to not go for after work drinks?

[LittleLionMansMummy]

I work 35 hours and have one ds who is nearly 5. I work from home 3-4 days a week and ds goes to cm for an hour or two after school so I get to pick him up at a reasonable time (4.30pm) on 2 days and my dh collects him from school 1 day and brings him home (where I'm working). On the other 1-2 days I work in London - a good 80 miles away so it's a train and takes maybe 2 to 2.5 hours door to door. My boss is very flexible around the hours I work when I'm in London. I love my job and career, but obviously my time with ds is precious. I'm not really a mum who chooses work over family. My family will always come first and my work and career decisions have always been made with a view to getting the right balance for me, dh and ds.

So my boss has emailed the team and suggested fortnightly after work drinks, starting on Tuesday evening. The team is really hard working and I doubt will be leaving before 5.30pm. Even if I got away from London at 6.30pm I won't get home until 8.30 - long after ds has gone to bed. I know he's fine with my dh and on the odd occasion I'm not averse to having a night out, but it's never a regular thing. As a rule I prefer to be home in time to say goodnight to ds. I don't really want to go on Tuesday, let alone more regularly, because it means I'll see ds for only about 10 mins before I have to leave for work in the morning. But it's a relatively new job and I don't want them to think I'm antisocial or whatever. It's just that either the people in the team are too young to have dc or older and their dc are therefore much older/ adults. I really like my team, they're all lovely so I feel I should make a bit of an effort especially as I work remotely from them most of the week.

Wibu not to go?

Everyone seems to be overlooking the idea that these evenings out could be fun. If dh is around then I am happy to leave my kids with him and go out with work colleagues and I enjoy doing so. Apart from a few tricky work colleagues / jobs over time when I would have said no.

What Hully said. Go one in 3 times and enjoy it.

It won't last, no-one with a life outside of work will want to commit to it every 2 weeks.

I'd go to the first one to show willing & then random ones as & when suited me.

On the other hand, you may love it! (probably not though)

It's all about balance though Rainbow. I have no time for those annoying people who make big 'thing' out of never socialising with colleagues, whatever the occasion. But I equally hate a culture where drinks after work become a compulsory weekly event and anyone who doesn't regularly attend is seen as 'not a team player', or 'not interested in getting on'.

Surely the norm is to go along to some events because you genuinely want to or out of niceness to someone who is retiring or leaving the organisation, and to not go to others because you don't want to and don't have any obligation to go.

Informal meetings in the pub really do help with teambuilding, in my experience. Is Tuesday one of your London days? If so, go the first time, and then roughly every other time. More if you find you enjoy the evenings, less if you don't.

YANBU. I wouldn't go ever. Not because I don't want to socialise with colleagues but because I do my hobby on that evening, something I've done for 16 years and if I missed every other week I'd have to withdraw from what the hobby works towards.

Nothing, and I mean nothing barring dire illness comes in the way of my hobby. If I was told I needed to do something in my own time I'd ask if anyone else would be willing to give up participating in weekend football/yoga/golf/whatever.

You should go every so often as socialising at work can help with relationships and networking but agree every week would not suit you from what you have said.

I'd say to your boss that the invite looks great but you can't go to weekly say you hope he understands.

Fortnightly? He's having a laugh. Quarterly possibly, but fortnightly ??

A lot of posters are suggesting that you find some way of making the best of this and managing to attend at least some of the time, or your standing at work will suffer. they are probably right but this is infuriating!

Someone else pointed out that making work team building centre around the pub is discriminatory and I completely agree with this. Even if you are counting calories, it can feel a bit unfair, let alone anything a bit more serious.

I think that this sort of thing is pandering to the lowest common denominator of human inclinations, that is, making them more inclined to work with people that they have bonded with through mild (or severe!) intoxication. Can't the team bonds be developed in a more sophisticated and reasoned way - and more to the point, can't this be done in work time?

