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Comment by greggman | Hacker News Reader

is it all that different in the USA? It's certainly the stereotype we see in movies for wall street. Not having worked there I have no first hand experience. When I ask friends that have they tell me "oh the stories I could tell" but they don't actually tell.

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Surely in the past, even at seemingly boring engineering companies. You used to hear about all kinds of stuff going on in the office. People getting blackout drunk at company Christmas parties, drugs in the restroom, co-workers banging each other in the conference rooms.. then all of a sudden, you didn’t hear about it anymore. Whoosh, it was gone! I entered the workplace as this stuff seemed to be dying down and just missed the party. Like jumping into the ocean just as the unstoppable crushing wave of political correctness slammed ashore, washing away the shenanigans and leaving only sterile, gray, cubicles, thicker “code of conduct” books, and HR helplines. Maybe it’s for the better. Things are obviously much more inclusive for professional women and non-drinkers/smokers, which is good. But at the same time I think we lost something.

You only hear about the crazy stories. Most workplaces then (as now) were probably very boring.

Same reason the news doesn't do stories about "Husband and Wife went to work, picked up kid from daycare. Situation Normal".

Partying hard is away to bond and form a brotherhood of exclusiveness. It's a relief not having to bother with that anymore, it just leads to misery in my opinion. Sure that brotherhood feeling can feel great, but it's so easy to take advantage of if you know anything about group dynamics, just takes one psychopath or an experienced player.

I'm really glad alcohol isn't an requirement anymore.

There are other ways to bond than partying. I've never had a drop of alcohol in my life, I don't even go to christmas parties. And for the past year, I am working remote. Still, ended up making a few friends from work, despite not being the "fun" guy.

I too am glad alcohol isn't a requirement anymore, though I still get weird looks.

Companies have their myths and legends too.

The truth is most likely that that boring company has always been a boring company, with not much happening. Still, sometimes, people fuck at work, drink a little too much at parties, and drugs exist. These things happen occasionally and sometimes, these events surface, get mixed up, amplified, and you get stories of orgies.

I don't know about other companies, but I work in global sales for an american Fortune 150 company and everyone knows that if there is even a hint of a rumor of something like the things being described here happening you will be fired faster than you can blink.

I'm pretty sure that, while they apparently party much harder on their private time, north-western Europeans appear to be much more "prude" in their work life than any other group in the world.

I also believe it's actually a part of their cultural inclusivity. It's a very stressful pressure if you're expected to go to a strip club with your colleagues after work if you're female, gay or in a relationship where such behavior would be sanctioned by the other party.

Americans and Asians apparently expect others to "fall in line" in all corporate policy matters, including this one. So as a result of globalization the corporate policy matters that one is expected to "fall in line" to have slowly become the least common denominator of all this cultures and that's the type of business chastity that is normal in today's HR rule books and everything outside is hastily sanctioned.

> When I ask friends that have they tell me "oh the stories I could tell" but they don't actually tell.

Well, the first thing I can tell you about us Americans is we make up a lot of stuff to impress people. Look at our president and his tweet about being a best selling author. Happy Fourth!

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