Happy Hour: The Biggest Lie In Corporate America

I'll have to have someone explain this to me--I've been working full-time for over four years now, and I've reluctantly endured my share of happy hours. Still, I admit that I'm nowhere near solving the mystery: why is it called "Happy Hour?" Both words seem grossly inaccurate...

First of all, in my experience, not once has of one of these "happy" get-togethers actually lasted only a single hour. The typical happy hour gets underway at the end of the workday and doesn't end until well into the evening, often pushing 7 or even 8 o'clock.

Secondly, what is it that makes these gatherings so "happy" anyway? It seems that my coworkers have mistakenly drawn the conclusion that the nine hours a day I spend with them, five days a week, forty-nine weeks a year, just isn't enough. On the surface, the whole happy hour concept seems harmless enough--a group of coworkers get together after work, have some drinks, eat some appetizers, and talk. What's wrong with that, you ask? Let's examine the situation a little more closely...

It's important to note that my opinion is undeniably skewed by one simple fact: I'm not the average person. Most of my coworkers are on the verge of drooling at the mere thought of free alcohol and fried chicken wings. But me? I don't drink, which already places me in a minority, and to top it off, I enjoy healthy eating and regular exercise. Combine those characteristics, and I'm in a minority so small I might as well be an albino, homosexual, black, handicapped, blind, deaf amputee. For a person like me, happy hour is a half-step away from pure torture. After much thought and consideration, I've focused my list of happy hour grievances into four main areas: the food, the drinks, the timing, and the people. Let's dive in:

The Food

When the coworkers order food, there's never a healthy option in sight. It's nothing but potato chips with spinach dip, calamari, and fried just-about-anything-you-can-imagine. Sure, it's nice to indulge in these types of foods from time to time, but happy hour is a dangerous situation. Because everyone is spending the company's money on alcohol, they feel that it would be "too much" to order an actual meal...so we're left with appetizers.

What's wrong with appetizers? Nothing, except that appetizers are just that--appetizers. They aren't even remotely filling; they're nothing more than fat- and calorie-packed culinary teases. And remember, happy hour starts around 5 o'clock, shortly before the time people should be sitting down to eat a normal meal. So there you are, hungry and surrounded only by unhealthy foods that you could eat nonstop until the restaurant closes without ever feeling satisfied.

This leaves you with a short list of undesirable options: (1) Sit there, fighting the hunger pains, and take the dietary high road and avoid the food altogether. Keep in mind, you'll have to spend the whole time coming up with excuses for your coworkers who don't understand why you aren't eating anything. (2) Just eat a little to take the edge off. This might sound like a good idea at first, but this option never works. Best case scenario, you've taken three or four bites, consumed two days worth of calories and fat, and you've only teased your already angry stomach. Because in case you forgot, they're &%$#@* appetizers! And the bad news is that option (2) is a slippery slope to option (3): give in and make a meal out of junk food. Sure, you'll still be hungry, but nevertheless you can try to fill that void with ranch sauce, jumbo shrimp, and nachos. This is the most popular option among your coworkers, which is probably why most of them haven't been using the factory-issued notches on their belts since Jimmy Carter was in office.

The bad news is that even if you decide to eat some food at happy hour, it's not even possible to actually enjoy any of it. Because you're surrounded by coworkers (and maybe even your boss), manners and civility have to be top priority. Have you ever tried eating a chicken wing or nachos with a knife and fork? I've seen people attempt this, and the result is never anything but awkward. The bottom line is this: trying to eat appetizers in a civilized manner completely sucks the fun out of eating what would otherwise be tasty food.

The Drinks

My main complaint with the drink situation is pretty straightforward. As someone who doesn't like alcohol, all of my happy hour experiences have involved sitting with coworkers for several hours, drinking glass after glass of water. I often get the question, "What are you drinking?" People automatically assume that everyone at the table must be drinking alcohol, so when they see me clutching a glass filled with clear liquid, they apparently think I'm drinking straight vodka.

When I tell them it's water, they ask the obvious question, "Why don't you have a beer?" I tell them I don't drink, which inevitably prompts obvious question #2: "Why not?" I explain that I never really started drinking, I know I don't/would not like the taste, and most importantly, I don't see the point in taking up drinking at this stage in life if I've done just fine without it for twenty-five years. Some people understand; some continue the interrogation. Either way, I've sat through so many variations of this conversation in my life that I'm strongly considering putting together some kind of brochure or pamphlet that explains my thoughts, feelings, and philosophies on alcohol and it's role (or lack thereof) in my life.