Senior managers should make it part of their job to facilitate good trust, good communications, and a positive cooperative atmosphere among the people who work together, and they should know how to do this in work hours, though their approach to the tasks at hand, and while sober. It's a lazy solution to just march them all off to the pub in their own bloody time.

Sorry not helpful. I sympathise.

This is topical. We're having a campaign in our (large) firm at the moment about diversity and trying to get people to appreciate that some actions may amount to low level unintended discrimination. There may be many reasons why people don't want to go to a pub after work - personally I can't cope with high noise levels. It probably hasn't occurred to your boss that the suggestion wouldn't be welcome. Why not suggest that after work drinks are alternated with informal lunches and team breakfasts? That way everyone should be able to come to at least something.

I wouldn't mind so much but I can't actually have a drink as I have to drive when I get back as I live so far from the station! I do enjoy talking to people outside of the working environment and like the fact that my boss is trying to get to know the team. He's very people orientated. I like him. And to be fair the team are quite disparate with most of us working remotely quite frequently and travelling in - I think it's an attempt to engender some team spirit which tends to be difficult on a day to day basis. Fortnightly Tuesdays are the only time when everyone is in the office at the same time. I just wish they'd set maybe an hour's lunchtime aside each week or fortnight to do it rather than working through their lunches, as seems to be the UK's employment culture these days, and expecting us to give up precious family time after work instead.

I agree. A noisy pub is not everyone's scene. If managers really see it as their role to encourage staff to 'bond' away from the workplace maybe they could partly finance a social club which could organise different events eg table quizzes, bowling nights, trips to the cinema, wine tasting, the odd night down the pub etc etc. Then people can go to events that grab their fancy and not bother with ones that don't.

And actually, thinking about it there is one member of the team who is tea total and another who is pregnant. 3 others travel in from 2 hours-ish outside of London. It probably hasn't occurred to him and maybe if I suggest some alternatives I will find that others are quite relieved?

I agree that you are unlikely to be the only one for whom this really isn't a welcome suggestion - particularly for a regular commitment. Of course, you could always just say 'I'm sorry, I can't do Tuesday nights because I/my DH have a regular commitment' or 'Evenings are difficult for me because of childcare'. If your boss is assuming that just because everyone is in the office that day that you're all free in the evening too its a bit presumptious. I'm guessing others will have family commitments, classes they do, or just a regular date with the gym that they'd rather not give up every other week. Hopefully this will die a death, but if it really isn't convenient, speak up.

What industry are you in LittleLion? When I worked in advertising it was considered de rigeur to go to the pub at least once a week but that was in the 90s! I hate this sort of thing now, I have a life outside work and whilst I genuinely like my colleagues, I don't have to bond with them outside work.
To me it does smack of discrimination - what would happen if you were Muslim?

I think your idea of dedicating a regular lunch-time to this is a really good idea and in fact this is what we did in my last company. Food and drink was laid on and it was really enjoyable. I really thought the culture of work and drinking had died out but obviously not.

Sounds hideous - YANBU at all not to want to go. I wouldn't.

But then I am an anti-social git who can think of nothing worse than being forced to socialize with my colleagues outside of my working hours. And I don't give a hoot about networking on team 'bonding'.

I work long hours and miss out on time with my DC. For that reason I miss a lot of team-building nights out. It sometimes feels like I see more of my colleagues than my family as it is, and I don't want to prioritise even more time with them over my family. However, I go along at major times in the year (e.g. Christmas, colleague leaving/new colleague arriving) as it does help build good relationships with the team, and I enjoy a good night out.

In your shoes, I think I would go to the first one, have a great time, tell everyone about your family priorities, and then just go as and when you feel like it. No reasonable person would have a problem with that IMO.

YANBU, I would suggest the lunchtime thing. I would resent fortnightly works drinks and I don't have DC. I like my colleagues and I would say I'm friends with some of them but socialising when you want to is VERY different to a forced work night out, especially when it's something you feel you have to attend all the time.

