My Gen Z team expect me to buy their drinks in the pub – what happened to rounds?

I’m lucky to be part of a very tight multigenerational team, where we all get along pretty well and head to the pub for a drink after work most evenings. The only thing is, the younger cohort absolutely milk the fact they’re a bit younger and more junior, and leave it up to the millennials or some of the older team to buy all their drinks.

I’m not stingy by any means, but I’m not someone’s bottomless purse. We’ve gotten to the pub before and waited for one of them to pipe up to offer to go get a round, but we’re met with an awkward silence. I don’t even think I’m earning much more than them. Also, what happened to getting rounds?

Viv, 41

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Hannah Salton is a qualified executive coach, career consultant and former corporate recruitment manager. She spent eight years leading recruitment and talent initiatives for global organisations, including BT and Allen & Overy, before launching her own coaching business in 2017. She has coached everyone from graduates to senior leaders, and has worked with MBA and MSc students at Imperial College Business School to secure roles in finance, consulting and technology. Here’s her advice.

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This is a really interesting situation because there are a few different things going on here. Attitudes towards money and spending are deeply personal. Every individual is different, and that’s even before taking into consideration that this dilemma is within a work context, where there are different ages, different salaries, and different levels of seniority in the mix.

The first thing I want to say is that it’s such a positive thing that you get along with your team. Not many people can say the same. Much research has been done into the fact that work friends are crucial for our health.

According to studies, having friends in the workplace can not only boost job satisfaction and performance, but it’s also linked to a reduced risk of burnout, better mental health, and maybe even a longer lifespan. But it doesn’t mean awkward or uncomfortable situations won’t rear their head. We can’t stop these. But we can control how we deal with them.

Consider different generational attitudes

On to the “rounds of drinks” question itself. Buying rounds is a very common practice in certain social circles, but it’s perhaps more of a generational tradition than a universal one.

Gen Z, on the whole, are drinking less alcohol than previous generations, and many have grown up splitting bills individually as the default. So it’s worth considering that your younger colleagues might not be deliberately freeloading – it simply might not have occurred to them that buying rounds is the expected thing to do.

Money and spending are deeply personal things

The second is the money angle, which is more complicated than it might appear. Some people might assume that someone more junior than themself must have more disposable income, or conversely, that someone older and more senior must be rolling in it. Neither is necessarily true.

The cost of living is hitting everyone, but in different ways. Some millennials are carrying high mortgages, stagnant wages or caring responsibilities that their Gen Z colleagues may not see. And some younger workers are paying extortionate rents or supporting family members in ways their more senior colleagues don’t realise. We genuinely don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life, or in their bank account, and it’s worth remembering that.

I’ll be honest – early in my career, I was probably guilty of this myself. I accepted drinks from more senior colleagues without really clocking that I should have offered to buy a round back. And later on, I’ve been in the position of being the default drink buyer, too. It didn’t feel like a recurring theme for me at the time, but I can understand that if it’s happening regularly, it would start to feel frustrating.

Avoid going tit for tat – order your own drinks

As for what to do, I don’t think you can ask directly for rounds to be bought back. It would be uncomfortable for everyone, and ultimately, you can’t demand reciprocity. The only person whose behaviour you can actually change here is your own.

Try and remember you’re under no obligation to buy anyone drinks. If you’re not comfortable being the one who consistently subsidises the group’s drinks, try getting to the bar slightly ahead of the group, or ordering separately and cheerfully, without making it into a big thing.

Socialising is good, resentment isn’t

I wouldn’t suggest stopping going altogether, you clearly value this team and the relationships are worth protecting. But there’s a difference between showing up and funding everyone else’s evening. Over time, this might naturally shift the dynamic, or it might not.

Either way, at least you’ll have taken the pressure off yourself as the financial provider. Once you’ve done that, try to let it go. Resentment – even silent resentment – has a way of undermining even the best team dynamics. The awkward silence while you wait for someone to offer is probably not going to resolve by itself. So rather than waiting for something to change, change what you can, and move on.

المصدر: iNews