# The deepest circle of hell is reserved for busybody work snitches **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 19, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229 "2006-04-19T00:24:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/81 "2006-04-19T05:02:04Z")
[QUOTE=dmatsch] Like I said before, if I smelled alcohol on a co-worker’s breath, smelled _real_ drugs on them, or even saw them stealing office supplies, I would mind my own fucking business. [/QUOTE] So it’s not your business when someone steals from your employer, which increases your employer’s costs, which increases your customers’ costs, which increases their customers’ costs? > [@dmatsch](#): > > I think asking for a vodka gimlet while in prison will diliver you one of two things: > > 1. A visit in the shower by Bubba > 2. a good ass kicking followed by #1. Prison rape jokes. _Always_ comedy gold. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/82 "2006-04-19T05:03:48Z")
Is this thread BYOB? **dmatsch** , don’t let your resentment at your office’s resident busybody lead you into trouble. And read “The Catbird Seat,” by Thurber. It’ll do you good, I promise. Best wishes. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/83 "2006-04-19T14:59:58Z")
[QUOTE=askeptic] As to how much time I post, doesn’t really matter since I run my own company. I have a few employees, and have occasionally provided alcohol at lunch. But if one of them imbibed on their own initiative I would at least let them know that it is not acceptable. You and they are hourly employees that means that I and your employer pay you to do a certain task for a certain amount of time. Since I am paying I can decide that alcohol may be consumed, niether you nor my employees can make that decision. You don’t like it you are free to leave. . [/QUOTE] Since in most states, your employees are not paid during lunch, they would have every right to have adrink during that lunch period, and unless it impaired their work, you have nothing to say, since you are NOT paying for that time. Of course, you _can_ fire anyone “just because”- that’s just because the boss is an asshole". ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/84 "2006-04-19T15:51:31Z")
[QUOTE=Snowboarder Bo] Even so, I would never use that as a justification for drinking during my lunch hour, or dinner breaks, or at breakfast, etc. [/QUOTE] That’s the exact kind of thing an alcoholic would say. I’m not accusing you of being an alcoholic, I’m just saying that you should heed the warning signs and get to an AA meeting NOW. Man, this thread is long on shrill and short on rationality. I never knew **askeptic** to be so lacking in logic. And he’s a boss!!! ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/85 "2006-04-19T16:09:23Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] That’s the exact kind of thing an alcoholic would say. I’m not accusing you of being an alcoholic, I’m just saying that you should heed the warning signs and get to an AA meeting NOW. Man, this thread is long on shrill and short on rationality. I never knew **askeptic** to be so lacking in logic. And he’s a boss!!! [/QUOTE] I’m getting the feeling IT work has different standards than most other jobs. But, even when I was an HVAC mechanic, the bosses didn’t mind occasional light lunchtime drinking. **Snowboarder Bo** went off on a strange tangent. He does not work a typical job and so has little reason to comment on a normal salary office job. **askeptic** has every right to run a strict “no drinking at lunch” shop as the owner. But he can’t expect every shop to run like his. He also seemed to be spoiling for a fight. I am not sure why. If the rules are firm that there is no drinking at lunch, they should be easy to live with, but \*\*dmatsch \*\* made it clear his company doesn’t normally enforce the policy. He has a right to be annoyed and now knows his co-worker is a backstabber. I’m willing to bet that after the little meeting with his boss, he was ready to quit and that instead, he blew off steam here. Good for him. All we can do is abuse or support him, not f’ up his job. Jim ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/86 "2006-04-19T16:19:22Z")
> [@what exit?](#): > > He also seemed to be spoiling for a fight. I am not sure why. You are right. Bad day yesterday. Apologies to all. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/87 "2006-04-19T16:20:54Z")
Y’know, I work for a large software company headquartered in Redmond Washington. It is routine to schedule Friday unwinders where the business unit admin buys some sandwiches, snacks, beer and wine. People have a drink or two and go back to work, or go home. It is routine for the company to have ship parties where alcohol is served. It is unremarkable for people to keep beer in the office kitchen fridge. If you screw up your work because you’ve got an alcohol problem, that’s one thing. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re drinking at work or drinking at home, either you’re screwing up or you’re not. You can’t have a company where it is expected that you’re going to work late and work weekends and work in the middle of the night, and control your employees personal life so much. If you have few drinks that’s no big deal. Drinks at lunch, drinks after work, drinks at company functions, it’s all OK. Staggering around drunk, not so much. But having a few drinks and going back to work? This is at the largest sofware company in the world, and it is part of the corporate culture. If you’re going to have a rule against people coding while impaired, you’d have to prohibit 72 hour Mountain Dew fueled marathon crunch time. Note that even though alcohol is tolerated at work, and provided at work, I’ve never personally seen anyone get drunk at work, although I’ve heard stories–mostly about the “old days”. Now, if you’re a bus driver, or a health care provider, or a cop, or a schoolteacher, or a heavy equipment operator, then the rules are different. And if you’re at a company where most/many people have work that prohibits alcohol consumption, then it could also make sense to have a company-wide policy against alcohol and not have separate policies for forklift drivers and receptionists. But “alcohol at work, or around work is unprofessional” is bunk. And the comparisons to how racism used to be tolerated? Please. How the heck can you compare having a beer during lunch, or a beer Friday afternoon to racist jokes? Seriously, what’s the comparision? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/88 "2006-04-19T16:29:11Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] He also seemed to be spoiling for a fight. I am not sure why. [/QUOTE] Clearly this is a sensitive topic for a good many people. I guess that substance abuse can be so disruptive that it causes otherwise rational people to fly off the handle. I’ve known a few IRL. I used to know a woman that would FREAK OUT at the mere _mention_ of recreational drug use. I knew another that thought that “cocaine” should be a banned word. I wonder what she would now think if she knew I had a friend with that last name. Probably suggest rehab. ---
