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The Washington Post: PwC’s Boozy U.K. Event Ends With Coma And Lawsuit

30 Aug 2022
Michael Brockie went into a coma and had part of his skull removed after participating in the company event that encouraged ‘excessive’ drinking, according to the lawsuit.

Originally found at The Washington Post

Peter Bamberger, vice president at the Academy of Management and a professor at Tel Aviv University and Cornell University’s Smithers Institute, has studied the use of alcohol in and around the workplace for decades.

People perceive alcohol as being a social lubricant, Bamberger said, which motivates them to drink in hopes of interacting more comfortably with co-workers — regardless of whether alcohol actually makes things better. And in some industries, drinking is baked into the culture of deal making.

We need to talk about pandemic drinking.

“In a lot of professional workplace interactions, drinking is a way of establishing a trusting relationship,” Bamberger said. With salespeople, for example, “very often the sales process begins with episodes of drinking where everybody puts themselves at risk.”


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