This question was prompted by this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=829293 In that thread, the OP’s boss asked him if he had been drinking because someone smelled alcohol on his breath at 9 in the morning. One person said:
Their opinion as I read it is that if you think a co-worker has an issue with drinking, you should go to that co-worker and ask them if they’re OK, and not involve the boss at all. That is, you should just offer open-ended support with whatever they might be going through, and confront them directly. I take the completely opposite tack on the situation; if I think a co-worker has some kind of drinking problem, I’m only going to get involved as much as I need to to protect myself and other people. I’m definitely not going to ask them about it and get involved in their issue in some way. Either I’m going to tune them out or report it to someone who’s job is to get involved, depending on my assessment of the situation.
If someone doesn’t have a problem like in the thread linked to, I’ve probably just started a workplace rivalry and this person will now be out to get me, and will blame me if anyone else reports whatever is going on to management. If someone does have a problem, I simply don’t want to get involved. They will probably try to talk and threaten me into helping them cover it up, and again will blame me if anything does happen regardless of what I do. They clearly have poor impulse control, and might do something to jeopardize my job. If they actually have an addiction, then I know from experience with helping friends who struggle with addiction that it’s a real mess that takes a lot of time and emotional energy even if they genuinely want to get better, and definitely not something I’d engage in with someone who’s basically a stranger to me. And if they don’t want to get better, then I’m just going to get dragged into their drama.
And note that I’m not talking about people drinking responsibly in an office where it’s fine, but someone who appears to have an actual issue where they’re drinking when they shouldn’t be and it’s worrying me. Obviously if a company is cool with drinking and someone has a beer in the afternoon, there’s not an issue. I’m talking about a situation like working in an office where drinking is not allowed, and the person appears to be drinking at 9AM, or where the person is staggering back into the office while slurring that they had ‘a beer at lunch’ . Also the original thread was about alcohol, but I’m expanding the topic to drug addiction in general, since they work the same way - I’m going to be about as wary if I see someone using another drug in a suspicious way.
A few decades ago I would have agreed with intervening personally: We’re both humans, humans can relate, etc. We’ll talk about it over a (non-alcoholic) beer! :smack:
Now? Not so much, and for pretty much exactly the reasons you listed: I don’t know the situation, it’s not my problem, and I don’t need a bigger target on my back. Maybe that says a lot about me but you can’t be too careful at work nowadays.
I’d stay out of it to the extent possible. I wouldn’t talk to my co-worker about it, and I wouldn’t talk to management, and especially not HR, about it.
HR departments are dangerous. If you bring a problem to their attention, they’re going to be pissed off at you. They really don’t want to hear about problems. The same can be true of management.
I guess if the stoned/drunk co-worker was making my work, or my life, difficult, I’d have to do something, but otherwise I’d stay as far away from the situation as possible.
Is the issue affecting their work, impeding others or opening the company to risk? If not, I do nothing. If so, I confront them directly - but only about the issue with the work itself. If the work issue doesn’t improve I will escalate to their boss, again specifically about the work issue.
As a rule of thumb, the reason behind the work issue(s) of my cow-orkers is none of my business. If the person reports to me, though, the reason is my concern.
I turned down a supervisory job because I don’t want to get involved in shit like that.
That said, if one of my coworkers is doing shit work, or isn’t pulling their weight, which basically translates to more work (or headaches) for me, I WILL report that to my supervisor.
But I will make no mention of suspected drug use. Just point out that the coworker isn’t doing their job.
Is the Boss a good, intelligent, ready-to-listen Boss? Or a pointy-haired Boss? Is HR trustworthy and offering rehab courses while keeping the Job open - or are they looking for any which way to fire People/ do they blab about sensitive Problems to the Boss?
Corollary: what type of Job is it, what exactly are the rules about drugs/ alcohol, and how’s the Job market?
If my coworker is a surgeon, being impaired risks lifes, so I would tend to notify somebody immediately. If my coworker is in an Office Job, with not-vital paperwork (nobody is loosing their insurance / a Permit because he’s impaired), then I can take a day to evaluate the Situation.
How Close do I know my coworker? Barely at all because there’s 50 People in my cubicle farm, or have we worked together in a 5 Person Team for 10 years?
Has the coworker always been an unresponsible flake, or prone to outbursts? Or was he always responsible, but in the past 2 months Problems have heaped up?
If in my estimation, talking directly to him is highly likely to end up “Yes, I have Problems, and HR will give me help, I’ll talk to them” - then that is much better than going directly to the Boss.