The Timing

Before I explain my issues with the timing of happy hour, it's important to understand what my typical weekday looks like. I'm usually out of bed a little before 6:30AM so I can get showered and dressed for work, eat breakfast, check my email, and get to the office before 8AM. I spend the day at work, of course, and unless there's something urgent, I leave the office a little before 5PM. I drive back home, change clothes, eat something, and head to the gym around 5:30PM, and spent the next hour and a half or two hours exercising. By the time I get home, shower, and change clothes again, it's approaching 8PM. I try to get to bed around 10:30PM, which makes the next two and a half hours the most prized time of the day.

That little sliver of time between 8PM and 10:30PM is the only space in the day where I'm not getting ready for work, working, exercising, or otherwise mentally or physically engaged in something that requires my attention. As a result, I'm fiercely protective of that tiny little block of time. It's the only opportunity I have to relax and do whatever I want--surf the Internet, watch TV, talk to friends online, or read (though let's face it, I'm probably not going to waste such precious time on something like reading).

By now, it should be fairly clear why happy hour is so frustrating. As I mentioned before, I enjoy fitting exercise into my schedule every day, and I also enjoy having just a little time where I can finally relax at the end of the day. If happy hour starts at 5PM and lasts even two hours, one of those things isn't going to happen. Sure, I could push everything back by two hours and fit in the trifecta of happy hour, exercise, and free time...and simply go to bed after midnight. But I've found that creates havoc the next day.

I'm not saying I need all that sleep to ensure a productive day at the office the next day--after all, it's not uncommon for me to follow up a good night's sleep with an extremely unproductive day at work. However, at the very least I need the energy to pretend to be productive. When I'm too tired to fake it, I risk watching the whole system fall apart right in front of my eyes. I've personally found that the optimal bedtime is 10:30PM if I'm going to meet my minimum energy requirement to play the role of "productive worker" the following day. And that means happy hour forces me to trade one of two things that I like for something that I absolutely despise...

The People

I'd like to preface this section by making it clear that I don't dislike most of my coworkers--I get along with just about all of them, and I've even managed to endure the ones I don't care for quite as much. Still, at the end of the day, I'm ready to get away from them. Am I the only one that finds it disgusting that if you add up the total amount of time spent around other people over the course of a year, the number of hours spent with coworkers would absolutely dwarf the time spent with friends and family? The sad truth is that I only get to spend a fraction of my time around people I actually want to be around...most of the day, I'm around people who just happen to work in the same area at the same company. Again, I don't hate my coworkers, but we just don't have much in common...

What do I have in common with an almost-middle-age mother with two young children at home? You guessed it: absolutely nothing. And it's this lack of common ground that usually leads to painful conversation when happy hour rolls around. My philosophy is this: if you don't have anything interesting to say, don't say anything at all. I've never understood why silence is awkward when we're around people we don't know, yet we can sit quietly with friends without a hint of awkwardness. Shouldn't we feel more ashamed that we don't have anything to say to people we actually know and choose to be around? At any rate, it seems that most of my coworkers operate under the assumption that silence is evil, and they'll try just about anything to fill the silence.

The most common (and least creative) staple is small talk. Coworkers inevitably try to talk about the weather, local sports teams, or current events, but that can only fill so much time. It doesn't help that I refuse to be an active participant in these conversations. I'm far more entertained with the thoughts in my head than with a coworker's recap of yesterday's hot weather and tomorrow's 30% chance of rain. Any attempt on my part to continue such a conversation would be a clear violation of my philosophy.

When they've exhausted the small talk, coworkers usually start sharing stories about what's going on in their lives. Again, they've violated my rule: if you don't have anything interesting to say...but apparently we have drastically different meanings of the word "interesting." As a result, I have to force myself to pretend to care that their kid has a soccer game on Thursday night, or that they're getting new storm windows installed at home, or that they vacationed in North Dakota last summer. Again, I try to avoid active participation in these conversations, occasionally muttering things like, "Really? Uh-huh. I see. Do you?"

You'd think that after wading through the drudgery of home improvement stories and parenthood tales, things could only get better, but that's simply not the case. By this time, the coworkers turn to the one subject that they know we have in common: work. This typically starts anywhere from an hour to ninety minutes into happy hour. Even though this is a a subject where I might actually have something to contribute to the conversation, I'm too angry and dumbfounded to speak. All I can think is, "Is this really happening? Are we really spending our time outside work, sitting with our coworkers, talking about work?" My mind just can't comprehend it...I'm unable to even string together a coherent sentence. After about ten minutes, my brain simply shuts off from the confusion and frustration, leaving me with just enough sense to stumble out to the car and drive myself home when the "happy hour" finally comes to a close. It's no wonder that coworkers have accused me of being a little on the quiet side...

