is it 'boring' to skip after-work drinks?

It’s perhaps a little unfair - I don’t even know the man and have never met him, but it is how I perceive him. Boris Johnson, on the other hand, I would describe as ‘lively’ or even ‘fun’. I am sure he is, although I have to add, politically, I am not a fan.

Keir Starmer has been labelled boring by many sections of the Press, to the extent of being asked ‘Are you too boring to be the next prime minister?’

Sir Keir Starmer has been labelled 'boring'

It’s a good job the Labour leader does not live in France. Over there, a company director was fired for not taking part in the fun work environment, going out for office drinks, weekend socialising and taking part in team building activities.

After taking his employers to court he has won the ‘right to be boring’ after the judge ruled that the company was wrong to sack him on the grounds that he did not get involved in the ‘fun’.

Keir wouldn’t last a week at such a place. Boris, however…

I hope my colleagues don’t see me as boring. Long gone are the days when I raced off with my office mates after work to paint the town red. Nowadays the mere thought of heading to the pub for several hours after work is tiring.

In my twenties, when I worked in London, a crowd of us would go out after work not just once a week, but most nights. We never left the pub before last orders. Sometimes we would go on to a nightclub. I don’t know how I found the energy.

Of course not everyone in the office took part in the nightly revelry, but so far as I can remember, no-one thought any the less of them. In other places I have worked, however, there has definitely been an ‘in-crowd’ culture, of those who went out and those who didn’t.

Some companies pressure people to have after-work drinks. Picture: Pixabay

The latter were definitely seen as dull and overlooked in many ways, including promotion prospects. I once worked as a temp at a London firm where I was literally dragged to the nearest wine bar at lunchtime and after work. I was only there about a month but was exhausted at the end of it, not by the work, but the constant socialising.

For some people, having to spend daytime hours with colleagues, who they may not even like. is enough, and that should be accepted. Forced socialising, such as team building, often creates workplace rifts that did not previously exist.

One of my previous employers took the entire workforce on an expensive team building exercise in the Lake District. When we were asked to make rafts from old oil drums and bits of twine, the would-be alpha males took over, as they did in the bar afterwards. If you didn’t take it seriously it was fun, but not everyone found it so.

At least we were not expected to do as the French firm’s employees sometimes did and share a bed with colleagues after going out drinking. I am amazed that only he complained.

On the rare occasions when I do head to the pub with colleagues I always enjoy it, but I wouldn’t want to, do it on a regular basis. It’s my right to be boring. We all have a right to be boring.

In a radio interview Sir Keir was challenged over his ‘boring’ tag, and asked to name the most exciting thing he had ever done. His answer: playing football with my kids. Sadly, he would win more votes if he’d confessed to playing strip with a Love Island contestant while blind drunk.