A bar too far? Drunkenness off duty won't do

What a load of old b......ks. I had to read this twice and check the date to make sure it was not 1st April. What next - diet instructions? Most of the lecturers I know/knew always teach best when they are a bit pissed. Having to deal with some of the morons who we now call students ( some who cannot even string a sentence together) I think a little light drinky is required.

Brian, very amusing - I do like a bit of humour first thing in the morning (I do hope you were being humourous, with your derogatory remarks towards the students who are your reason for being employed).

Or then there's always the 1980s alternative, which was to give students degrees IN drinking with the staff...

Crick and Watson might not have discovered the structure of DNA without the odd pint at the Eagle during the working day. The Eagle was popular with staff at the Cavendish labs at lunchtime.

Oh jesus - if Cardiff HR are desparate to find ways to fire people then they'd be better monitoring peformance than 'successful behaviour' the two are not predictive of each other. In fact, there are plenty of examples and industries where the most successful people in those industries are the most social, the most alcholic and the most 'out there' with the back room tedious stuff done by the temperance league - the fact is that poor performers have to try to squeeze out every last edge they can - and not drinking and taking vitamins and early nights is one way - those with an excess of personality, ability and creativity need outlets and this does and should include socialising and partying too. I'd just like to also point out that in all the organisations I have worked in, those where the staff have interesting and stimulating social lives that include drinking, the teams have been more bonded, work has been more pleasurable, and edges on disagreements are allowed to dissolve socially. I think I can remember some superconformist and miserably businesses that were successful- Banks in the 19th century - they told their employees who they could marry too... good idea.. or backward?

Will senior management forgo their glass of wine with their lunch?

This is interesting! I like the idea that personality-free behaviour is seemingly equated at Cardiff with 'successful' behaviour.. What's next a 60s dress code?... 'I saw you wearing something 'ghetto' last night, and now I think your work is rubbish'

It is far more important that academics obey management commands than they turn out valuable research. Without management to keep academics in check, they would all undoubtedly be drunk 24 hours a day. Therefore, the People's Republic of the University of Cardiff is to be commended for instilling pride in its masses.

I doubt very much that this was aimed at social drinkers, whose work isn't affected by their drinking. It sounds like the management have had difficulties with an alcoholic/s and haven't been able to find ways of dealing with the exasperating problems this creates for students and other staff who have to give vast amounts of extra support and cover for the alcoholic. Anyone, whether manager or colleague, who's had to engage with a member of staff who has a severe alcohol problem and won't accept that it's a problem, will know how extremely difficult it is to tackle. The alcoholic may be drinking so heavily that they never sober up, even after a night's sleep: they go to bed drunk, wake up drunk, then just keep drinking through the day. If they spend time working from home they may be abusive over the phone or by e-mail to students or colleagues. They may be claiming to work from home, when in fact they're skiving off boozing or being ill from boozing, forcing colleagues to carry extra burdens. Usually mamagement can offer treatment programmes for alcohol or drug abusers, but if the alcoholic/drug abuser won't accept this help, the options become very limited. Don't sneer if you've never had to endure the exhausting, upsetting vile behaviour of a perpetual drunk!

"Individuals are reminded that they should not behave outside work in a way that might bring the university into disrepute and bring into question suitability for the particular role held." ---- Pity the first line was not phrased "behave inside work", many would have ended with better management.

It is very sad to say but I know lots of stories like this about Cardiff.

Re Brian - No I was being deadly serious. I think that it is a very fair assessment to call "some" students morons as they are. Anyway a good drink helps to fudge the edges and make the tossers more bearable

I must say that I'm again astounded at the way academia is OK with the problems are best dealt with by dealing with a separate and unrelated problem . 'Retired' suggests that in order to deal with an individual being abusive over the phone, 'claiming' to work from home, passing work to others (three separate problems that can all be dealt with directly and individually) it is better to ban everyone from drinking in the hope that this will include the persistent alcoholic (it won't) or make him/her 'feel better' about being accused of inappropriate drunkness outside work because anyone could be. This is crazy, wasteful and idiotic. Additionally if Cardiff want excuses to fire people, better and more organisationally relevant ones could be used, if Cardiff wants to promote professionalism and respect - by all means enforce it at work - if, though, your idea of a good night out is dominos and a quiet pint, and anothers is singing at kareoke -just bear in mind that the fastest growing economies in the world have a tradition of ill-behaved senior executives ... on nights out.. and rampant professional conformity in the day.

I do some of my best thinking when I'm totally off my face. Remembering is the problem, though.

sadly brian you are right. there are number of students who, while not likely to be medically classed as 'morons' (does the category still exist?), neverthless give the impression that university is not the ideal environment for them.

Well, easy to fix. Cardiff want to be a teetotal university - let them. We can open another university, perhaps on the site of an old holiday camp, which caters to the students that brian refers to, and employs all the old soaks. everyone's a winner

Although I might only have a drink at lunch time on a work day once or twice a year I would strongly resent being told I couldn't do so. I've never personally encountered any problems at work caused by lecturers drinking, I don't think, and I've been teaching for 15 years. (I have sometimes encountered problems *outside* work caused by lecturers drinking but that's another matter!) I know I really couldn't do any serious work after even one drink but that's not the same for everyone. @any students out there. Brian's views aren't typical, I promise you!

Just where do universities get the people who dream up policies like this? "The policy states that employees' homes will be considered part of the workplace when they work there." Presumably this means Cardiff will pay for, maintain, decorate, clean, furnish, and supply office consumables to, those parts of academics' homes which they use to work in.

