Via Fark, a couple of high school students got in trouble for being drunk at school at 10AM. Most TiBbers can be found under the influence of alcohol or...other substances...at appropriate times. Some of them can be found under the influence at inappropriate times. FOCUS: When have you been drunk/high while at work or school? Alternatively, when have you been super hungover and unable to perform up to your ability? What were the consequences? ALT FOCUS: Has a co-worker ever been drunk/high and done something regrettable like punch out their cubicle neighbor for breathing too loud?
Due to course requirements in my undergrad, I had to take a history class. I enjoy history so I thought this was fine and was quite looking forward to my "African Diaspora" class. What I didn't take into account was that this was NYU and the history department was run by peddlers of postmodernism, deconstructionism, and its ilk. The professor made us write a book review for a book that deconstructed the Haitian revolution. The book was absolute shit so I wrote a very critical review. She wrote on my paper that I shouldn't criticize the work of a highly respected academic given my status as an undergraduate student.....seriously. After that, I decided I would never again go to this class sober as I just couldn't listen to her idiotic rambling unless I was in an altered state. One time, something I can't recall made me start laughing uncontrollably. I tried as hard as I could to stifle it but the weed smokers know how impossible that is when you get caught in one of those cycles of laughing, and then laughing more because you can't stop laughing, then laughing harder because you can't remember what you started laughing at to begin with. The professor continued lecturing but she and other students kept glancing at me. Other students started laughing as well, at which point the professor stopped lecturing. I apologized while still laughing and left the room. After a few minutes I managed to collect myself and went back in. I took a seat and within seconds burst out laughing again for no reason. The professor, understandably fed up, asked me to leave and not come back until I could take school more seriously.
One semester at University, a large portion of my friends had a fairly long day on the Thursday. Something like 10am-7pm, with a couple of breaks in between classes. One break in particular was about 2 hours, and feel nicely around lunch time. To kick off the first couple of weeks, we'd all head down to the local pub, grab a feed, play some pool, then head back to University in time for our next lecture (which was three hours long). This plan didn't last too long. Irresponsibility quickly stepped in. We soon decided to start drinking during our break, and pretty heavily. A couple of times all of us (20 people or so) were asked to leave the lecture because we were being too loud. This wasn't an unfair conclusion. We'd camp ourselves in the back corner of the lecture hall, and we were probably even louder and more rowdy than we were at the actual pub. Once we were asked to leave the second time, we decided staying at the pub was a better option. This of course meant that we were even drunker at the class afterwards. There was one instance where a girl locked herself in the toilets at the pub and passed out with her head halfway inside the bowl. I had to go inside the cubicle next to her, jump the wall, and get her out. I now work at this pub. And what course were we all doing at University? Policing. All of these people are now responsible for upholding the law
I can't remember if I told part of this before: My senior year in college, we had a morning mixer with a sorority on a Thursday morning at 7:00. (We = I lived in an apartment with 3 fraternity brothers; everybody met at our apartment.) I had no breakfast, woke up drinking beer, then started playing drinking games. We were playing Chandeliers with Champagne. I drank a lot before my first class at 9:00. Somehow I managed to ride my motorcyle to class. (I parked on the sidewalk right outside the door.) My class was an upper level class in my major, we met in a conference room adjacent to the Department offices, and there were about 8 of us. There was no way to hide how impaired I was. About half way through class, I was having trouble reading my notes I was taking. They were absolutely sloppy and incoherent (like me!); so, I just got up in the middle of the lecture to leave the room. I walked across the hall to one of the lab rooms (I was a TA, so I had a key), opened the door, and threw up in the sink a couple times. Then, I sort of sideways walked (you know that drunk walk, like you're on a boat that's listing to the left?) down to my motorcyle. I stupidly got on my bike, and started heading back to my apartment. When I came to stop signs, I fell over twice before getting off campus. I parked my bike and started walking - not because I realized I was a danger to myself or others, but because I was tired of falling over and having to pick up my motorcycle. One of the girls that lived across the street from me saw me staggering down the road, got me in her car and drove me home. I heard later that two of my roommates drug me out of her car and onto the couch. I passed the class, but I can't drink Champagne anymore.