Where Do We Go From Here?

The irony of it all is that happy hours are viewed as some kind of treat or a reward. They normally find their way onto the calendar to celebrate the completion of a project, to welcome a new person to the group, or to say farewell to someone leaving the department. But how can anyone view happy hour as a reward? It seems more like a sick joke...for me, even the most desirable outcome of a happy hour is a pitiful way to spend an evening. After surviving a long day with a bunch of people who I don't choose to be around, I have trouble mustering any enthusiasm for a semi-mandatory invitation to spend a few more hours with the same people while I drink water, avoid appetizers, battle hunger pains, and endure painful conversations about children, the weather, and--of all things--work!

Sitting through a number of these painful events has led me to some important conclusions. Should I ever rise to any kind of managerial position in my career, my first act as leader will be to abolish happy hour. I realize this might upset the masses at first, but I have faith that they'll eventually come around to my way of thinking. If I want to reward someone, I'll offer them the afternoon off, throw a party during work, take them out to lunch, maybe give them a cash bonus or a gift...but whatever I do, my "reward" will not involve anything that requires time away from home. The way I see it, workers already spend way too much time doing things they have to do and not nearly enough time doing things they want to do.

Until the day comes when I finally have that power, I'll just have to continue fighting my lone battle, boycotting one happy hour after another. It's never easy--when the whole department leaves at the same time and heads over to the restaurant, you better have a good, high-quality excuse lined up...otherwise you're thirty minutes away from sipping water and listening to a story about little Billy's T-ball game last Tuesday.

Over the past four years, I've spun some brilliant tales to excuse myself from happy hour: I have to take a friend to the airport...I'm just too busy...I'm not feeling well...I need to take my car to the shop...I think I just pulled my hamstring...I'm allergic to happy hour...I'm helping someone move furniture tonight...I'm volunteering with dumb children...I just found out I have an unusually contagious form of swine flu. At the end of the day (quite literally) it doesn't matter what you say as long as you escape happy hour. So join with me, my friends. Future generations will smile fondly when they hear our names and recall the legend of that group of geniuses who banded together and abolished that ridiculous, painful, outdated tradition they used to call..."Happy Hour."

Please Roll Car Over and Proceed to Highlighted Route

Don't get me wrong, I normally love an ironic situation as much as the next guy. But this? Maybe a little much... On June 6, 2010, Mom, James, and I found ourselves in the second day of James's informal "farewell tour," a brief five-day trip to Arizona and California before he was set to leave for two-plus years serving a Peace Corps sentence in West Africa. The itinerary for this trip vaguely resembled an abbreviated version of a similar trip we took for a few campus visits over New Year's in 2002-2003.

We left Phoenix early that afternoon, driving north on I-17 toward Sedona. One of conversation topics during the drive was the value of exciting/funny/interesting life experiences. Past stories that came up included James's pizza delivery adventure of 2007 and, less recently, his "messy" running incident in 2000 (if you've heard the story, you know what I'm talking about; if you haven't, you may or may not want to ask James about it...). Little did we know, excitement was about to find us. I guess we should have noticed the signs (quite literally) fate was trying to throw our way. This was the exit just a few miles south of our little "incident":


We continued north, James sitting in the passenger seat and Mom behind him in the back seat. As I drove in the left lane, going around 70mph, we heard a loud pop, and I knew immediately that the back left tire had blown out. As soon as it happened, the car veered sharply to the right and started to spin. In a fraction of a second, we were sliding to the north/northeast, facing south, and headed directly for a wall of rock just off the shoulder of the interstate. Unfortunately for me, the driver's side was lined up for a direct impact with the rock, and the image of the rapidly approaching rock is still burned into my retinas. Strangely enough, the thought of death didn't even cross my mind as the car slid toward the wall, though looking back, that wouldn't have been an unreasonable concern. My only thought was sheer hope that I wouldn't end up with any injuries that would require any serious rehabilitation. Before I could really process what was about to happen, we collided with the rocks, the car rolled, and finally came to a stop on the roof.

