Alcohol and Work Don’t Mix

Background photo created by jcomp – www.freepik.com

It is strictly prohibited to work under the influence of alcohol. Different tests have shown that the effect of alcohol remains for 8 hours in your body, even if you have stopped drinking it. The use of alcohol not only makes your lifestyle unhealthy but it can also threaten your job safety.

Intake of alcohol in any quantity can impair a person’s judgment, and result in coordination problems to some extent. Some people can “handle” drinking a little better, compared to others. However, drinking alcohol always has some effect on a person. Factors that may influence your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol include:

• Your previous medical history
• Your current weight
• Your medication (that you are already consuming)

You may not think the alcohol has had any effect on you, however, keep in mind that it’s very difficult to effectively assess your capabilities after drinking. Even if you’re not “drunk”, you may have some impairment that could impact you negatively at work.

What happens if your co-worker is drinking on the job? Are you going to ignore it or will you report it? Usually, most people ignore such situations. They convince themselves that reporting it will only cause problems in their own job, so they really don’t want to get involved. But you have to look at in another way—your co-worker is placing everyone’s life (including yours) at risk, as he or she is most likely to be involved in an accident.

How can you handle it properly? Well, if your job is being affected by safety or performance issues, then you need to talk to your Supervisor. Remember that a worker under the influence is as dangerous as a defective tool. Meaning you wouldn’t hesitate to tag a broken tool as defective and remove it from service, right? Remember that alcohol and the job don’t mix – never come to work under the influence, and don’t accept it from your coworkers.