'I messed up by bringing too much beer to a work party. My boss was stressed.' UPDATED

"TIFU by bringing too much beer to a work party."

Two facts about me that are important to this story: (1) I was raised by an alcoholic and (2) I don’t drink.

Last week, my boss asked me to pick up booze for a department party.

I told her that I might be the wrong person to ask since I don’t drink and hence don’t know what people typically like or how much to get. She told me to just “get whatever, it’ll be fine” and she gave me the corporate credit card.

So, I tried to think back to my childhood because I don’t drink, I never hung out at bars in college and the only measure I had regarding how much people drink was based on my Dad. I remembered that it was usually by beer no. 6 that Dad turned into a pretty cheerful guy, (this was so prevalent in my life that my brother and I called it the “six beer smile”).

Note, my Dad would not always stop at 6. He would sometimes drink 10 or more a day, so I thought, “Well, Dad drank a lot so I think we’ll be fine with 5 bottles of beer per person since that’s just one shy of a smile”. I called my older brother to double check if 5 beers per person would be a sufficient amount of alcohol for a work party and he agreed, “Yeah, that sounds about right”.

The department has 40 people so…I ended up picking up about 34 six packs. I got a variety because why not and yeah, it cost a lot but this company wastes money on plenty of other things so I just assumed this was just the cost of A Party. I loaded up my car (it took a long time) drove to work and then carried everything to the large conference room that was reserved for the party.

The party was yesterday evening. I really only stuck around for a little bit, made appearances to wave hi and say something to the higher ups so they knew I attended and then I ducked out and went home early. I woke up to some texts from my boss today consisting mostly of: “How much did you buy?” “The party is drowning.” And finally, “There’s more in the cabinets?”

And yeah, when I initially dropped everything off, I ran out of space on the counter so I put the rest in the cabinets. I asked a few friends why my boss was freaking out. They started laughing and reminded me that my Dad is an alc-holic and I probably should have gotten just 2 drinks per person, because that’s way more normal for a work party.

TL;DR I bought 5 beers per person for a work party and I can only imagine what the result was, but even though I F’ed Up, let’s be real…my boss F’ed Up more by asking the non-drinker to buy the booze.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

Serenity_557 wrote:

"I'm probably the wrong person for this" Boss "naaah it's fine!" Proceeds to be the wrong person for that.

Idk it sounds like you did great. Bet the party was a blast lol xD

OP responded:

Thank you! I’ll find out on Monday for sure. My boss is now silent on text (I didn’t respond) so I figure it couldn’t have been too bad.

Al_M1101 responded:

You were fine, so don't worry. Any extra they can just use for another party, lol. You're also not responsible for how much other people drink, whether there's too much to drink or not.

OP responded:

Thank you! I was starting to get a little worried but a lot of people here are saying it’s fine.

outdoors_life wrote:

At my companies parties, it’s all you can drink beer and they don’t run out. I work construction for a company with about 500 employees.

khyman wrote:

Oh my god this could have been me. I always overbuy everything for parties, and as a non-drinker raised in an alc-holic household, I would have thought 5 or 6 drinks per person is sufficient. I might have even worried about running out.

Two days later, OP shared an update.

Thanks everyone for your comments! I especially appreciate those of you who reassured me that it really wasn’t that bad and those of you who gave me advice for the future. I got a little overwhelmed by the number of responses so I’m sorry if I didn’t respond to your comment but I appreciate all of them! A few clarifications:

I live in the US and the area I’m in is a little on the conservative/religious side of things. Folks around here drink, obviously, but getting dr*nk around co-workers for example is frowned upon. This is, I have learned, very different depending on where you live in the world. The definition of alcoholic is also very different from person to person.

My father was (and is) a sad, angry man and, in my second hand experience, alcohol was a very unstable way for him to self medicate for his anger and grief. For those of you who were distressed that my co-workers drank “warm counter beer," someone put the drinks on the counter in a cooler between when I dropped them off and when the party started.

Again, I try to leave work parties as soon as I can. I prefer to hang with my friends or my brother when I have free time. It turns out “party” was, a misnomer from my boss and as someone suggested in the comments, it was more of an after work “social gathering” where the intention was that people could drop in and out or stay for a while.

Anyways, I was the first one in the office. My boss (let’s call her Cathy) came in a little fired up though so, thank you internet strangers who gave me some good responses to her. First, Cathy asked why I didn’t respond to her texts and I told her that I don’t check work texts on the weekend.

Then she asked what I was thinking “getting so much expensive booze” and I said, as many suggested, “I told you I don’t drink and didn’t know how much to get, so I wanted to make sure there was enough and that there was a good variety available.” I held out the corporate card for her to take back and she took it and went off to her office and shut the door.

A few folks stopped by my cubicle to tell me the party was fun and I should have stuck around. Word clearly got around that this was my doing because one guy told me I should always be the one who brings the drinks.

Cathy’s door stayed shut all morning. I started getting a little anxious because, cost aside, it just sounded like everyone had a good time, so I figured f-it, and I went to my boss’ boss (let’s call him Brian) to see if everything was okay. According to Brian, everyone thought the random assortment of beer was pretty great.

After I left the party (which was as soon as possible) that was when they figured out that there was a bunch of different stuff in the cooler. One person started digging till they found something they liked, which encouraged more people to do the same. Brian said it was funny when someone opened the cabinets and yelled out “there’s more!” which I admit, is kind of funny.

I told Brian that Cathy seemed really upset about the whole thing. According to Brian, Cathy was pretty upset on Friday, and kept apologizing about how much I over spent. I told him that I didn’t even know there was a budget and he laughed at that. I found out then that the budget was around $100 for drinks. I spent around $440.

I gave Brian the same short explanation I gave Cathy, (“I don’t drink and wasn’t sure what or how much to get.”) I asked Brian if he wanted me to return any unopened six packs and Brian told me not to worry about it, and said that he’d talk to Cathy.

On a different but still related note: Some of you said my brother’s response to me was hilarious, and some of you said it was concerning and I honestly agreed either way. I called my brother when I got home from work and we had a really good talk.

It turns out he didn’t think my question was serious and his answer was sarcastic so when I told him the whole story, he thought the situation was pretty amusing. We also had a talk about the impact of Dad’s drinking on both of us.

I’m not going to go into a ton of detail but he reassured me that nowadays he only drinks with friends and even then, not very often. I made sure he knows that if he ever needs to talk, I’m here for him.

So in summary: My co-workers had a good time. My boss panicked about going over budget but her boss thought the excess was funny and told me not to worry about it. Most importantly, my brother is okay and not following in our father’s footsteps.

The commenters were happy to hear the update.

Mtanderson88 wrote:

I don’t get it. That’s not an absurd amount for a couple hours and it doesn’t all have to be drank..I don’t see the issue unless there was a weird rule where every beer had to be finished before the party was over.

Nutella_Zamboni wrote:

Better what you did, than the opposite lol. I went to a wedding once with an open bar. The brides family were paying and the 1st generation Polish American groom only requested that they have enough vodka. He was assured that there would be plenty of vodka. They ran out of Vodka BEFORE cocktail hour/hors d'oevres was over lol.

ozyri wrote:

Me in Britain right now.

Wait, what? Is that 5 beers before noon or an hour or...? What's happening?

Reddituser3525 wrote:

I agree this is weird to read, along with all the responses. Most offices in the UK would supply way more than 5 beers per person for a work get-together. There's a response above yours saying "Not as bad when I bought two 18 packs for 4 people. I, uh, I had a drinking problem."

9 beers per person wouldn't be an unusual amount to buy as pre-drinks before a night out in the UK.