures]
Oct 16, 19 9:43 am
HR is not your friend. They work to the benefit of the firm, not you.
OddArchitect
Oct 16, 19 9:47 am
As long as you firm is comprised of responsible adults then having a Friday at 4pm happy hour, short non lethal projectile wars, and even ::gasp:: potlucks I don't see an issue with productivity.
Non Sequitur
Oct 16, 19 10:03 am
Our office's name partner is actually militantly against potlucks. Not use why, but I kinda agree. As for nerf wars, we've not gone that far yet, but I do have quite the arsenal at home (complete with extra hard Chinese darts without the safety tip) just in case. I've even modified one blaster with after market parts to shoot reg darts up to 85feet/sec.
sameolddoctor
Oct 16, 19 12:03 pm
In our office, HR is a bullshit paper-pusher, and all they do is transfer the whim of the partners to the staff. Absolutely no qualitative input whatsoever.
OddArchitect
Oct 16, 19 12:30 pm
At that point I'd just use a .45 Dillinger
.
Fivescore
Oct 16, 19 12:26 pm
There are beer taps and a pretty well stocked bar in our kitchen, all supplied by the firm's owners, and there are no official rules about when/how much the staff can avail themselves of this perk. Everybody's responsible about it. If anyone's drinking before 5pm M-Th or before 2pm on Fridays they're being very discreet about it.
Nerf or squirt gun wars would annoy me.
OddArchitect
Oct 16, 19 2:05 pm
Less of a war, more of a it's 4:45pm and somebody flings a dart at someone's cubical. It's not like teams are going through the office, clearing each room while looking for the opposing team. Although . . . .
Almosthip7
Oct 16, 19 1:31 pm
We all got very drunk in Vegas. Bad Drugs were involved. The Principal's wife punch him in the mouth on the floor of the Bellagio slot area. All the engineer's wives were mad and lots of fighting at the airport on the return home. I puked on 2 planes back to Canada.
Almosthip7
Oct 16, 19 1:32 pm
Only some of us were allowed to return to Vegas the following year for AU.
threeohdoor
Oct 16, 19 2:08 pm
This is the best answer. I would love to know more about your firm.
Almosthip7
Oct 16, 19 3:27 pm
It was supposed to be a team building experience. We did get to see that big Dam so it wasn't a total loss ;)
poop876
Oct 16, 19 2:17 pm
My former boss was known for outdoor adventures such as paragliding, sky diving etc. One Friday, bunch of us went out at lunch for drink, which turned out to staying at the bar til very late. As we are driving home, my boss says it would be fun to hook up on of his chutes that he had in his trunk to the car to see if he could be lifted up. So we hooked the chute up to the bumper and started driving, and he gained some ground, however we had to stop the car as we ran out of the field and he fell to the ground breaking both of his legs. Yeah, those were some fun times.
OneLostArchitect
Oct 17, 19 12:50 am
ALCOHOL... Because no good story ever started with someone eating a salad...
thought Ithis would be a hot topic
excessive long lunches on Friday by a certain clique -they are the favorites, and rest of us have to work through lunch
"have to"? What happens if you don't work through lunch?
the axe?
In the current climate that's unlikely. And if that did happen, it's probably for the best. You're a professional - you don't need permission from your employer to take a lunch break. If your employer is treating you like a fourth grader then that's a bad employer, and now is a very good time to find a better one.
Agree with eeayeeayo here. Take your lunch break.
Nobody has to work through lunch, yeez, stand up for yourself, your mental slavery is a fucking choice...
a former place I used to work out used to hand out bud lights every Friday afternoon. By 1-2pm there were acouple stumbling idiots down the hall. Then we hired a HR personell once the firm grew larger and they put a end to the fun.
Really? In my firm it's HR who initiates and organizes that - and it seems to be collective HR wisdom that 1 PM puts the firm at less risk of liability than if they started at 4.
Yes we have sanctioned once a month firm party / lecture presentation on some thing followed by socializing. It helps keep us tied together as a firm despite the very different jobs and teams we are on. We also do a Cinco de Mayo party and each set of cubicles has to build a miniature gold course out of office supplies samples and old sets of drawings for the party.
