beer-thirty.

At The Bistro, I learned the hard way that if you don't go to the first social function to which you are invited by your coworkers, you will not be invited again (with the exception of company-wide shindigs, in which case everybody, even that weird kid who only works on Thursdays and always wears that same shirt, is invited). At Vintner's, I learned the hard way that if you don't work night shifts, you will not be included in any post-night-shift shennanigans. At Winn-Dixie, I learned the hard way that if you don't go to the same high school as everybody else, no one will talk to you, and the baggers will ignore you even when you are neck deep in baby food jars.

I'm beginning to doubt my own social skills.

The social scheme here in the real world is very different. For one thing, these people are bona-fide adults. While adults can still be petty and immature (and frequently are), they have the sense to do it privately. So basically all invitations are extended to everyone on the same employment level (meaning we don't invite the higher-ups or the intern). For another thing, I'm the only female employee under the age of thirty. Youth is very valuable, and they like a girl who can talk back to the men. So yeah, I get invited.

Post-work gatherings are different here in a lot of other ways. For one thing, they're not held every night in attempts to drink away every cent made during the day. They're generally more once a month or biweekly events. Remember, these fellas have to call and get permission to have beer with the boys (and the girl) from the little woman. Also, the events last maybe an hour or an hour and a half. None of this out til dawn mess. They're more of an out til dusk crowd, and sometimes not even that late during daylight savings time.

So we all head out in a giddy we-are-leaving-the-office convoy and head out to the pre-approved watering hole. Sometimes First Street Draught House, sometimes Lucky 32, sometimes Fox and the Hound. Never the kind of sketch dive bars college-age waiters would frequent. We go to clean places and we take our white collars with us. We talk about the coworkers who aren't there, what our weekend plans are, whatever home improvement topics we're working on, and what we'd be doing if we weren't being computer programmers. If the waitress is a pretty lady, we talk about that, too. If the waiter is an attractive man, well, we never talk about that, but I think about it privately while the guys talk about home improvement.

Sometimes we plan these things a week in advance. Sometimes it's decided that afternoon, as the day drags on and we find ourselves buried under documents and processes and code. You alert the right people, and the information spreads like SARS across the office: beer-thirty this afternoon. Beer-thirty is the understood password that means we're going out for a beer after work. Beer-thirty is the time, because the joke is that it's always beer-thirty. And it's always beer; these guys don't have cocktail or wine habits.

Sometimes it's a lot of fun, and sometimes things are a bit dull. It varies depending on how much the boys want to talk about woodworking or landscaping or football or other things I'm not even vaguely interested in. But hey, free beer, because one or two guys usually pick up the tab for everyone, and I'm a girl, so I never have to. There are some sexist double standards that I'm willing to hold onto. In any case, I go when I can because I've finally figured out that your work social life is important, whether you want someone to help you bag baby food or figure out some algorithm. You could probably suck pretty hard at your job, but if everybody liked you, you might get by. Of course, I'd rather be competent and well-liked, but we can't have everything, now can we?