Sadly some teaching staff at cardiff seem more than happy to express a view that the university should be run only for their own benefit. Very public statements about boredom with the exam board process, the pointlessness of internal training sessions, even suggesting that the summer break should be moved so teaching staff can enjoy more sunshine leave an external observer with a deal of sympathy for those trying to reform the culture. Watson and Crick.. sure they might well have enjoyed the odd tipple.. but they should be judged by their results, if everyone else at cardiff is happy to adopt that measure then I don't see much of a problem.

Yep to hell with all these silly bureaucrats. Some of academics like a beer in our lunch break or evenings and no silly bureacrat is gonna stop me having one !! They should get themselves a life rather than interfere with our lifestyles. This just proves they have nothing better to do with their time....

This is another example of policy simply designed to extend the power of one group over another within an organization---and outside of it too. It is not about drinking, or the effects of drinking. If anyone has a drink problem, or doesn't do their work because of it, there are already available ways to deal with that. If people do have a drink now and again, but create no problems and do their work---why does this need regulating? Can anyone provide a reasonable answer for to this question? And how will this be monitored? Stoolpigeons going to management and saying that someone was seen with a drink in their hand? Breath-a-lyser tests upon entry into the workplace? Teams of managers coming round to your house to inspect for wine glass, opened bottles who will give you a breath-a-lyzer test in your own home? I think everyone should wake up---this is about institutional and organizational power and control, both inside, and now outside the institution. They do it because they can, and because crucially, nothing and no one is stopping them. Read up on organizations in totalitarian bureaucracies--- we are moving in that direction.

I meant "read up on organizations and bureaucracy in totalitarian socieities--we are moving in that direction".

How utterly ridiculous. Some of the most stimulating conversations I had as an undergraduate at Oxford were with my Greek tutor late at night over a glass of whatever he had to hand. You can just imagine him coming into the college library: 'Alexander, would you like to come and have a drink and a chat? Now, I have a bottle of Evian that I've been meaning to open...' And I suppose he isn't allowed to smoke his cigars either now. What memories will today's students take down with them? How much of the real university experience will be lost? As for drinking during the day, I can in fact see that that is not a very good idea, and I'd never touch alcohol before the evening myself anyway. Actually, I should confess that I drink about the equivalent of a bottle of wine a year. But if a don lives in college his home is also his workplace, and if he is socialising with his students that is surely a kind of work. I therefore imagine that dons may well have to forgo a late-night drink with students lest they fall foul of draconian rules such as this. What about the don who finishes tutes at 5 and takes his last pair to the pub for a pint on the way home? I suspect he'd be in trouble. Of course we all know the sort of don who turns up to his 9 a.m. already drunk, but what he needs is professional help to overcome his addiction: rules like this probably won't have the slightest impact on his drinking. What will happen is that the conscientious don who hosts an annual sherry party for his graduate students in the departmental staff common room will feel constrained to serve orange juice instead, or go through some hideous procedure of obtaining permission from the powers that be to do something as innocuous as share a drink with his students.

This kind of intrusive pointless policy is not intended to produce a good outcome; it is a way of demonstrating that HR has power over academics. And they do. We have handed power to a class who have no interest in or sympathy with the objectives of a university, but are more concerned with image management and juking the stats.

I agree with Alexander; these rules will not stop any alcoholic members of staff from drinking on the job/turning up drunk - alcoholism is a disease, an addiction, and an alcoholic will not look at these rules and say "Oh look, I can't drink at work any more, better stop right now and sober up!" All it will do is stop academics and students from socialising over a drink. I was an undergraduate not so long ago and on my course it was customary for the tutor to bring Bucks Fizz or something similar to the final seminar of the term. In the final seminar of my degree, in a module on contemporary Scottish literature, our tutor brought in a selection of whiskies (whisky had appeared prominently in most of the texts that we had studied!). At any departmental event, wine would be supplied. None of us failed our degrees or suffered from bad teaching!

Oh dear. It's Saturday evening and I'm enjoying a small glass of wine. Unfortunately, after the first sip it occurred to me to check my work email to see if any freshers had sent urgent queries. I then checked a website, detected a problem and contacted a colleague to alert him. (For all I know he may have been sipping a beer.) In a moment I plan to return to reading a book which I may mention in a lecture later this term. I am drinking while working - clear grounds for dismissal were I at Cardiff.

In a society that has a serious problem with binge drinking and alcoholism such as the UK, I am astounded that there are people on here who seem to think that drinking on the job is somehow acceptable. I know of no other career path where one can "get pissed" at lunch time and then continue to work (perhaps lawyers are the exception). Furthermore, why is it assumed that drinking makes one more sociable and interesting? On the contrary, too much drink often makes people loud, obnoxious and irritating. Only in the UK or Ireland would people defend such a destructive way of living. As a matter of interest, statements such as those at Cardiff are commonplace in the US and other civilized countries. What next? Perhaps the university teachers' unions will complain when an administration says that they must not have sexual relations with their students ...

@Joshua: I have worked at a number of universities in the UK and have not encounted any colleagues who felt the need to as you so crudely put it to 'get pissed' at lunch time. Indeed, who would have time to do so even if the inclination was there. The point made in most of the posts above is that that it is ridiculous for this institution to pronounce that 'staff shall not drink in their own time' as it is unenforceable and in itself brings the institution into disrepute. I would suggest that if you find the UK so uncivilized that you return to your country, where if memory serves the majority of people on campus belive in Creation and there are massive problems not only with drunkenness but with drugs and firearms as well!

