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This question https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/38765/is-there-a-standard-or-professional-way-to-call-off-because-youre-too-drunk-to is a worrying one, however, there's still a case for it to be permissable on this site.

What I find concerning, however, is it's accepted answer, which tells the OP to lie to his boss and advises of psychological 'ways around' the impending bad credit that the OP will inevitably get.

I feel that this answer in-particular is against the sentiments of this site, which advocates professionalism. The answer itself is not professional, and exists on very shaky moral grounds. I find it very difficult to understand a reason for this answer still existing on the site, other than the fact that the OP finds it useful (for reasons that it supports his attitudes to work).

If users are to use the advice given in the accepted answer, then it may cause the user to be discredited, or even disciplinary action could be taken against the user.

Can we close/delete the answer?
Alternatively, perhaps we can open a dicussion on it. Am I alone in my views?

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  • 6
    I'm considering deleting the whole question, since the OP rejected the heroic edit that made the question ok. The current form of the question, let alone the accepted answer, is a problem.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 2, 2015 at 17:53
  • 1
    Linked question is: "This question was removed from The Workplace Stack Exchange for reasons of moderation"
    – jawo
    Jan 15, 2015 at 10:34
  • 1
    @Sempie dluat.com/…
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Jan 20, 2015 at 20:50

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
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What I find concerning, however, is it's accepted answer, which tells the OP to lie to his boss and advises of psychological 'ways around' the impending bad credit that the OP will inevitably get.

I feel that this answer in-particular is against the sentiments of this site, which advocates professionalism.

The original poster gets to determine which answer to his question is accepted, not the "sentiments of the site". Them's the rules around here.

I think the question is just trolling, and I voted that it be deleted, but not due to which answer was accepted.

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  • You have enough reputation to case a close vote. (It's possible that a timer is still running and you can't yet, but please check back in a day or two if so.)
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 2, 2015 at 19:55
  • 1
    BTW, my thoughts about deletion are because of the question itself.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 2, 2015 at 19:55
  • @MonicaCellio: OK. Good to know. Thanks. Happy New Year!
    – Jim G.
    Jan 3, 2015 at 0:45
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    -1 because the accepted answer tends to look like the "sentiments of the site" to any random search engine visitor. It's one thing to endorse a flawed math proof or bad algorithm, another something wholly unprofessional when, as I concur, the site is about professionalism.
    – user1084
    Jan 3, 2015 at 18:40
  • @AAA "because the accepted answer tends to look like the "sentiments of the site" to any random search engine visitor." Right. So are you suggesting that the original poster not be allowed to choose the Accepted Answer?
    – Joe Strazzere
    Jan 5, 2015 at 15:43
  • @JoeStrazzere I think the system works fine enough 99% of the time. We "endorse" something that is mostly correct, maybe a little incorrect, with votes and further answers to qualify or supplement it, and this scaled really well to programming Q&A, and now to others. So yes, but I think professionalism is cross the line where we should intervene and so far the only time I've felt we should do something out of the ordinary. Deleting the question did the trick though, so I'm making an entirely academic point by now. Wanted to explain my views, but I think the course of action was good.
    – user1084
    Jan 5, 2015 at 18:16
  • @AAA In the spirit of how StackExchange is supposed to work, wouldn't downvoting the accepted answer to oblivion be the right thing to do? A -20 answer would pretty clear show that a lot of people disapprove.
    – jpmc26
    Jan 9, 2015 at 22:41
  • @jpmc26 this is a weird corner case where a visitor might not automatically know what "the spirit of StackExchange" is. Any content host goes through this - YouTube, Reddit, etc. and they have to decide the line where, gee, truly awful user content does reflect badly on the organization even if that's how the system is set up to work (e.g. YouTube pulling ISIS terrorism propaganda.)
    – user1084
    Jan 9, 2015 at 23:04
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This question feels more like something that would fit a mental health site than a professional workplace question.

On closed questions, askers should make an effort to work with the community to fix whatever problems exist with a post. In this case, the asker didn't want to make any changes. Hence, I went ahead and removed the question.

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Downvote the question. The purpose of SE sites are to be knowledge repositories, not morality police.

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Although this particular question is deleted now, I would provide an answer for the generalized situation where an asker accepts a bad answer.

The stackexchange system gives the asker sole authority over with answer too accept. When they choose poorly, there is no way to override their decision.

However what you can do is downvote the accepted answer so other readers realize that the asker made a poor decision at which advise to follow. You can also try to flag the answer and get it deleted so the asker has to choose another one.

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While I agree that it isn't the most professional question, there are many others about fake sick days.

The answer answers the question, the problem is the question, which isn't really suitable

There is no professional way to respond to a question regarding being too drunk to drive (and therefore too drunk to work), as the very nature of the problem is a lack of professionalism.

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  • While there's no professional way to get into that situation in the first place, there is a professional way to deal with it: be honest and admit what you did. If the problem was just a matter of driving and not a matter of performing one's job functions (I can't think of many jobs where being drunk is ok, but hypothetically...,) you could call a cab, get a friend to drive you, or use some other such alternative form of transportation to get to work.
    – reirab
    Jan 14, 2015 at 19:22
-1

I disagree with the question being deleted. However I think that any answer that advocates dangerous behavior should be removed immediately. The question could have remained and the answer removed which would handle the accepted answer problem.

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