We just had St. Paddy's day. So the last time I was drunk/high/hung over at school and work was on Thursday and Friday.
Ahh yes, my sophomore year of college was one of my favorite times that I showed up to class drunk. I had started a group called Stammtisch, which was a group of German students who went to a bar, spoke German, and got drunk. Most of us were from the same class, and we had a great time. So we decided one day to have Vortisch, roughly meaning before drinking table. The plan was to meet up at 10am on a Friday, which also happened to be Cinco De Mayo, and my then girlfriend, now wife's 21st birthday. So people were ready to drink and party. However, my friend decided to fuck with me a bit, and told everyone we were going to be drinking in my dorm room. So at ten AM, there is a knock on my door, and half of the German class is standing there, and they file in to start partying. Oh, and did I mention that it was international no pants day, so about 5 of them were wearing only boxers. We managed to down about 3 bottles of Jägermeister before walking over to class, and by the time we were there, the booze had really started to kick in, and the whole crowd was lively. The professor could tell right away that we were drunk, probably because we smelled like cough syrup, though he enjoyed it, as we were lively, and engaged in the discussion, and more willing to speak German.
Pretty much, the last few years of my drinking & drugging. Working from home helped with dealing with the hangovers. I could sleep in later and then smoke a joint to help defuse it. Ironically, I didn't lose my job until 6 months after I quit drinking and using, but that turned out to be a really, really good thing. Senior year of college, I took a philosophy final while on LSD. Filled 4 blue books on 1 question, giggling the whole time.
My freshman year of college, I had a crazy class schedule my first semester. Poli-sci at 9am and then American history at 4pm on Mon, Wed, Fri. The president of my fraternity who was also a close family friends growing up decided that we would meet for drinks every afternoon before my history class. Who am I to say no when I am 18 and there is available booze? We would drink fairly heavily for about an hour and then I would stumble on over to class. A girl once commented that I stunk like beer and I drunkenly responded, "Yea? JEALOUS!" All class, lemme tell ya. Senior year, I was pretty much a full-on pot head at that point and one of my last classes before graduating was a capstone class that summarized everything I had learned in my major. This class was every Friday morning at 7am and lasted for 3 fucking hours. To cope with this situation, my roommate and I would wake n' bake and then eat a special brownie on the shuttle to campus. By the near 1 hour mark, we were full on blazed over, unable to take good notes and giggly but really fucking thirsty. The professor on a couple of occasions would look at us kind of funny and ask if we were okay. I was terrible at hiding being stoned. I somehow managed an A in the class.
I partake in a little vaporizer session some days before I workout in the morning. Then I either hit the home office or head into work. I'm not baked out of my mind but I'm definitely under the influence. I think it makes me more tolerable of the people I work with, the customers I have to deal with, and my half insane boss. If for any reason this ever becomes an issue I'll inform them that the three largest projects the company landed were conceptualized, quoted, and closed all while being high as a kite. Think outside box? Sure, just let me light up the key that lets me out. On the other side, I've been completely hammered at a trade show for an entire week. This was fully encouraged by my boss as I was out with customers until 4AM every morning with them enjoying the Chicago night life. That was the longest week of my life and one I never hope to repeat. Up until last year I'd enjoy a few drinks with lunch. Didn't matter if I was out by myself, coworkers or customers. A beer and a bourbon to take the edge off the afternoon. Don't need to do that anymore which is probably much healthier.
To call what I do "work" would be an insult to those that actually work. Focus: I have done every drug known to man. Fortunately for me, I stopped in college. I do love the drink, but I often go 6 months to a year without it. Dr Drew would say this indicates a problem. He just might have a point.
When I used to work at the smoothie shack in my dorm, I used to regularly bring my flask full of vodka and make myself a couple of spiked smoothies. Half way through my shift, I was usually buzzed enough to be extra friendly to customers, and my manager raved about my "exceptional customer service" and "winning (Sheen!) attitude." Little did she know that cynismus had a little bit of help getting to that point.
