Your Office Is Open and the Liquor Is Flowing
Bosses don’t just want workers back at the office. They want people to love being around their co-workers.
www.wsj.com
Almost anytime is a good time for alcohol in Jude Maboné’s office these days.
The 26-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., says her workday usually ends at 6 p.m., but on a recent Tuesday most of the staff called it quits and broke out the drinks at 4:30 p.m. Then there was a Thursday when her bosses—some two or three times her age—started scooping liquor-infused ice cream with the same alcohol content as a Budweiser at 2:30 p.m.
Ms. Maboné and her 20 or so colleagues have been back at their desks for about a month, and she has noticed alcohol is “always in the center of social things here.”
The company is trying to resurrect office camaraderie but a number of her co-workers don’t drink. “It’s funny that that’s such a heavy part of trying to keep people invested so you don’t lose them,” she says.
As businesses work to settle employees into offices, some are pulling out the stops—literally, on kegs, casks and wine bottles—in an attempt to make workplaces seem cool. Sure, executives could simply order people to return to their cubicles, and some have, but many want their workers to come back and like it.
Many do, however, want the office to feel a bit more edgy and exciting than it did before the pandemic. At a minimum, it has to be more alluring than the sofas, kitchen tables and spare bedrooms where so many people have been doing their jobs for the better part of two years.
The question is whether it will work at a time when many people view flexibility as the ultimate amenity and care more about compensation than connecting with their co-workers.
James Vermillion, a financial adviser in Kentucky, sometimes enjoyed a finger or two of bourbon in the afternoon when working at home in 2020. Then, when he opened his own office as a solo practitioner in a shared workspace, he decided to bring along his state’s signature spirit as a way of shedding the “stuffiness” of the large—and dry—firm where he worked before.
He now collects special releases from local distilleries and displays them atop a cask, inviting clients to savor something rare while planning their finances.
“People get really excited, like, ‘Oh, I’ve been wanting to try that bottle,’” Mr. Vermillion says. “It’s a cool way to enjoy a moment with them.”
