They say that how a person behaves towards those under them on an organization’s totem pole shows who they really are …
Here’s the set up: I’m a junior lawyer at a very large firm. In its infinite mercy, the firm offers free drinks to all and sundy (or at least, so I assumed) on Friday after work. I work on the lowest floor of the firm, where the IP folks dwell; the drinks are organized by one of the administrative assistants (in the olden days, “secretaries”) who on her own initiative collects the drinks from the servery on the top floor and brings 'em down. Next to the servery on the top floor there is a much larger “open bar” for the business and corporate law folks.
Well, every Friday on our floor pretty well everyone - lawyers, administrative assistants, IT staff, everyone - drinks together, with never a problem or concern.
Last Friday, though, more people than usual attended, and the drinks ran out. So the assistant who organizes the drinks went up to the bar next to the servery to grab a bottle. She came back down rather startled. Apparently, there was a senior partner up there who basically told her she could not take a bottle down.
We all assumed he, for some odd reason, had decided that all drinks on that floor had to be drunk on that floor. So we all trooped up to the top floor for a drink.
Well, it turns out this guy (the only senior partner present) was simply angry that administrative assistants and suchlike were drinking at all. According to him, the bar was only for lawyers. He sent a junior to tell the lot of us to leave (he did not know I was a lawyer as well - we’d never really interacted).
Now, this is obviously not the firm’s policy - it is simply something he came up with all on his lonesome. We did leave, not wishing for a confrontation with this guy, who obviously had a few too many already. But everyone was extremely pissed off, particularly the poor lady who organized the drink cart for my floor, at this insulting behaviour. My own assistant was practically breathing fire. What kind of asshole would refuse to drink with the staff?