**Author:** ![dmatsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3be4f8/32.png) [@dmatsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dmatsch)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/89 "2006-04-19T16:29:29Z")
This thread kid of got derailed into whether it was right for me toss back a couple at lunch. As I said, it is not unkown for everyone in this company to have a couple of beers at work. It dealt with the office busybody who felt it was her moral imperative to police everyone’s actions. What I wanted to know originally was what motivates a person like this to do that? Like it was mentioned in this thread about the person who patrols their deed-restricted subdivision reporting to the homeowner’s association every violation they see. What business of it is theirs? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/90 "2006-04-19T16:34:44Z")
[QUOTE=askeptic] You are right. Bad day yesterday. Apologies to all. [/QUOTE] Cool. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/91 "2006-04-19T16:38:54Z")
[QUOTE=dmatsch] What I wanted to know originally was what motivates a person like this to do that? [/QUOTE] I don’t know, but I’d like to hazard a couple of guesses: 1. She is so lacking in her own life that she feels a need to be morally superior to others. It’s her own sick form of socialization. 2. She has a very authoritarian personality. You know her better than any of us. What’s she like? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/92 "2006-04-19T16:44:05Z")
I haven’t read all the posts as the thread started getting silly. If I am repeting what someone else said, sorry, but she didn’t smell two vodka gimlets on your breath. Who the hell can smell vodka. Someone turned you in. From my days on the TB ward with all the alcoholics I learned that the best thing to stop your breath smelling of alcohol is a square or two of cholcolate. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/93 "2006-04-19T16:49:19Z")
[QUOTE=don’t ask] Who the hell can smell vodka. [/QUOTE] I’ve always heard that vodka doesn’t make your breath smell, but is that really true? Sounds sort of old wives taley to me. Is there a medical reason why this should be so? ---
**Author:** ![Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/94 "2006-04-19T16:53:04Z")
Busybodies are one of my pet peeves. I don’t have one at work, lucky enough, but my downstairs neighbor is one. He’s a 50-something bachelor who does little besides peering out his window, eavesdropping on conversations between other neighbors and going around spreading gossip. Even though I rarely talk to him and never tell him personal details, other neighbors - some who I don’t even know! - know certain things about me that I’ve never told them. When I asked them how they knew this, they said, “Oh, [Mr. Busybody] told me.” What a douche. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/95 "2006-04-19T16:59:10Z")
So there’s no explicit rule against drinking at lunch? I’m a programmer too, and have never had a specific policy anyplace. What she did is about as fair as telling the boss that somebody took prescription meds to relax. It’s legal, it’s not against company policy, and it helped you relax. Next time you have a beer during lunch make sure to do it at your workplace, and walk by the woman’s cube/office while you drink. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/96 "2006-04-19T17:06:20Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] And the comparisons to how racism used to be tolerated? Please. How the heck can you compare having a beer during lunch, or a beer Friday afternoon to racist jokes? Seriously, what’s the comparision? [/QUOTE] It’s not a comparison, just an example of why the “Back in the day, everybody did X and nobody saw a problem with it” argument is not valid. There are plenty of other examples that could be cited (e.g. during the 50s, it’s quite possible that after everybody else had their drinks and left the meeting, the boss called his secretary in for a quick BJ), that just happens to be the one that came to mind. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/97 "2006-04-19T17:20:48Z")
[QUOTE=Steve MB] There are plenty of other examples that could be cited (e.g. during the 50s, it’s quite possible that after everybody else had their drinks and left the meeting, the boss called his secretary in for a quick BJ), that just happens to be the one that came to mind. [/QUOTE] I wanna be a 50’s-style boss! There is a rule against drinking at my work place. We are told explicitly upon hire that being intoxicated on the premises is grounds for dismisal. I am a programmer, but I work in a hospital. What’s fair to a surgeon is fair to me. But when I worked at a consulting firm, Fridays were Liver Damage Day. ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/98 "2006-04-19T17:25:43Z")
Our office holds “wings and wine” parties about once a month, usually at about 4pm or so. The boss buys the beers and the wine. We enjoy. Everyone goes back to work. I hate busybodies too. I’ve always wondered what exactly about me is so exciting that my every move must be reported to someone else. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/99 "2006-04-19T18:39:32Z")
I like Adam Corolla’s idea, and one day I’m going to do it. Dress up in a commercial airline pilot uniform, go to the airport bar, get totally shitfaced. Except for the public intoxication arrest, that would be a blast! Oh yeah, film it. Ooh, here’s the tricky part, when you film it, you thread the film in the camera _in reverse_. That way, when it’s played, it looks like you’re gradually getting sober. Except for the backwards talking, of course. Rules are rules. If someone on one of my jobs showed any sign of being under any influence, they would have to leave the job site. This would include imbibing (or toking) on lunch hour, their time, because the effects last into my time. Safety is the primary issue, but having a project done right also enters the picture. (Construction) So, in some situations, busybodies and tattletales might just save $$$ and lives. Still, having been the target in the past of busybody tattlers, I feel your pain. No one likes the “righteous” person. We might have the utmost respect for a good guy, but any airs of righteousness usualy just puts me off, man. Fuck 'em! ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229/100 "2006-04-19T18:48:48Z")
I can smell vodka on people’s breath. I’m fairly sensitive to it… my parents once winterized the boat by replacing the water with vodka instead of expensive antifreeze. I got a _lot_ of exposure to that scent. For yeaaaars. And years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-deepest-circle-of-hell-is-reserved-for-busybody-work-snitches/353229.md?page=6)