The problem, Joshua, is that this is NOT a policy simply aimed at preventing pissed academics delivering rubbish lectures or falling asleep at staff meetings because of lunch time over-indulgence. It is an attempt to tell us what we can do in our own time, with our friends and family. It isn't even restricted to a drink while doing or thinking about work. As someone pointed out, it makes it a disciplinary offence to have a glass of wine while checking emails at 10pm while on holiday. I would certainly have fallen foul of this policy several times last Christmas (if they have assignments due on 5 January, it isn't really fair to refuse to deal with their problems over the so-called break). We don't work 9-5 and we often work at home, at night, at weekends and on holiday. What next? Is it a disciplinary offence if I am working before breakfast, wearing inappropriate office garb, ie, pyjamas? Will someone scan the 200 exam scripts I had to mark between Friday afternoon and Monday lunchtime for evidence of wine or cigarette smoke? And then I looked at my own institution's travel policy. If we travel in our own car, on our own, but on university business - eg, going to a conference - then it is a breach of university rules to smoke. It's enough to make me want to take up smoking, just to break this one.

@Joshua: Nobody is really suggesting that it would be desirable, or even civilized, for academics to get drunk at lunchtime and then go back to teaching in the afternoon. The average British academic takes half an hour to have a jacket potato with cheese and baked beans and a glass of tap water in the university canteen before hurrying back to the department to press on with his excessive workload. I don't think anybody is speaking up for the don who goes to the pub for a two-hour lunch and comes back smelling like a brewey. What most people object to is the fact that because of the nature of academic work (that it is more a lifestyle than a job) academics will essentially have to be teetotal if they are to avoid consuming alcohol while working.

I'm just wondering - does my car count as a place of work?

Re Brian - you are being paid to do a job. If you find yourself unable to meet the challenge sober, then for the sake of your students, employers and the taxpayers that pay your wages, I suggest you seek employment in a different environment. You sound an ideal candidate for Local Government.

To atw (020910) I have not met one member of my colleagues (academic, academic related, clerical, technical) yet who is in favour of this policy, the majority think it's a joke at first when the matter is raised. The feeling soon turns to one of anger/insult that a bunch of jumped up personnel staff have the audacity to try and impose a teetotal lifestyle on them - none of them visit the pub regularly or drink more than the odd pint when they do. It's the fact that they feel like they are not being treated as adult enough to accept responsibility for their own behaviour. There are far more serious issues at Cardiff University which HR should be addressing but seem to prefer to dodge their responibilites for - such as bullying in the work place - this would be far more beneficial to a fair number of my colleagues

THES seems to be infiltrated these days by all sorts who appear here only due to their incontrollable urge to claim ad nauseum that academic staff do not work---hard enough, approriately enough, sober enough--you name it. Again: how are you going to enforce and monitor this policy? Drop by staff homes to check for wine? wine glasses? Spies in the workplace? Spies peeping into windows? Honestly, there are many totalitarian countries around the world. Why don't those of you who find all of this "perfectly reasonable" go and live in a country where the majority agree with you.

Oh that's terrible! What about the (majority of) students who turn up to lectures still drunk on a Thursday morning after Rubber Duck? I learnt some great things from not-wholly sober lecturers and had some great times with other lecturers while drinking with them. We're all adults for heaven's sake! P.S. Brian, you're quite right about many students nowadays being complete morons who find the prospect of real work far too scary.

Since the universities already employ 'security staff' to monitor and police parking regulations, could they not extend their duties to monitor and report on alcohol misuse at the home office? - Modern digital cameras offer the technology, and this way, universities can gradually offload burdensome employment liabilities and convert all staff to sessionals ( well, obviously not the core functions like HR, Quality and now, Ethics). Then, when the chickens come home to roost and customers get bored and drift away - it's no loss as the staff overhead is almost entirely flexible.

Lily asks how could this policy be enforced? That's easy. If a student complains of an academic being drunk, then said academic gets breath-tested, much like the old bill breath-test drivers. You fail the test, you face disciplinary action. Anyone who's got half an ounce of intelligence will realise that you obviously can't be breath-tested in your own home. But then again, marking coursework when you're absolutely sloshed isn't what brings universities into disrepute, since there's no way that anyone can know that it's happening. The thing that brings universities into disrepute is when you behave in an aggressive and intimidating way in the company of students, or other staff, or members of the public. You'd have thought that was obvious, no?

@Cardiff Alumni: I think that you probably meant 'Cardiff Alumnus', i.e. the singular.

@Alexander. I think I likely speak on behalf of many former Cardiff students...

Has everyone seen the dress code apparently developed for staff at Birmingham Metropolitan College (assuming that what you read in the papers is true)? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8292429.stm

I have worked as an academic for 20 odd years. I have to say that I have never seen a colleague fail in his duties through alcohol/substance abuse. I will crack open the Cava for my grad students when they get their PHD or if the group gets a big grant but that is at the end of the day. This policy is surely a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Or are there particular problems at Cardiff?

More to the point: this corporate feudalism has to be curtailed, or it's back to the middle ages with al of us. Does Cardiff university have the legal right to claim jurisdiction over the home? If not, UCU, why not nail 'em now? - where's Robin Hood when you need him, eh?