We do happy hour every Friday starting at whenever. It usually begins at lunch, though some are more responsible than me and start drinking at the proper hour of 3:30. All paid for by the firm. Somebody comes to each of our desks with a beer and tells us to stop working. I like our firm culture.
another firm I worked at during the Great Recession had a Christmas party where we were told that we weren’t allowed to bring our significant others due to costs. The night of the party... it was an open bar and a dance floor! Well I don’t need to say anything more on what happened that night. Wow
Did you all engage in a orgy party?
The firm I work for allows you to bring your dog to work as long as you can keep him/her confined to your work space when IT guys and the mailman come to visit and the dog is potty trained. Our other office had a cat that lived at the office. We also have ice cream parties periodically during the summer.
We are a wild and crazy bunch.
My old man told stories about working for Johnson. When Johnson was out of town there was a lot of goofing off. The day before he returned was a huge charette often late into the night to get the work done.
That never really happened in my father's office. The atmosphere was pretty relaxed and real deadlines were pretty much about pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
The office cat was a grey tiger named Graphite.
dragging the most mundane task throughout the day to not do any work.
YouTube all day by certain people
Adults forming “cliques” that spend all day talking bad about each other
I asked for work once and some people started saying that now they’re going to be expected to work harder
remember when people would draw a line in autocad, then erase it and redraw it over and over to fill hours? nothing like that anymore. just pan/zoom and spin the model.
you do the "stretching task" BS at my office and you'll find yourself constantly dumped onto other PMs until you're at the point where you're forced to explain to the staffing manager why we should keep you.
I’ve developed a software that randomly zooms in and out in drawings while I take cat naps at work. Fortunately for me I’m a corner desk and no one can see me except for my screen
My former boss gave me a bag of weed for a X-mas gift. His son was epileptic and they used to smoke a lot.
slow clap....
Wow very nice
Hypothetically, this is my situation too. And has extended past weed, though I've always abstained on anything harder. Golf is always a riot.
We literally have a tap built into our reception desk, supplied by the brewery next door.
Five Fridays is a thing, and anytime a client wants to hang at the bar we are exceptionally hospitable. I love where I work!
I love where you work
That sounds (and looks) a bit like a workplace of mine in the '80s. Except it was lines on the marble counter, in a restaurant. But it was after work.
I want to work where you work!
I don't even drink, and I want to come work with you.
I used to work in an office like that, the architect designed it in the 80's along with the entire building -
I usually try to stir up a bit of fun anywhere I work.
My favorite is around fall/ spring University Lecture Series poster release time making fake posters with co-workers on them and ridiculous lecture topics.
We also do beer after 5, though since I got back from vacation I've been drinking a glass of wine with lunch. When people ask if I'm drinking at lunch (I usually bring it and eat in the office break room) I just say "yup."
Baseball with cardboard tubes and wads of trace, spears made from 1/32" square balsa sticks with a #11 X-acto blades (they stick in anything), the occasional weed lunch (back in the day before weed was lethal), hazing the new guy ("have you seen the electric X-acto? I can't find it anywhere ...").
"before weed was lethal" here here! Where can I get some of that "working weed" we used to smoke back in the day?
back in the day when the boss leave work we would all play Counter Strike 1.4 multiplayer with like 10 guys in the office. Man were those the days!
No shenanigans where I work(ed) :( mainly drinks..
Used to have drinks on Fridays at one job, with a YouTube estafette so everybody had to play one song, some people have weird taste in music.
At this other place it was a glass of whiskey almost every end of day for the entire office, the boss was Irish.
And there was this basketball court in front of this one office I worked, so during lunch we would shoot some hoops, but sometimes it got real and people got seriously injured, interns flying in the air etc. Was a great way to blow off steam.
So quite boring actually.
At the crap office I am at, they have a once-a-month happy hour at 5pm on a Friday. Everyone goes back to work after. Sad!
In a previous life I had a woodworking job. The boss offered to buy beer late Friday afternoon if someone would go get it. I volunteered, and after the beers he suddenly remembered something that needed to be done, which turned into a late evening in the shop. Some months later he offered to buy beer again and I volunteered to get it. I took the money and went home.
I like!
