How Do I Recover After Getting too Drunk at a Company Party?
Dear Boss,
I recently made it through to the final interview round for a job I was very excited about. I’ve been in my current position without a clear path to promotion long enough to have been eyeing the exits for a while, and finally I found myself in a hiring process that felt like it was going really well. I was meshing with all the people I would be working with at the company. The conversations we had about the vision I would bring to their team energized me in a way my current work hasn’t in quite some time.
The final interview ended up being scheduled on the same day as a company party at my current job. I thought that was great because it gave me an excuse to come to the office looking more put together than usual without raising any suspicions. I was well prepared going into the interview that morning, got great feedback from the panel of executives I spoke with, and left feeling confident that I had the position in the bag. In fact, I was so sure I nailed this interview that I celebrated that evening by enjoying the unlimited white wine at the open bar a little (a lot) too much. I even rallied some co-workers to go to another bar once the office party ended, and I insisted on expensing their whiskey shots there. I am pretty sure, from what I remember, that I was a sloppy drunk. At one point, someone told me I was slurring my words, and I have a mortifying memory of excitedly sharing some salacious gossip I normally never would have spread around.
The next day, I was barely alive at work. Every time someone walked by my desk, I assume they could clock how bad a shape I was in.
To add insult to hangover, the following week I was informed that I did not get that other position I had interviewed for. I had been so fixated on the prospect of being free from my current job that I allowed myself to get oversauced in front of a room full of people I am now stuck interacting with for a lot longer than I’d anticipated.
How do I move past the double embarrassment of getting drunker than I should have in front of my co-workers and not landing this other job when I was so convinced I had it all locked up?
Oh no. I’m not going to say we’ve all been there, but judging from my inbox, a lot of people have been there.
This is unquestionably a mortifying moment, but it doesn’t need to be a defining one. If your colleagues have previously known you to be a levelheaded person with good judgment and not someone who regularly overindulges at professional events, you will be able to get past this. For all they know, you didn’t eat that day, took a medication that interacted more strongly than you’d anticipated with the alcohol, or just misjudged the situation. Assuming they have some history with you, they’ll know it was out of character.
That doesn’t make it less embarrassing, of course. But it means people who were there are much more likely to think, Wow, Jane really drank too much on Friday than Wow, Jane is an out-of-control mess.
That is especially true if you make a point of being scrupulously professional around them from now on — meaning not drinking in work situations again (or limiting yourself to one drink maximum that you nurse throughout the evening) but also not getting drawn into gossip or oversharing, being conspicuously on top of your work, and generally going out of your way to find opportunities to come across as polished and professional. That will help reset people’s mental image of you.
It’s always a much, much bigger deal when someone has two of these incidents. Two makes a pattern that gets attached to their reputation, but one incident is much easier for people to see as a fluke that they don’t need to worry about too much. And if people see you’re not drinking at future work events, they’ll know you learned a lesson.
It’s also worth considering whether you should address what happened with any of the co-workers who were there for your sloppiest portion of the night. There’s potential value in saying to them, “I’m embarrassed by my behavior on Friday. I hadn’t realized those drinks were affecting me so much, and that was really out of character for me.” That way, they’ll know you realize things went too far and it’s not something you’re being blasé about. Rather than letting them settle on their own narrative about what happened, put it in context for them: This was a mistake, you’re embarrassed, and it won’t recur.
As for the job you didn’t get … well, yeah, you got overconfident there. That’s understandable. Some interviews go so well — and some interviewers say such encouraging things — it can be easy to think you have a job in the bag. So this is a useful (though painful!) lesson that you really never can know whether a job offer is coming. The interviewers might have loved you, but perhaps another candidate ended up being stronger or was more of a match with the position, having an additional skill the employer didn’t advertise for but which they were excited to find, for example, or coming strongly recommended by the CEO, or just really clicking with the hiring manager. But even if the interviewers left the meeting thinking they would definitely make you an offer, things can change after that. A stronger candidate can emerge at the last minute, or someone else on the team may resign and so they have to reconfigure what they’re looking for, or they decide to put the position on hold. There’s just no such thing as a “sure thing” when you’re interviewing until an offer letter arrives.
You don’t need to be embarrassed about that, though. It’s so normal to get excited about a job after an interview goes well. And sometimes it takes having a job you were confident about falling through to really internalize how uncertain the whole process is.
It’s worth examining the thinking that led you to figure you could throw caution to the wind with these co-workers, however. Even if you had been offered the job and accepted it — and even if you had already turned in your resignation — your co-workers are still part of your professional network. They may pop up again at future companies, or you may want to call on them for references or job leads. So even when you’re happily leaving a job behind, you still want to be somewhat circumspect around your colleagues.
There’s nothing wrong with celebrating a great job interview with shots, but do it with nonwork friends.
Find even more career advice from Alison Green on her website, Ask a Manager. Got a question for her? Email askaboss@nymag.com (and read our submission terms here).