James asked if everyone was okay, and we were all able to speak, which seemed encouraging. At this point we were hanging upside-down in our seat belts, and James yelled that he saw gas leaking and told me to shut the car off. I glanced toward the back of the car and thought I saw some liquid dripping down, too. It was around this time that the thought of dying in burning car entered my mind for the first time...

I turned the ignition off and reached to unbuckle my seat belt. I was completely alert throughout the accident, yet the only part I can't remember is getting myself unbuckled and falling onto the ceiling of the car (even as I write this, "falling onto the ceiling" still sounds strange). James had his door partially open, and I didn't even bother trying mine. Looking at the car later, it was resting at a slant, and my door was wedged into the ground and wouldn't have moved anyway. As I got myself oriented on my hands and knees on the ceiling of the car, I noticed quite a bit of blood...but I was moving, so I felt pretty good about things.

In a move that some later described as a true George Costanza moment, I managed to somehow make it out of the car first, squeezing past James and through his partially open passenger door in front of him. I guess the threat of an explosion really had me motivated for a quick exit...and for the record, I only got out first because I felt that I was best prepared to help to those still trapped in the car.

I got stuck a little around the waist, but I was out, though I added some cuts on my back as I squeezed through the door. James was right behind me and was out of the car in a few moments. Mom was still in the back seat and her door wouldn't budge. We were still concerned about the possibility of an explosion, so started preparing to kick the glass out of her window. She made it to the front of the car, though, and started pushing through the narrow opening. James dug at the gravel that was keeping the door from opening wider, and I grabbed Mom's hands and pulled her out.

We walked away from the car, mostly just thrilled to be walking away from the car. A few vehicles had pulled over, and a guy in an SUV called 911 and waited with us. I had a lot of blood coming from my knees, elbows, and hands, plus a very slight headache. The hat and sunglasses I'd been wearing were nowhere to be found. James had some cuts on his knees that looked similar to mine, and Mom felt a little dizzy and was covered in my blood.

While I stood there by the interstate, spitting glass and gravel out of my mouth, I was shocked at how quickly everything had happened. In a span of about 15 seconds I had gone from driving down the highway, wondering when I should eat that next piece of leftover pizza in the back seat, to being one of those people, bleeding by the side of the interstate while gawkers slowly drive by. The whole thing was just so unexpected. The pedestrian equivalent would be walking down the sidewalk on a quiet, beautiful day and having the pavement jump up and shove you into a tree trunk at seventy miles per hour...

A patrolman arrived first, asked a few questions, and mentioned that he was surprised that we'd all made it out of the car so quickly (looks like George Costanza was a hero, after all). The ambulance wasn't too far behind, and I mentioned my slight headache to the paramedics. They didn't want to take any chances, of course, so they put me in a neck brace, strapped me to an orange board, and told me to remain motionless as much as I could. James felt fine aside from his cuts and scrapes, so he refused medical treatment and came along for the ambulance ride with me, and Mom followed behind in a second ambulance. Before riding off in the ambulance, James snapped a photo of the car with his cell phone, one of the more memorable shots from the trip:

Unfortunately, Sedona doesn't have a hospital with a trauma center, so instead of receiving a (very expensive) shuttle to our original destination, we turned around and headed south on I-17, over the same ground we'd just driven (...and spun and rolled), back to Phoenix. The paramedic hooked me up to an IV and started cleaning my assorted wounds. My headache didn't last long and was soon replaced with the dull pain from the forty-five minute drive with my head strapped to a board.


All things considered, I was feeling pretty good, and James continued to take pictures inside the ambulance. We talked with the paramedic and joked around a little on the ride back to Phoenix...I asked the paramedic what they do if the ambulance crashes on the way back to the hospital. He didn't seem to find it very funny.

They took us to Deer Valley hospital, and the paramedics moved me onto a cart and wheeled me to a room. James walked to the waiting room (still taking some great photos), and a few of the other paramedics carried our bags into my room. As I parted ways with him I said, "I'll see you during visiting hours."

Two very profound thoughts crossed my mind around this time:
(1) Since I was still wearing the neck brace, the only thing I really got a good look at was the ceiling. I asked myself why hospitals don't spend more time decorating their ceilings. Do patients who narrowly escaped death really want to look at plain, old, white ceiling tiles? I doubt it.
(2) Are you supposed to tip a paramedic if he carries your bags? What's the protocol--is it like a hotel? I couldn't reach my wallet and it was probably covered in blood anyway, so I decided that I'd have to research that one later. I figured I'd keep my comments about their under-decorated ceilings to myself for the time being, too. But some sky-blue accents or something similar would have been appreciated....


