Eauchiche

Dear friends
Are any of you interested in this topic?
I have been told by a mental health professional friend that the stats bear this out.
I believe that I am operating under this sort of thing in my current company. I have been saying since I took this job that the business decisions up there are made around tall glasses of Scotch.

I have applied for a lateral move to a different company, where I suspect the local authority also suffers from this problem. The difference would be that in that structure, they are a lot less dependent upon the individual in question to run the operation.
I just spoke with a good friend in the other company who told me some facts that seem to indicate this individual is in a sort of downward spiral.

The problem at hand is, that he is the one responsible for hiring. I put in my application on 9/11 in response to an ad online, and phone calls from locals begging me to apply. The only thing I have gotten in response is a lame e-mail asking me to resend my resume, that he couldn't find it.

My reason for wanting to move is the likelihood, I believe, of my current company going belly up within the next couple of years.

I would be interested to read your impressions or experiences. Thanks!

redatlanta

I have worked FOR a couple of Alcoholics. It didn't affect me. They were good business people.

What has affected me is working WITH alcoholics - like on a colleague level. This did affect me (hangovers, not showing up, working below satisfactory). I'm sure working for an alcoholic can be miserable it just wasn't my experience.

Thomas45

At a corporate level, while there may be drinking present, it isn't common (at least in my experience) to actually deal with the ramifications of someone's drinking problem.

Fluffer

There are some people who are pretty alcoholic but are able to exercise excellent judgment and who are highly capable. Some of them crash and burn, others not. I suppose the nice thing about management and professional positions is that often you have a flexible schedule and can get away with canceling things when you need to. Regular employees not so much.

FireSprite

It really depends - I had an awful experience but it was a smaller company with fewer buffering layers between me & the owner-A's. My biggest issues were that they (husband-wife, both active A's) were very skilled at manipulating boundaries & I wasn't aware enough about reinforcing them at the time. (unrealistic expectations of work, drinking on company outings & continuing education trips, calling me on my personal time after hours, obviously intoxicated, etc.) My job put me in direct contact with both of them regularly every day & a big part of my job turned into being that buffer for the staff that worked under me.

In a larger company with more players calling the shots & a more formal corporate structure I probably could've side-stepped a lot of the drama. I eventually left because her progression accelerated very suddenly & I couldn't deal with the constant drama & totally unnecessary stress. Plus, the 3rd partner who was a sober person, was leaving due to the addiction issues & it seemed like the best time/way to make a clean break. Good luck!

Wisconsin

I can't speak to a corporate environment much. I'm sure that I worked for and with alcoholics when I was still in private practice.

I can, however, speak to it in the skilled trades. It is an epidemic in the skilled trades, where workers go well beyond simple "enabling." My STBXAH is in a skilled trade union, and they all talk openly about taking drug tests for each other. It is my conservative estimate that at least two-thirds of the people in my STBXAH's trade are addicts. And while I am a very liberal democrat who is very pro-union, the union structure does NOT help in these situations. A worker come to work drunk or high, and he is protected. A worker goes to jail for months or years for his umpteenth DUI, and he has a job, with benefits and great pay, as soon as he's out. And while the insurance may cover some portion of treatment, there is absolutely no support system in place at all for recovery. These guys drink at their union meetings. They drink at work. They drink after work on the job sites, and then drive home.

As you may be able to tell, I have released a lot of my anger and resentment about what I've gone through with STBXAH, but not where this stuff is concerned. The epidemic in the skilled trades has destroyed tens of thousands of families.

Refiner

What is your exact question? Would this hiring person be your manager and is alcoholic and your question is what is it like to work for one? If he's on a downward spiral, he may not be in the position for long if it's a small company. But if it's a large corporate situation, he could be there forever. Personally, I don't think I could work for an alcoholic as a direct report. If not a direct report, then no problem.

Eauchiche

Refiner-
He is a direct report type, but someone we would hardly ever see. My main question was directed at others' experiences with this issue, and how they think it impacts the workplace.

The gentleman in question may or may not be an alcoholic. I learned from a female friend in that company that he also regularly "hits on" the female employees. He also has a reputation there of being very incompetent. This high risk behavior leads me to believe that he might have a substance problem. Even though it is a huge corporation, they don't usually like to keep employees that prove to be a potential liability.

Refiner

Ohhhhh... ok, that's much more clear now. I would not go near him and especially not work for him. I work for a huge corporation and they rarely fire people like this. They just shuffle them around and around so they're no longer "their" problem. I worked under someone such as this and it was TERRIBLE. She was an incompetent, micro-managing beast who got hooked on Vicodin (and BRAGGED about it!) and they still wouldn't get rid of her. People like this that are horrible with people usually get "kicked upstairs" to an even higher position, gets paid more, does "special projects" (in other words doesn't really do anything nor add value) and has no more direct reports. Pretty cushy, huh? Those people eventually get bored and leave the company or get swept out when there's a massive layoff (so their are no lawsuits generated that they were singled out). It's crazy. Are you in the US? Could be even worse if you're in Europe because of the Worker's Council? I would not work in that environment if I were you.

Eauchiche

I will be fine working for that company, but learned some more facts today that demonstrate that this gentleman is losing control of things.
Even though "high functioning" alcoholics frequently do well at work, this can't last forever. It is progressive like the rest of the disease, and eventually goes too.

By the way, I have worked for that company before, and they have a zero tolerance workplace. It was a pleasure to work for them before.

thequest

I worked with or for drug addicts & alcoholics and one of the common traits I noticed is a short attention span or ignorance of details. That being said since a few were smart people they were able to just get by but sooner or later luck runs out.

Also many of that same management saw their career stagnate because they were spending their spare time with a bottle/getting drunk instead of continuing their education. In the older companies the long term legacy management employee frequently gets forced out from the lack of degrees or training on the latest trends. This leads to frustration, anger & attitude which frequently winds up being taken out on their employees since pushing for unrealistic quotas/productivity statistics is the only way they can keep their job.

I've worked for several older big national companies and this scenario has played out in all of them. And that includes that person being phased or forced out prematurely if not fired.

One last thing I've also noticed over the years is that workplace alcoholism or the workplace alcoholic needs enabling or favors to survive.