Blogging impact by design

When I first heard that Compendium employees were undergoing a mandatory Substance Abuse Training session, I was initially filled with rage. Maybe not rage. Maybe fury. No, fury's probably an exaggeration too. How about this, I was slightly distraught.

I was initially slightly distraught because I'm 26 years into my life. While today is the oldest I've ever been, tomorrow I will be one day closer to my late twenties, which is daringly close to what I call the point of no return. Sure I tested my limits in college, and grad school, but how am I supposed to know the effects of substance abuse on my professional life if I can't bring them to work with me?

Having said that, I believe in the power of optimism. My scotch glass is always half full, so I tried to keep an open and limber mind, and yesterday, when the nice woman from Management 2000 came and explained why Substance Abuse at the work place sucks, I really tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The training session changed my whole perspective. It turns out substance abuse at work is not cool at all. Plus, Compendium is growing like crazy. Our simple blogging software is helping tons of clients get found in organic search. In fact, we are doing such a good job that we won a very large grant. And part of keeping that grant means that we must abide by certain concessions, ie we can't be hammered all day at work.

So here's my list of Pros and Cons in regards to Compendium becoming a Drug and Alcohol free workplace. You will see that my initial rage / fury / distress can be quelled, because the pro's seem to outnumber the cons.

Cons:

no in house blogging for liquor incentives. ask Megan Manning who is our blogging czar... it works.
no more kegerator.
no more of Brian Graham's home brewed beer
no pregaming for the bus ride home

Pros:

no drunken sales calls to the clients that "got away."
turns out a lot of work related deaths are attributed to substance abuse. we will have none of that.
the elevators here are pretty old. not sure how substance abuse plays into that, but if you happened to be on crack or acid, and an elevator got stuck, your bruce willis-like instincts might betray you.
not everyone drinks alcohol, so these non drinkers wont feel left out of anything
kanye west
we get to keep that awesome grant. come on!
we get to make more field trips for any substance induced fun.
more fridge space for... food?
research indicates that that people have to make up for colleagues who abuse drugs and booze, and we have enough work to do as it is.
we don't want an *asterisk next to our name in the SAAS hall of fame as the best business blogging software, or best search marketing tool with aid of Captain Morgan, or heroin. no way. we did this the right way.
nobody really drank out of the kegerator anyway. can i take that home?

The pro's have it. Downtown Indy won't be the same, but overall it's a change for the best. And congrats again to Compendium for winning the grant, truly awesome news.