I spent the next five hours getting poked, x-rayed, and cleaned up, with long stretches of sitting and watching TV. The cuts on my right knee required stitches, so I got a few numbing shots and the doctor started sewing away. I didn’t bother asking how many I got (I later found out it was two stitches in one spot and four in another)...nor did I bother actually watching much of the actual stitching process. The doctor described my left knee as "ground beef," but somehow that didn't require stitches. That imagery didn't exactly do wonders for my normally generous appetite, either. On the bright side, as I waited around I got to watch most of the second half as the Lakers won game 2 of the NBA Finals...and I'm proud to announce that I’m now up-to-date on my tetanus shots.

The doctors eventually let me get up and walk around, and I visited Mom in another room. She was in better shape than me and somehow didn't have a single cut (all that blood on her clothes was mine), so I started the long, painful process of calling the insurance company and trying to track down a new rental car. When we finally tracked down James again, a nurse was stitching a big cut on his upper shin, but he was otherwise okay. He easily surpassed my six stitches with eleven of his own, plus he'd continued to document his stint in the waiting room, his injuries, and the stitching process with his camera. I wish I could have seen the faces of the other people in the waiting room while he sat there covered in blood...


The bad news was that we couldn’t get a replacement rental car until the next day, so we were stuck in Phoenix without a hotel or any form of transportation. We eventually booked a crappy hotel not too far from the hospital and Mom’s nurse, whose shift ended at 10PM, was incredibly nice and offered to give us a ride to our hotel. We weren't in much of a position to turn her down, so we went took her up on it. On the way, she even made a stop at Wal-Greens so we could get fill our pain medication prescriptions.

Our experience in Wal-Greens was certainly near the top of the list of most entertaining experiences on the trip. Keep in mind, we had just been released from the hospital. I had huge white bandages wrapped around both knees, one on my elbow, and one on my left hand. James had a similar oversize bandage on his right knee and was still wearing his blood-stained clothing. He and I were both limping on our right legs, and all three of us still had our hospital bracelets on. We must have looked like cage-fighting mummies between the blood and the bandages. A cashier asked us if we'd beaten each other up, and our "unique" appearance gave us the power to part seas of customers like something straight out of the bible.

When we finally arrived at our hotel, we took an inventory of our possessions. Somehow my GPS, which had been suction-cupped to the windshield during the accident, still worked perfectly, though it had picked up more than it's share of scratches. The paramedics apparently found the suction cup somewhere in the car and stuck it in one of our bags, but the mounting clip was missing. My camera and laptop both worked perfectly and looked as good as new.

To anyone from Garmin, HP, or Sony who might stumble upon this post: for the right sum, I'm more than willing to promote the durabilty of your products--I think it would make a great commercial. Oakley, I'm slightly less impressed with your product quality: the sunglasses I'd been wearing during the accident, originally lost, ended up in James's bag. The frames were bent badly, though that brought some resolution to the mystery of the strange bruise on my nose...

Before going to bed, I tried to pick as much glass out of my hair and ears as I could. Unable to shower because of the stitches, I ended up battling those tiny glass shards for the better part of the next two days. I slept pretty well that first night, even though my right leg wouldn't bend much, and I was pleased to disover the next morning that the pain had not, as the doctors warned, gotten significantly worse overnight.

The next day began with (and was mostly consumed by) a painfully boring ten hour wait in the breakfast area of our half-star hotel before we finally got a replacement rental car. That evening we drove to the junkyard and got a look at the car as we searched the interior for our last few missing items. At first glance the car didn't look as bad as we'd expected, but the roof was certainly shocking. I still wonder where my head was during the accident and how it was't entirely crushed...



We recovered the last few missing possessions, including that GPS clip that had disconnected from the suction cup. We also snapped some haunting pictures of our blood stains on the ceiling, seats, and doors of the car, but we were thrilled with the overall outcome--after all, we were hiking again, stitches and all, not even two days after the accident.

Before writing this off as a miraculous survival story, though, it's worth noting that not everyone survived that day. Three pieces of thick, delicious pizza perished in the shoulder along northbound I-17 on that hot summer afternoon. Flowers and cards are welcome (and very appropriate), and I appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers for those three deep-dish casualties.


A few people have asked if I was nervous getting in a car or driving after this whole ordeal, and the answer is no. Somehow, I found it surprisingly easy to get back in the car after that. After all, what are the odds that's going to happen twice? I will admit, though, that I'm a little more obsessive about checking my tire pressure these days...