No hard alcohol at company events

Below is a memo I published to the company about why we don’t serve hard alcohol at company events. Every company and culture is different. This is one of our weird rules that I wanted to share more broadly to help others understand us and our strange ways.

I’m sure many are aware that I have a rule at Carta that we don’t provide or allow hard liquor at Carta and Carta employee events. I want to explain why we have this rule.

It is possible to drink hard alcohol responsibly and many people do. It is also possible to drink beer and wine irresponsibly and unfortunately some people do. But the odds of irresponsible drinking go up dramatically when hard liquor is introduced. What starts as responsible drinking quickly turns into irresponsible drinking once somebody suggests “shots!”

I know there are other ways to consume hard alcohol without shots and that responsible drinkers who enjoy a scotch on the rocks, margarita, or gin and tonic will feel unfairly discriminated against. I’m sorry. But dissecting responsible vs irresponsible drinking is worse. It leads to silly things like counting drinks or limiting bar tabs. This is the simplest and cleanest way to encourage social gatherings and discourage drinking ones.

You may also object that if people are being irresponsible that their behavior, and the consequences, are their choice. True. But we also have a responsibility to help people avoid missteps. Alcohol, especially in excessive amounts, significantly increases the odds of missteps. And most missteps affect more than just the offender ranging from being obnoxious to other employees all the way to reckless and dangerous drunk driving.

I’ve seen excessive drinking make good parties go bad, ruin promising careers, and in one very sad moment kill someone in a drunk driving accident. Please help me avoid any of these at Carta. If you feel a need to drink hard liquor at a Carta event please just wait until you get home.

Only beer and wine at Carta events, dinners, happy hours, and parties. No exceptions. I know it is a weird rule. But thank you for following it. I will sleep easier for it.