I've gone to work hungover a couple times. Coworkers have found it fun to mess with me. Since we are open till 11:00pm on NYE I've drank at work. Sadly I've never gotten any good stories out of it.
I quit drinking and using drugs a couple of years ago. Before that did just about everything I would normally do outside of work hours while at work. I wouldn't use to complete excess but I'd still be high at work and still drunk most mornings. It was a shitty way to live and its obvious to me that I can't handle anything but sobriety. At boarding school we were stoned pretty much all of the time and occasionally would dose in the afternoons which always made the last couple classes very interesting. In college I would only drink during my IT classes because I found them incredibly boring. This was at a large southern university so it was easy to fade into background. I feel very lucky that I wasn't fired for being fucked up at work. Very lucky.
Now that I think about it, I've never actually been to class drunk which really surprises me since I drank like a fish while in school. I definitely have been to class hungover as fuck though, and that's never fun. We had a group project at the end of graduate school and we decided to get together at 9-10 on a Saturday on campus to work on things and catch up on our schedule. I showed up with the worst hangover I'd had in a long time and spent most of the day curled up on the bean bags we had in the corner of the room. Of course the part time jobs I had during school are a different story all together, especially when I was waiting tables and bar tending at a little Mexican restaurant there in town. I remember one day in particular, I guess it was a Sunday because I hadn't realized that the next day was a holiday in which schools, banks, etc. were closed. I expected a slow day so on my lunch break between shifts I went to the bar with some of the other servers and had 4-5 beers and a couple Jager bombs. I was bartending that night and what I didn't expect on a Sunday night was to have a full bar. I was full on drunk and ended up giving away lots of free drinks because I couldn't keep up with who had ordered what. We hit the bar all the time between double shifts, but that was the first time it fucked me up. Also working on a Sunday morning in that place was always interesting because the entire wait staff was obviously super hung over while having to deal with the church crowd. My last day at that place I worked in the bar again, but it was a very slow night, so I ended up drinking Dos Equis out of a Styrofoam cup all night and was good and drunk by the time I left. Again, the surprising thing there was that was one of the only times that I actually drank while on the clock.
Every once in a while when the office is a little empty, I'll head out to the bar for a few beers with my lunch. Can't do it too much since I come back to the office and do nothing but surf reddit for like, 3 hours.
In undergrad I worked at a dining hall during my junior year. One of my shifts was Friday 10-3 and I was stoned and hungover for every shift. The only hard part would be when I showed up full-on baked and had to count out my register. I would often have to re-count it one or two times because my stoned-ass couldn't operate a calculator properly.
We use to do "party lunches" random Fridays at my old job where we would go to one of the local restaurants, get some drinks (usually had about 2 or 3 each) and do a few shots. They were an absolute blast, but totally not worth it. We would catch shit from our supervisors (because we were late, they didn't care about the booze as long as we did our jobs) and it was super depressing to have to go back to work for another 4 hours after doing what felt to be post work activities. One of my old coworkers would eat lunch in his car and chug Jack Daniels everyday, he didn't come to party lunches with us because he wouldn't be able to get enough booze in him at the speed restaurants serve at. No idea why he didn't just put the Jack in a Klean Kanteen or something and drink at his desk.
Very early in my career drinking on the job, by which I mean drinking in the office or during working hours, including "party" lunches where we passed around glasses of tequila, was commonplace - even expected. This has become far less acceptable over the past 20 years, although, ironically, I now get paid to drink on occasion. One such occasion was a conference in Kansas City two weeks ago, when I was obligated to enjoy a three hour open bar (Fat Tire and Ballantine's scotch, thank you very much) while connecting with various small business owners that we are looking to partner with. As for working with a hangover - a quick search of my posting history will reveal which days I was having difficulty concentrating at the office and escaped to TiB instead.
I went to one specific class drunk on several occasions during my undergrad, but I don't think anyone noticed. Because of who my roommates were (I was living with two ex-sorority sisters and a girl who was knows campus-wide for her sexual experimentation) everyone on campus just assumed I was loud and crazy no matter how much alcohol was in my system. The class I would go to was an advanced work shopping class, and I would always drink on the day my story was being work shopped.