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Ask a Boss<\/a><\/p>\n \n Insightful and practical workplace advice from career expert Alison Green.\n <\/p>\n \n Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images\n <\/p>\n Dear Boss,<\/p>\n I recently made it through to the final interview round for a job<\/a> I was very excited about. I\u2019ve been in my current position without a clear path to promotion<\/a> 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\u2019t in quite some time. <\/p>\n The final interview ended up being scheduled on the same day as a company party<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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? This is unquestionably a mortifying moment, but it doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t eat that day, took a medication that interacted more strongly than you\u2019d anticipated with the alcohol, or just misjudged the situation. Assuming they have some history with you, they\u2019ll know it was out of character.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n That is especially true if you make a point of being scrupulously professional around them from now on \u2014 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<\/a> 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\u2019s mental image of you.<\/p>\n It\u2019s always a much, much bigger deal when someone has two of these incidents. Two makes a pattern that gets attached to their reputation<\/a>, but one incident is much easier for people to see as a fluke they don\u2019t need to worry about too much. And if people see you\u2019re not drinking at future work events, they\u2019ll know you learned a lesson.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 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\u2019s potential value in saying to them, \u201cI\u2019m embarrassed by my behavior on Friday. I hadn\u2019t realized those drinks were affecting me so much, and that was really out of character for me.\u201d That way, they\u2019ll know you realize things went too far and it\u2019s not something you\u2019re being blas\u00e9 about. Rather than letting them settle on their own narrative about what happened, put it in context for them: This was a mistake, you\u2019re embarrassed, and it won\u2019t recur.<\/p>\n As for the job you didn\u2019t get \u2026 well, yeah, you got overconfident there. That\u2019s understandable. Some interviews go so well \u2014 and some interviewers say such encouraging things \u2014 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<\/a>. 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\u2019t advertise for but was 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\u2019re looking for or decide to put the position on hold. There\u2019s just no such thing as a \u201csure thing\u201d when you\u2019re interviewing until an offer letter arrives.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t need to be embarrassed about that, though. It\u2019s so normal to get excited about a job after an interview goes well. And sometimes it takes having a job you were confident about fall through to internalize how uncertain the whole process is.<\/p>\n It\u2019s 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 \u2014 and even if you had already turned in your resignation \u2014 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\u2019re happily leaving a job behind, you still want to be somewhat circumspect around your colleagues.<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing wrong with celebrating a great job interview with shots, but do it with nonwork friends.<\/p>\n Find even more career advice from Alison Green on her website,\u00a0Ask a Manager<\/a>. Got a question for her? Email\u00a0askaboss@nymag.com<\/a>\u00a0(and read our submission terms\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Stay in touch.<\/p>\n Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
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To add insult to hangover, the following week I was informed that I did not get that other position I had interviewed for<\/a>. 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\u2019d anticipated. <\/p>\n
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Oh no. I\u2019m not going to say we\u2019ve all been there, but judging from my inbox, a lot of people have been there.<\/p>\n