As to Don Quixote's point---no, the university does not have any legal right to clam jurisdiction over staff homes or cars. They are just clamiing this because they can---no one is stopping them, no one is challenging them, no one is setting limits to their drive to have total power over employees, and now at home too... Having taught management students for quite some time now about how to set up "virtual office" and "viirtual teams" using new technologies, and the benefits of both, I promise you that what Cardiff is doing, completely contradicts every principle of modern management for many reasons. One example: according to modern management principles (see any first year textbook) disempowering and infantilising staff in this way, leads to reduced efficiency and producitivity.

Yep looks like Cardiff HR department has made their University the laughing stock of the country. What a bunch of jokers - someone should be sacked for making their University an absolute joke. I'm gonna have an extra pint to celebrate their stupidity.

@Fred. I assume that you are suggesting that new contracts are issused to all staff, which once signed require staff members to be breath-tested at the request of senior management?! I am sure the unions would have one or two things to say about that idea - Just not going to happen...

This whole article is Monty Pythonesk. We all grew up without bicycle helmets,played hockey in the street, ate mud pies, tried a joint, drove in cars without seat-belts and most of are still here to talk about it. We live in a world that is over-regulated. If a few individuals at university have have a drinking problem that can be addressed - but curtailing drinking for everyone - even in their own homes is ludicrous.

And Cardiff has a celebrated Journalism course (the first in the UK). It's a poor do when journalists can't drink. Or is the course doomed now?

Lily, I'd really appreciate it if you could point me in the direction of some the books you refer to. I'd even buy you a lunchtime drink by way of thanks....

Wow, the creeping of the British nanny state is unbelievable. No, I never drink at work, but I would deeply resent the intrusion ... I won't be looking at ads from Cardiff in future.

Bloody hell, heavy stuff. Anyone fancy a pint?

As for the intro management texbooks, any one will do. Look up the following in them: 1. Organizations out there in the so-called "real" world, are becoming LESS hierarchical, not more so... 2. Layers of management are becoming downsized! out there, as hard as that may be to believe... 3. The increasing emphasis on developing self-managed and self-directed teams, for more and more aspects of work 4. Virtual offices and teams 5. Authoritarian management---(guess what! it in this day and age, it is the least effective style, for productivity and effectivity!) 6. How to empower staff, and thus increase efficiency/productivity through their participation in determining accountability, methods and resources used etc. If you read anything in one of these texbooks that sounds like your university, please tell us where you work---I for one would like to apply for a job there and join you for a pint at lunchtime too.

The people that come up with these ideas obviously have nothing better to do. I agree with many of the posts before mine... this hints at scaremongering surveillance. But I won't say I'm surprised. When reading my job terms seriously --first time around I was so happy to finally get a job that I don't even remember reading that part-- it states something like 'the appointed candidate should live in a X-mile ratio from the university (don't remember the exact number right now) and that the place of residence should not be at odds with the type of job (this is not exactly how it reads, but it's the interpretation given to me by an HR advisor at the university when I later asked). But back to the point of this article, what we do with in our private time should not be the concern of anybody but ourselves. How stressful it must be to have to watch over your shoulder every time you do something as you are expected to live up to the "Cardiff ideal". It's ridiculous!

I meant to say radius.

Dear Kay I am interested in the amazing clause in your contract that says that your place of residence should not be at odds with the type of job you do? (as you said according to the interpretation given to you by an HR advisor). So what could that possibly mean? What place of residence could possibly be "at odds" with the job you do?!! taking again, into consideration how far people normally commute for jobs in this day and age... I am assuming of course this is about distance and geography, but could it include other factors? Please do tell... I wager it is all unenforceable and illegal by the way...

I think it means it shouldn't be too garishly decorated

I must say I was delighted to spend a couple of hours in college this evening with the returning and new students over a few drinks. It was a very convivial occasion at which we exchanged stories of how we spent our summers and had frank discussions about the pros and cons of various lecture course options for the year ahead. God forbid my university ever adopts Cardiff's attitude, lest the first meeting of the year be over a dry tutorial problem set on a dreary October afternoon...

I think I understand the 'residence appropriate to job' its incredibly stressful for academics if they find that admin or other non-academic staff have houses that are comparable with an academic residence - in the same way that academics get nervous of intelligent people in 'junior' positions - it unsettles their view of the world that academics 'deserve' a detached house, large garden, and their non-academic colleagues don't - this is the same dis-ease that MPs have when they think that a) people in 'industry' have big salaries - more than the £60K they earn, and b) that they deserve more than this by default (despite the fact they always claim that they 'could' work for more in industry but 'choose' not to) and this led to the expenses scandal - this same thinking causes those 'expenses' claims that lead to computers being bought for home use, salary 'fairness' discussions and general bitterness - many academics earn in the top 5% of the population, (most in households in the top 1%) but still think that they really deserve more and that a residence consummate with what their job is is a house similar to those in the top 0.2% (below premier footballers but up there with £100K plus GPs and dentists)

Hero---you have missed the point of our discussion on "appropriate residence" completely. We were discussing a vague clause in someone's contract which said the residence could not be "at odds" with the job, and we were wondering what that could possibly mean. Is it about how far you should live away? Distance? Geography? Decoration? Your comments smack of a certain irrational contempt shown to what you call "academics" and which increasingly appears in THES posts. It is the discourse called "oi, what-do-you-lot-think-you-are-"special"?" I am afraid it is your own bias, anxieties and bitterness which shine through here...

