I’ve done plenty of things drunk that I had to answer for the morning after. Like drunk texting ex-girlfriends (again and again and…again) or figuring out that my college roommate’s mailbox key allowed us to start and “borrow” the Public Safety golf carts whenever we saw one lying around. One time in high-school, I went to a Fourth of July party with my friend and his older siblings where I drank so much tequila that my mouth started bleeding. You ever want to really freak the fuck out of your parents, walk into their house blacked out drunk at 3 AM with a mouthful of blood.
Through all of this, however, I have (thus far) successfully kept my personal drinking habits away from my places of employment. If nothing else, this is mostly because not having a job would severely impact my ability to buy booze and go to bars on the weekend. I learned to pick my battles and all that. A lesson that, apparently, this hiking guide from Austria never learned.
Via Lad Bible:
“After getting boozed up while taking the group up the Rax mountain range in Lower Austria, the guide then disappeared, leaving 60 stranded tourist hikers lost on top of a mountain.
With the weather turning for the worse and unsure of where to go, the group called emergency services who came to their rescue, according to The Local.
No prizes for who they found when they got to the bottom of the mountain…That’s right, the guide had stumbled his own way down without a care in the world while the Austrian Mountain Rescue Service brought back his group of 60 hikers.”
I’ve been there. You drink too much and forget where you are, why you were there in the first place or what your general purpose in life is. Then, in a haze of confusion and Jameson shots you keep forgetting you don’t want, you have to try and get home as quickly and safely as you can. Meaning you’ll probably leave something behind at the bar, like your wallet or cellphone. And dignity, that’s probably not coming back with you. So when we put this dude’s blunder up against the grand scheme of things, it’s really not that bad. His mistake just happened to be larger and put the lives of people besides himself in danger. Really, why were none of the these 60 people keeping an eye on their guide to make sure something like this didn’t happen. He’s their responsibility. If he loses one of them, he’s got 59 more. They lose him, there’s no one else. It’s like when people say that a person is a bad parent for losing their kid at the mall. No, it’s the kid’s responsibility to not lose their parent. Mom and dad can just bump a few more kids out, maybe ones that know how to keep track of their parents. So sure, I’m sure this dude is going to lose his job, but I think it’s less his fault and more the fault of everyone else involved who did not keep an eye on him themselves.