If he has flared up before, but the Boss is reasonable, I’m more likely to talk with the Boss.
But talking to a Pointy-haired Boss, if the coworker slipped up one time after months of stress in a non-vital Job, leading to him getting fired instead of getting help - that would be wrong for me because I caused harm.
The Problem is that different constellations are possible, and several of them can backfire on you: either you cause disproporante harm, or you get caught in the backlash.
If your coworker is reasonable, but the Boss irrational, he may consider you a Trouble-maker or spreading bad News about coworker, and suddenly you are on the shit list (esp. if coworker is the Boss’ favourite for some reason).
If Coworker is irresponsible, and you talk to him, and Boss gets wind, you are in Trouble because you didn’t tell him first.
If you do tell Boss first, and Coworker hears about it, he might take his Anger at loosing his Job out on you after work is over.
And so on. So a General recommendation is hard to give.
I’ve got a co-worker right now who is screwing up, and I happen to know for a fact that it’s because she stays up late drinking on week nights, and then can’t get out of bed in the morning. Management knows she is screwing up. I have no idea if they know she drinks a lot. So far she hasn’t come to work drunk, but she calls in sick more than anyone else-- well, no, there’s one other person who takes a lot of time off, but she always arranges it in advance, and gets a sub.
Management is more on the ball than most people realize, and I just know this because I happen to be friends with one of them. This co-worker has 2 & 1/2 strikes, and she should know it. She’s pretty young, and I don’t know if she’s as scared as she should be, though.
However, I know that management does not need me to carry any tales.
Some of the people where I work are pretty bad gossips, and a few speculate about whether someone ought to tell management that we know this one co-worker drinks a lot. I always say don’t bother, as her work speaks for itself.
I think you’re answering a broader question than I asked - I’m not really trying to look at the whole question of ‘how do you respond’, but specifically ‘do you ask the co-worker what their problem is and try to help them with it’. The person in the thread seemed to think it was pretty automatic that ‘I think co-worker has a drug issue, ask them what’s wrong’, while to me the base line is pretty much the opposite; ‘if I think co-worker has a drug issue, avoid getting involved as much as possible’.
It’s interesting to me that the post that prompted this treated it as a given that you’d get involved in the situation, but in this discussion people have pretty universally said that they wouldn’t or would be unlikely to discuss the outside problem with the person.
If they are basically a stranger to you, what makes you think confronting him directly would result in honest conversation? I would find it far more likely that the suspected
troubled employee would lie and lie to a random co-worker asking if they had a problem. (I know this is not Pantasic’s stance but rather the stance of the poster in the linked thread). I really think not getting involved is the best bet. Or, like Grr… mentions, simply report that they are falling behind in their job responsibilities, not mentioning anything about drug/alcohol use.
I’ve spent the bulk of my career in oil and gas and the steel industry, facilities known to have a fair amount of recreational drinkers and drug users. (Not to imply that these ardn’t present in other industries).
By and large, the decision point on whether or not an employee is fit to work lies with the supervisor. If an employee reports to work visibly impaired, the supervisorr has two choices, send him home or report him. If the impairment is an isolated incident, the supervisor will send him home with instructions to not return until he’s sober.
If this is the case, management or HR will never know about it. All we will see is a sick day taken.
If a pattern of impairment emerges and the supervisor reports this to management or HR, the employee will be tested and if the test is positive, the employee will be suspended until an alcohol or drug cessation program is completed. If successfully completed, the employee will return to his job with vacation, benefits, and seniority intact. One more incident of reporting impaired will result in termination.
I have always found this to be a pretty fair system unless you have a bad supervisor who doesn’t administer the policy fairly to all employees. You can’t continue indefinitely with an impaired employee. They can quickly endanger themselves and others in a heavy industrial setting.
It depends, on who the person is and what my relationship to them is, what their role is, what they are doing, if they are disruptive and so on. A close co-worker/friend - I would talk to them. A co-worker with whom I had no relationship - if it’s a one time thing, I might say nothing at all, depending on their role. If they’re not interacting with the public or putting anyone at risk, I might not say anything. If it happens repeatedly, interferes with the office, puts people at risk, puts the company at risk, then, yes, I might mention it to their manager or HR.
At one school for adult English conversation, one of the other teachers is an active alcoholic. I offered to help and didn’t report the teacher because having a drunk teacher isn’t going to endanger anyone.