@Lily. Hero always misses the point. He/she has an almightly chip on his/her shoulder, quite sad really.

I think the main thing is that academics should show, through their lifestyle, that they are living the appropriate dream - sorry, values. They should be made to report, quarterly, on their implementation of quality, ethics, diversity aesthetics and corporate opinion - at home as well as at the roaming office space. Further, it should be clarified that family members / other household members need to conform to similar codes of practice. That doesn't see unreasonable.

I think that the hero point is a good one - what is 'at odds' or 'appropriate' - living in a tiny cheap flat in a bad area could be at odds if person is expected to hold confidential info at home or entertain etc. I think it is just wording - 'commensurate' might be better.. I think that there is a real problem with the contempt academics show towards 'lower orders' a case raised by the student union paper at Warwick highlighted this when the University head of security for some 30 years resigned, there was no send-off and no announcement, yet each academic has a symposium, meal with VC etc. The trend for academics to spend loads of time doing admin is a function of their fear that non-academics are inherently risky to trust. Most academics have NEVER BEEN OUT OF ACADEMIA so they don't realise that the most efficient high performing companies in the world are run largely by people without PhDs or a research group.

That's funny! Its soo true - in my dept there are academics proposing paper systems to replace efficient on-line systems not because the paper systems work better, but because they don't know how to think abstractly about admin! .. THere is a 'not worth it unless you have a phD atmosphere in HE - everyone knows it. I'm lucky because despite my status I am not like Fergus described - I've worked commercially for 6 years, as a member of the armed forces for 5, and now have come back to education. In my time I have crawled through mud, worked effectively as a labourer for one project I worked on in a remote location, and had to manage large processing operations, so when I see talented admin people who want more direction and greater challenges, I bloody well get them to do it rather than waste my lab time - the difficulty where I work is that the University still has a 'academics = educated, secretaries = not educated, lower middle class, rather dumb helpers attitude that means that when I get a good admin implementing under my direction, I struggle to get them anything like a decent wage, but if I want to put a PhD student onto a project placement, they are paid £30K or more when they have no experience and are pretty close to useless. Fighting this several times has made me weary but persistent. I hope the cardiff academics AND staff fight this silly 'behaviour outside' rule - obviously in my case this DID apply when serving, but was rarely applied unless bars were broken or it was a forces/local altrication. The idea that an academic can't get drunk and talk loudly in a pub about whatever the hell they want seems to be the purpose of being in education. Even though I was a little embarrased myself when I said how poor our international office was at recruitment to a room where the director of the international office had been ciruclating telling everyone how good she was - I still felt that a) I had the right to say it and b) that the outcome (much more scrabbling to support our department afterward) was good.

@Fergus: You seem to believe the same sort of nonsensical dribble that Hero constantly spirts. Have you had any experience of the UK academic environment? Or is this diatribe born out of frustrated ambition? I know nothing of Warwick, but at my last place of work people on retiring or moving on did not get a 'symposium' or a meal with the VC, rather they got an officious letter from HR - very much like you would expect in the private sector.

@Lily: The source in question read "The University does not normally place specified restrictions upon the place of residence of members of staff. They are, however, expected to reside in a location which is compatible with the satisfactory fulfilment of all the duties associated with their appointment and with membership of the academic community". When I read it, it didn't give me the impression that it was related to distance yet the first part is ambiguous enough that it can cover distance, geography and even size of underwear! The second part, however, seems to be about something else that is exclusive to 'members of the academic community'.

Actually the deliberate 'misreading' of that statement to include 'residence compatible with satisfactory fulfillment' is often interpreted to mean 'a nice house I can invite my group back to without being embarrassed, simultaneously showing them that I am successful, and in control of my finances' Many academics think that academics 'deserve' 'the right kind' of house - I hear it all the time - I even heard a couple complain that it was 'outrageous' that their bank expected them to 'give up shopping at waitrose, monsoon and house of fraser' so they could afford the house they wanted - their joint income was £70K and they were unable to afford what they considered a minimum 'oh my god how can anyone live like this' semi. I know this is not restricted to academia, but it is most overtly talked about here - in fact I would rather cardiff had said 'if you have significant money problems because of aspirational spending and this puts pressure on you to buy computers, blackberries, printers, mobile phones for you and your families on grant expenses 'because you're worth it' then you are bringing the university into disrepute. Or even 'if you bumble around making an amateur stab at 'marketing' or 'administration' when you can't even use access or excel without a junior helper - then you are acting irresponsibly - these would be much better uses of administrative and compliance regulations than 'don't get pissed'

Well, I don't quite see what the fuss is about. Obviously, you don't want to live near the university, you want to b in a more refined area. The driver can drop you off whenever you need to stroll in to the office. I suppose you could always pick a small pied-a-terre in the vicinity, somewhere to resort to if you've been to one of those jolly after-office champers dos that seem to come around with monotonous regularity. Yes, that'd be jolly good - in fact, here's an idea - one could even stroll in to the campus instead of getting one's driver to pick one up, or booking one of those ghastly minicabs the department insists on using. This all sounds rather fun, roughing it with the hoi-polloi...

I don't know where Hero works, but in my department most of the young lecturers don't own a house at all, and I don't know of any postdoc who does. And I can't say anyone really grumbles about it. To be honest we're more interested in our work than feeling entitled to large material reward. Then again it's a pretty academically-driven university.

@Hero: 'many fewer' ?