Man- architects really are a boring bunch of bros- the old white dudes that run our joint think that the weekly Friday HH are part of an epic "culture". They are surprised that fewer than 10 people show up now (out of 90) and kvetch about the the good ol' days in the 90s when their wives still let them go out.
Not all at one firm but . . .
Nerf gun wars
Day drinking after 4pm on Fridays
Co worker affairs
Chili cook offs
Gingerbread house building
One day at a firm I worked at, the owner brought his young daughter for "Take Your Daughter to Work Day." The little girl though it'd be fun to menace us with her squirt gun, only to discover that every one of us had a squirt gun at our desk and returned fire. Her dad then warned her NOT to try rubber bands...
Not sure where y'all work but many of these shenanigans sound seriously unproductive. HR at my place would not approve of many activities in this thread.
Time to find a better employer. I would hate to work in a place that requires a HR department.
I see nothing wrong with an HR department. The human resource is the most expensive cost and the most valuable asset to the firm. It's only logical that there are professionals hired to manage it.
It's only when HR starts to infringe on the firm's culture all by themselves that I start to see a problem. Of course, if the firm owners want the firm culture to be that zero shenanigans happen and everyone is noses down hard at work all the time ... that's fine too. But I wouldn't enjoy working for a firm like that.
I'm not saying that you can't have "fun" at work but casual drinking should have some boundaries. People loosen up when they're buzzed but they should not let their guards down just because it is a casual atmosphere. In general, everybody should be cautious with work relationships involving alcohol. Horsing around on the other hand is definitely not professional, let alone unproductive (seriously, Nerf gun wars? The work place is not a kindergarten).
Also, I meant to clarify that HR wouldn't directly tell you "no" but would strongly suggest to keep these activities professional.
Now we know who files all of the anonymous complaints at your office
NS, most offices with over 20 people need HR.
Old Dr... I'm not saying your incorrect, but I've seen more use of the HR for abuse/personal gain than for it's intended purpose. The larger the staff population, the more abuse it gets.
HR is not your friend. They work to the benefit of the firm, not you.
As long as you firm is comprised of responsible adults then having a Friday at 4pm happy hour, short non lethal projectile wars, and even ::gasp:: potlucks I don't see an issue with productivity.
Our office's name partner is actually militantly against potlucks. Not use why, but I kinda agree. As for nerf wars, we've not gone that far yet, but I do have quite the arsenal at home (complete with extra hard Chinese darts without the safety tip) just in case. I've even modified one blaster with after market parts to shoot reg darts up to 85feet/sec.
In our office, HR is a bullshit paper-pusher, and all they do is transfer the whim of the partners to the staff. Absolutely no qualitative input whatsoever.
At that point I'd just use a .45 Dillinger .
There are beer taps and a pretty well stocked bar in our kitchen, all supplied by the firm's owners, and there are no official rules about when/how much the staff can avail themselves of this perk. Everybody's responsible about it. If anyone's drinking before 5pm M-Th or before 2pm on Fridays they're being very discreet about it.
Nerf or squirt gun wars would annoy me.
Less of a war, more of a it's 4:45pm and somebody flings a dart at someone's cubical. It's not like teams are going through the office, clearing each room while looking for the opposing team. Although . . . .
We all got very drunk in Vegas. Bad Drugs were involved. The Principal's wife punch him in the mouth on the floor of the Bellagio slot area. All the engineer's wives were mad and lots of fighting at the airport on the return home. I puked on 2 planes back to Canada.
Only some of us were allowed to return to Vegas the following year for AU.
This is the best answer. I would love to know more about your firm.
It was supposed to be a team building experience. We did get to see that big Dam so it wasn't a total loss ;)
My former boss was known for outdoor adventures such as paragliding, sky diving etc. One Friday, bunch of us went out at lunch for drink, which turned out to staying at the bar til very late. As we are driving home, my boss says it would be fun to hook up on of his chutes that he had in his trunk to the car to see if he could be lifted up. So we hooked the chute up to the bumper and started driving, and he gained some ground, however we had to stop the car as we ran out of the field and he fell to the ground breaking both of his legs. Yeah, those were some fun times.
ALCOHOL... Because no good story ever started with someone eating a salad...