When I was being interviewed for my first real job as a lawyer in the City of London I was asked if I drank. This seemed to me a very tricky question at the time as not to drink might make me seem very boring but equally they would not employ an alcoholic.
So I answered "Yes in moderation". Oh good said the interviewer to my surprise, because you will need to be able to go out to and have a drink at lunchtime and still give cogent legal advice in the afternoon. I got the job!
The days of boozy office lunches, once a hallmark of the finance and insurance industries, are a thing of the past which is probably no bad thing in terms of alcoholic consumption. But what they did involve was face to face contact. More deals were sorted out over a pint of bitter at lunchtime than in the office.
Nowadays in business with email, texts, IM, conference calls and social media there are far fewer reasons for actually meeting anyone. In fact taken to its extreme there is no apparent reason to leave your home as many professional tasks can be carried out in home offices in our connected and wired world.
However we are essentially social animals and business at the end of the day is about human interaction. Some things can be sorted out remotely for sure and the electronic world has many advantages in terms of communication.
But some things can only be done I suggest face to face, if not at a boozy lunch then in a coffee bar or in an actual as opposed to a virtual meeting. Really complex problems demand face to face time and this will always be true - even in a future where we are represented by an avatar as our online identity, or possibly by a remotely controlled robot! I'll take the pint of beer!
So I answered "Yes in moderation". Oh good said the interviewer to my surprise, because you will need to be able to go out to and have a drink at lunchtime and still give cogent legal advice in the afternoon. I got the job!
The days of boozy office lunches, once a hallmark of the finance and insurance industries, are a thing of the past which is probably no bad thing in terms of alcoholic consumption. But what they did involve was face to face contact. More deals were sorted out over a pint of bitter at lunchtime than in the office.
Nowadays in business with email, texts, IM, conference calls and social media there are far fewer reasons for actually meeting anyone. In fact taken to its extreme there is no apparent reason to leave your home as many professional tasks can be carried out in home offices in our connected and wired world.
However we are essentially social animals and business at the end of the day is about human interaction. Some things can be sorted out remotely for sure and the electronic world has many advantages in terms of communication.
But some things can only be done I suggest face to face, if not at a boozy lunch then in a coffee bar or in an actual as opposed to a virtual meeting. Really complex problems demand face to face time and this will always be true - even in a future where we are represented by an avatar as our online identity, or possibly by a remotely controlled robot! I'll take the pint of beer!
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