I'm interested to find out where the universities are that aren't 'academically-driven' ..Almost anywhere in the country it is possible to buy property on a £30K salary. If your 'young lecturers' are not buying houses that's a choice or poor money management issue. The idea that 'real' academia is about doing work and not getting paid for it is naive - as naive as the idea that poor people are more virtuous. What you fail to realise is that most academic salaries ARE above national average and at mid-career are typically in the top 10% of salaries in the county. Acting and talking as if you are poor when you aren't is even more offensive than being wealthy - but its also a function of the 'i deserve more' psychology - you feel poor, and hard working because you feel that the 'right' salary and living conditions for academics 'ought' to be very high - without realising that it already is. I call this the nursing syndrome - all nurses think they are underpaid - even when the starting salary for a nurse is higher than the national average graduate starting salary, career progression is faster than the average career and earnings top out at £100K a year for the best.

I'm looking, and the only things on the market in my town at the moment that you can get on 30k salary and 10k deposit are a canal boat and one of three retirement flats. Might have to wait a few years.

When criticising this policy can we please avoid racism. Describing drinking habits according to European demographics is unacceptable

Househunter - I just don't believe you. That salary should get you a £120K house with ease. Canal boats cost £30 - £50K depending on condition, more with private/guaranteed city mortages, (i.e. a £20K loan to buy outright). One beds and studios in London start around £70K and for £120K you'll do OK. With a partner (why else would you need bigger) on similar salary you could easily get to above the average property price - that's average so pretty far up from slum! I bought my duplex flat on a salary of £12K so you're not talking to someone who hasn't striped down their spending, made a financial case for a bigger loan and lived tight to do it.. but if you are finding it hard, you are not managing your money well - if you are not managing your money well, its hardly your employers job to pump more money into your accounts so you can lose it!

As someone who takes students on four week fieldtrips - the chances of me not sipping a restorative gin and tonic within that time are nil. Particularly after the stree of having to deal with the effects of student drunkeness on the long suffering local populations. I am also livid that somehow I work for the university 24 hours a day when they want, and run an office from my home at my own expense to keep up with all the admin etc - at no expense to my employee. I am supposed to be a world leader in teaching, an executive in advertising, a skilled public engager, a univerally acclaimed researcher and still find time to 'hang' with the kids and keep them motivated and on track - and now it seems our traditional seminar drinks, followed by engaging night discussion over a pint or two are to be banned. What a job!

Did you know that having a heavy meal can make you as negligent as if you are legally drunk....

This policy simply goes too far. If I'm at a conference with like-minded colleagues, would the university prefer me to be the 'odd one out' drinking orange juice in the bar in the evening? Within the academic community, I can assure you that that would not make a positive impression. I'd be the only one sober by the end of the evening! Accept it, drinking alcohol is part and parcel of most people's social lives. If I choose to go out and get drunk, then as long as I am not overtly representing Cardiff University (or loudly slagging off the university!) then what I do is my own business (as long as I am fit to work the next day, assuming it is a working day). What if I invite my research group round to my house for a social evening? Should I abstain from drinking? That would make them feel really comfortable and relaxed - NOT - when in fact I would be trying to reward them for their hard work. If this policy is really aimed at alcoholics who drink in working hours, then please target that problem, not the social drinkers. And stop giving me so much work that I often end up working on evenings and weekends, as you will now start telling me that I cannot have a relaxing glass of wine while doing it!

Hero - Go on, explain how someone on a rolling or even simply fixed-term contract gets a mortgage for anything at all? - and given the short-term nature of many researchers contracts, this would mean buying and selling every two years. just remind me of the total cost of buying and selling a 120K property, with actual moving costs on top?

Oh don't be childish - do you really need me to explain this? You make a case based on responsible spending, income and outgoings and on any regular monthly commitments you are making of the same magnitude as a mortgage. In my case this was a regularly signed rent book and monthly payments to savings accounts. If you buy sensibly, you buy on a bus route to the institution, and close to a railway station so that sometimes you will get away with commuting, sometimes you will rent out and live elsewhere. Really people don't tell me we are paying academics more money to soak up their completely useless financial planning.. oh hang-on that's how whole universities work isn't it.. silly me

Again more irrational contempt and bitterness towards "academics" from Hero. If you replace the word "academics" with any ethnic group, in Hero's last post, as well as in many others on THES, you see how biased, hostile and puerile these comments are. THES must not continue to allow such posts. It completely undermines the point of having this blog.

hero - not to put too fine a point on it, I do know something about buying and selling property; especially now, lenders are having to take much more conservative views on what constitutes "ability to pay" - and they have to take a longer view than previously. A 12 or even 24 month contract simply does not do it for most lenders, and the days of self-certification are long gone. now, you didn't deal with the buying and selling aspect - but your advocacy of renting out - well that's well and good, but rent returns expressed as a % of capital cost are at an all time low. Using proper calculations to take into account repairs and renewals, it can be shown that many reneted properties do not quite cover their mortgage overhead, nevermind capital repayment. And naturally, an academic that must keep relocating (if they are lucky enough to land another research post) cannot extract their capital from their purchased house without selling it (at a cost) and so would have to rent. Back to where we started. I don't pretend to know everything about this, but have a sneaky suspicion I know a teeny bit more than you do on it (red rag to a bull). But, Lily, I don't agree that THES should censor

