Going Out Drinking With Co-Workers — To Go Or Not To Go: 12 Things to Consider

Today we are going to be talking about some things to consider when going out with coworkers, specifically going out to a bar or a restaurant (less so on the dating side)

Spoiler alert for the dating side of this equation: if you want to do it, do it.

I would highly recommend making sure you don’t report to the person. In my opinion, it’s easier to find a new job if things get to that point than it is to find your one true person but that’s just me! Not saying it is for everybody. I’ve done it and I’ve seen others do it. Note: Every time it makes things more complicated. Of course, that comes with the territory though.

BUT this article is focused on going out with coworkers, more along the lines of having drinks, hanging out, having fun, and doing team-building type of activities that may or may not involve alcohol.

There are a lot of things that you might want to consider before going out drinking with your coworkers.

As a quick personal story, back in my early twenties, I was just a baby manager hahaha. I went out with our corporate team while everyone was away at a company-wide offsite. I was drinking but very, very slowly (I knew better). Some of the senior executive leaders were throwing ’em back like water. One of those very drunk senior executives stood up and accused me of doing something that, little to his knowledge, would have been impossible for me to do. That didn’t matter though. I was a younger manager and he was an executive. Why did he do it? Because I wasn’t going to … * give him what he wanted * …. So instead of handling rejection like a man, he tried to bring my reputation down. Had it not been for a couple of people who came over to pull me away and had my back no matter what, things probably would have gone much differently than they did. I was one of the lucky ones, let’s be honest. Many have very different endings to these types of stories.

Needless to say, I’ve always been very, very cautious of going out with coworkers. I definitely want to do the team building, want to hang out, want to build those relationships but I also don’t want to cross a line or be around when something happens that you can’t come back from.