Yahoo Finance Sad sign beloved Aussie weekend tradition under attack: 'It's how I met my wife'
OPINION: I was very sad to hear that many Gen Zs are reluctant to socialise with colleagues after work, writes Adam Lucius.
It wasn't actually love at first sight when my future wife discovered me dancing atop a restaurant table following after-work drinks many years ago. It took a bit of convincing and wooing from there to reassure her this was not the norm.
And that the restaurant owner was cool with his place being turned into a nightclub after the dishes had been cleared. After-hours drinks, especially on a Friday night, were an institution when I landed my first full-time job.
Not all nights ended up with a Raygun-like boogie on a piece of laminated pine, but I found them an important bonding ritual that mostly brought colleagues closer and engendered a bit of team spirit.
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Some participants only stayed for a drink or two – or stayed on the soft stuff – while others kicked on well into the night.
It didn’t matter. Everyone was free to join in and the majority happily did so.
Solid friendships – some which endure to this day – were formed and many a problem was solved and ideas created as a result of these sessions.
I guess we just enjoyed each other's company, as funny as that may sound in today's get-in-and get-out-as-fast-as-you-can work environment.
It fills me with sadness to read the post-work drinks tradition is now out of vogue.
Gen Z, cost of living blamed for drop-off in drinks
A Yahoo poll asking "do you like to go to post-work drinks with your colleagues" had 68 per cent responding with a firm NO.
Just take a quick look around your workplace.
On the stats provided, seven of the 10 people you're currently eye-balling don’t want to have anything to do with you after 5pm.
Wow, that hurts
Are we that painful to hang around?
Do you have a story to tell? Contact yahoo.finance.au@yahooinc.com
Gen Z is being blamed for the drop-off in after-hours mingling, with many in this age bracket eschewing alcohol and/or feeling uncomfortable with being forced to spend additional time with work colleagues once the clock is punched for the day.
"The f**k I want to spend my time drinking with people I only just barely tolerate," wrote one anti after-work drinks crusader.
The cost-of-living squeeze has also been put forward as another reason for the reluctance, and there is some substance to that.
There's a wider disconnect in the workplace
But, from where I sit, the no to knock-off time bevvies is symptomatic of a general disconnect in the workplace.
It all started with emails and internal communication systems, creating an environment where conversation wasn't required.
Slack, Messenger, WhatsApp, Teams, Google Chat et al have all continued to eat away at our need for face-to-face interaction.
I worked with a bloke whose headphones were glued to his head for an entire eight-hour shift.
If you dared tried to engage him in a work-related conversation, he'd rip his Bose QuietComforts off in a silent rage and ask what you wanted with all the patience and understanding of a trained Dobermann.
I always wondered whether letting off some steam over a Friday night IPA or two may have loosened him up and made him more of a team player.
Who knows?
By the end of the night, we may even have had him dancing on the tables.
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