Never mind all that, let's get back to the drunkenness

1. rent returns as % of capital - not at all time low if you accept capital costs are dropping.. but anyway... Better comparison is rental income v interest costs - rental income has not dropped as much as interest rates have. 2. University towns typically perform better than this 3. Buying and selling costs are not relevant to a live or rent out model - udual difference in insurance is minimal as tenants cover contents. 4. repairs on a home you live in would happen anyway, on one you rent out will be covered by the rent surplus if you are sensible - if you are not.. well that's your lookout! in my area a two bedroom flat lets for around 160 per week - the equivalent interest is circa £300 per month. 5. Academics can extract capital - by selling - but this wouldn't make sense given current economic situation - but if liberating capital is important you are probably using that capital to sub your salary - which is back to the money management argument. 6. Lily - don't be ridiculous - if youwant to try to cry 'i'm being bullied' as a bullying tactic in itself you have already lost the argument. 7. re DR gyro I agree 3. Student rental takes longer to react downwards than non-student rental.

wow drunkness at uni.. shock! lily makes me laugh! she thinks that hassling a profesion ios the same as hanging slaves.. hahahahah.. waht a idiot! bet she does thus wiuth all she disagrees wiv... hahaha what a tool

Hero: I don't live in London, it at least has the advantages of having some "cheap" areas. The maximum I have found I can borrow is 100k and yes the canal boat was just under 50k but there are no flats in my town under 100k in the past week except for these retirement apartments. The market is pretty damn stagnant still, I am finding maybe one property every 2 to 3 weeks I can afford and if they are not damp shells they get snapped up before you can book a showing! When did you buy your house? Face it Hero: in 2009 Britain, even an above average salary is not enough to buy a room over one's head. (and 30k is not egregiously over the average for my age, 26.7k (age 32) - check the wiki page)

Interestingly I note that between my first post this morning before I left home for work, and my post just now when I got home, Hero has posted three times on just this one thread. I haven't checked any of the others. Very prolific.

@Househunter: Hero maybe prolific, but unfortunately writes nonsence that is I think designed to get a response - quite sad really. @Lily I agree with you.

@Lily - I sympathise. Hero seems to want to stir up a battle between academics and administrators which (just like battles between new and old unis - or working and non workng mothers for that matter) aren't really relevant to most people's experiences.

Househunter...With a household after tax income of £498 per week, you have a higher income than around 87% of the population.. 49% of the households in the country are below average cost of a dwelling. You are making up your difficulty I'm afraid.

Hang on, if your income is £30K (I worked it out on 26.7) you are probably in the top 10% of incomes..

Phew.. this is turning into another topic entirely - isn't discourse fascinating! I have to say that I think Cardiff's attitude is startling, but probably only formalising the ideas that some seniour people have that thinking not like them is un-organisational and disloyal - I get it too where I work, I can go to big meetings and say 'your department failed to meet our department's needs in these three areas' and the central (read 'think of themselves as senior) department's reasoned answer is 'yes we did'. I produce evidence that they didn't .. and anyway its us who decides what good service is.. and they say 'the work we do is of high standard' I say 'well it fell below MINIMUM standards here and here and they try to blame me for that.. then say 'no we didn't' again... I can see similar in the drunk cases - You were out of order' , 'No I wasn't, prove it' ' well people were upset' 'who' 'well I don't have any evidence, but they probably would have beenn ' who's 'they'? '; ; ' i don't know , a reasonable observer' ' was this reasonabl;e observer actuially at the event ' no its theoretical' well how can they be offended if they weren't there?./... etc etcv.. its like Green WIng!

Hero, where do you get the 87% from? According to the wiki page on "Income in the United Kingdom", with a net household income of just over 20k I am sitting just about on the 50% point - quite average! And with a 10% deposit in the current market I can only afford 100k for a house, which is less than half the current average of 224k (BBC). I never said I was poor, or even uncomfortable; I just have little to no choice of where to live, so I can't afford to buy a house. No doubt your sophistry will advise me that I have the choice to change career and move to a cheaper part of the country. But your strawman of legions of wealthy academics in big houses is not true.

Hero - of course you look at return on capital. In addition, poor rental yields reflect supply and dmand - there are blocks and blocks of "exciting new developments" - with poor occupancy - in thos areas, rental prices are no holding up. What I meant by buying and selling is that, if one buys, but then has to move two years later, the selling cost (and buying another) would be hard to justify - the legal costs and sales commision, not to mention actual moving cost, install broadband, all those tiny things that add up. So If you leave the property behind to rent out - you can't buy another, fair enough (that was what I was on about when I siad extracting capital - you simply couldn't get another deposit together, let alone a second mortgage), so you have to rent - that's fine, rents aren't too bad (see above) but you still have a financial obligation to that other property which, being rented out, incurs higher maintenance costs (drains roof painting, etc) - and my point was exactly that there will be no rent surplus (and I'm not talking about the luxurious situation of appointing an agent to oversee maintenance issues, which of course you would have to do if you had a temporary post abroad) - oh, and of course, you'd be bonkers to rent it out to students. But the basic point was this - Academics on short-term contracts can't really buy a property convenient for work.

I bought my own pub

Well we just have to disagree then. Househunter - there was no strawman of wealthy academics in big houses, but the expectation that academics have that they ought to be living in better houses than bus drivers, when drawing similar salaries is the problem. Academics on short-term contracts at £30K or above can most definitely buy a property convenient for work. Many think they can't or ought not to but that is a different issue - lets put this in perspective - many PhD Students buy houses using research council stipends - if they can do it so can you.

earning an average income is not the same as earning more than 49% of people

OK then, please do something helpful for a change and tell me how to proceed! (By the way, according to the numbers on that wiki page from the tax office, 20k net household income *is* the 50-th percentile. Where are you getting your numbers from?)