I think you are right to suggest alternatives but unfortunately you should probably be careful to do that in a very jolly-hockey sticks positive way with much more of a focus on what you would prefer that may end up with you actually offering to do things. think in advance so you can be positive without finding yourself offering to bring baked things from home or something!

At my last job, in which I had an insane workload, we had a team meeting followed by dinner and in the flush of everyone liking each other and having bonded etc, someone rather excitedly suggested a regular team lunch at which we all brought cooked food from home. Fortunately no one else went for this so I didn't have to be the git who said, look, I spend 14 hours a day out of my house doing this job, the ones I spend at home are not for dicking about making quiche or something for the office, because if I had time to make one more home made dish frankly I think my children deserve it (over packet tortellini) more than a bunch of well-heeled adults I am not related to. Also when you have found out the best way to carry quiche on a bike while commuting in the rain, please let me know. Finally I will not entertain for one hot second the insane idea that I compensate for my lack of time by buying things in posh delis, because I happen to know that a fair number of you lot are on 6 figures, which I definitely am not, so, in short, bugger that for a game of soldiers.

MrsM my background is communications - started in trade journalism but moved into public sector communications around 10 years ago. The place I now work provides support, advice and strategy on ICT within the public sector. It's a small, busy company and the drinking culture isn't huge.

Why do people think not attending social functions outside of work hours will affect their career? If it did, it's not a firm I would want to work for. My work life is totally separate from my home life.

In 1992, aged 18, I went straight into a job from A-levels that paid just under £7,000. By the time I left the same firm in 1998, I had had two promotions and a successful internal job application and was the youngest assistant manager in the company on £20,000. I went to work for another firm on £23k and within six months had been promoted and earning best part of £30k.

In all that time, I only attended colleagues leaving dos and an annual team Xmas lunch. I never attended the regular after work drinks in either company. Both firms used to have big annual dos including hotel stays, all food and drink paid for, plus smaller events throughout the year. I never went. I spent enough time with my colleagues as it was and wanted to socialise with friends and pursue my hobbies.

I'm fairly certain it didn't harm my career one little bit.

Now, I'm now in a much different industry that pays much less but I am much happier.

What about suggesting a team lunch every now and again? Everybody loves a free lunch.

Three people in our team work part time with some of that being from home. I am one of them. I am one of them. I am considered more embedded in the team than the others as, occasionally, I do go to team drinks and always come to the Christmas do even if it is one if my days off or a day I work from home. Yes, it can be a hassle to organise childcare but I like it as it gives me a chance to speak to people in a different environment. I am about the only member of the team in my 40s and the only one with children so I do feel like a fish out of water but I enjoy hearing about all the things they are up to, usually get some good book & film recommendations and just remember what it was like to be young, free & single! Going to these things isn't going to enhance my career in any way but I still get positives from going along. I also think it is good to show my bosses that I can be flexible for them in the same way that they are for me when I have to take a day off or something at short notice as a child is ill.
We have tried lunches, breakfasts, sporting events etc but the first was too expensive & time consuming, the second still caused childcare issues & had a start time which people felt that they had to be in for whereas with drinks you can leave when you wanted & the third was too complicated. However, we don't necessarily go to the pub but just get some bottles of wine, beer & soft drinks and some crisps and have them in the office from about 15 minutes before we officially end for the day. Those who want to go out afterwards can & do.

OK thank you wise mners! I've replied very positively that I think regular team time out of the office is a great idea and wondering if, to suit/ accommodate various circumstances (non drinkers, those travelling far and wide etc), the 'after work drinks' could be alternated with a team lunch at a venue I've suggested very nearby. That way people will feel they have an alternative option that allows them to join in if they're unable to go to after work drinks on a regular basis.

Cunning I like your reply - positive and looks enthusiastic, while subtly planting the seed that you won't go to the evening ones much as you'd like to. I probably would have just lied, said that I always need to do CM/school pick up that day, and merrily shirked the whole thing. I like my team and live a lot closer to central London, but if I am having a rare night out I want it to be a proper night out with friends, not wasted on work people and work chat!