'Fo a change' - that info above is all you need - handholding is not for me I'm afraid - sometimes you just have to be an adult and make a leap into doing something on your own

@Whippet, Sarah et al.: I see what you mean about Hero! How petty and bitter. I'm glad we have good administrators at my university and genial administrator/academic relations!

Popper: "my critic is my friend". Nevertheless, Hero - mortgages on a short-term contract are rare, nowadays.

Hello Karl, I'd like you to meet Ed Jaynes... Are Don Quixote and Hero the same person?

Househunter - what, like arguing with myselves, you mean? - no, I clearly disagree with Hero on several key issues; in addition, I'm richer and more handsome (though admittedly older)...

I DEFINITELY brought my institution's management into disrepute this weekend .. but why is that so bad? Why are junior people fireable if they screw up but management can make rules that mean that if they screw up no one is allowed to even talk about it in case they get fired for doing so! Doesn't this kind of rule (a poer play) just show how frightened managemtn are of being 'found out'?

Dear Pete: these are important questions for many universities I think. I think that the issue is that univ. management in many places is not frightened at all actually. What is happening is that power within educational institutions is far too concentrated within the hands of particular groups...and since, due to the way it is structured and organised, they can't be challenged by any othe group within the institution (as no other groups have comparable power) , they can pretty much make it up as they go along. Check out organisational studies research, a well established field of study which has a lot to offer in understanding what is happening in universities...

Yes I know OR and MIS and general common sense good management and employee development and organisational behaviour and any other discipline you care to mention could offer unis loads - but unis, lets remember aren;t staffed by people who want to manage effectively they are managed by people who want to get a fairly cushy job with an arts phd. People who get their jobs by asskissing and aggressively bullying away criticism see this type of behaviour as 'good management behviour' and see open transparent addressing of real problems and effective behaviour as anti-management...so they promote like for like and the cycle continues - this is E|XACTLY what I was demonstrating, with a few examples, loudly in the pub to people who work under the same frustrations. Management get afraid when non-management knows and calls their game - of course its gonig to unsettle them, it like the guy in the fruit shop going mental and barring you because you caught him with his thumb on the scales- it makes him angry at himself but he diverts it on to you.

I like that last point about the thumb - our senior administrator went mental when he got caught not returning a report that the H&S executive required - he had a big speech about 'I;m your boss and I tell YOU what to do' to the person who reminded him - when usually he is this mild mannered passive aggressive - when he was unavoidably caught out he went into his 'real' mental case mode just as youdescribe above - he gets paid nearly 100k a year but keep screwing up like this - and then puts as much effort into trying to shut everyone up as he should have put into not screwing up in the first place!

Why is no-one Named in the Article? It's like somone sitting behind a screen directing things - The Director! The person / people responsible for the policy should be named and interviewed.

Cardiff says it doesn't want its staff to behave outside of uni in a way that might bring it into disrepute? Well I teach at cardiff university and lwish to go on record as saying.. WHAT A LOAD OF FUCKING SHIT. What about bizarre conservative Orwellian standards? Doesn't that bring the university into disrepute? Let us not dignify this with a debate. A simpke fuck off will do.

Isn't passing a law that all your academics are being watched 24-7 and we don't trust them bringing the integrity of the institution into disrepute??

Re Brian's comments about the students. I am one, and you is doin' down me mates. It's ya kind of superior, toffee nosed, 'I'm richer and better educated than thou..' tone of voice, that we can smell when we is in front of you. Reckon it's that which might make some of us lesser beings go quiet when we is in your institution. We thought you was supposed to be on our side, even the 'morons' and 'tossers'. I can't help it if me mam and dad had to work all't time and I had to teach meself to read, I is proud i got myself to uni, but extremely disappointed as to what it actually means. We're the next generation, you lot have had your day, and bit o' respect wouldn't go a miss. We's don't care whether you is allowed to drink or not. Anyone that was what we call a proper 'teacher', would just ignore this dribble and carry on drinking at home anyway. Where I come from there is bigger fish to fry than getting all upset over some dood writing some words down on a piece o' paper about when and where you is all allowed to drink, 'cause evidement, you is going to drink when's you want, where you want, but it is safe to say that I don't really want some boozy breathed dood breathing down my neck ta. We're not tossers, just young and at least we is free to drink and live how we want, but it is the 'truth' that we is waiting for someone to teach us proper.

I have been marking essays all week and working late to finish a research project (yes, with a little beer in hand). Its Friday, I'm about to go home and get smashed and when I stubble out of a club at 3.a.m. (which would obviuosly bring the university into disrepute), they can fire me on Monday.

To be honest, I've never tried marking anything whilst sober; is it fun?

Seasonal update on this - Cardiff university's HR department has to cancel its' Christmas party last week as only 12 out of around 120 departmental members put their name down to go - the majority of whom are seniour management. What makes this funnier is that the HR director as a consequence is now forcing every member of staff to attend a directorate briefing followed by a Christmas buffet - i.e she is forcing staff to attend a Christmas celebration, which she goes on to say in her email on the matter that no alcohol will be served at I think the term humbug springs to mind!

I have always found the business of marking essays and exam scripts is made very bearable by a bottle of merlot (or two).

Anyone else prefer marking on acid?