Luckily most financiers have survived the day entirely hungover/drunk, weekday birthday party outings ensure you wont be in top shape the next morning. As the day is officially ending we’ve somehow survived. Success. Below are your guidelines to surviving work, smashed.
Morning: You rarely oversleep alarms because you’ve spent your time playing politics and are likely going to have about an hour to get things together. First if there is someone in your place immediately set an alarm far away from the bed and go take a shower (set for 10 mins later). The best solution for not reeking of booze is mouthwash and deodorant, when I say deodorant I mean everywhere. After said quick shower, you should be about ready to hear the person in your room complain about an alarm, change and head out to help get her items ready. Within the next 45mins, call two cabs, drink odwalla blueberry (anything with vitamin b-12) and get to work early if possible, ~10 mins will do the trick.
At the Office: Assuming you made it on time, no one will know anything just be sure to chew gum and continue using deodorant on your clothes if it’s really bad. The tricky part here is before the hangover really kicks in, use all your amped energy to get everything you can done over the next 2-3 hours. You’ll be tempted to chat up people you normally don’t converse with so remember your next 2-3 hours are for immense amounts of work not making it obvious you are oddly more social today.
Hangover Settles In… Not quite feeling well, use this time to get “coffee” i.e. go and force puke in a nearby coffee shop or any other close option. You won’t recover within the next hour so take the time to double check that you still look and smell okay, looking a bit tired is fine but drunk is not, crush a double espresso.
Back in the Office: This is the best time to look for any meaningless work you can do that will occupy the next hour (spreading comps for banking, updating codes etc., notice for a sales trader you’re on the phone all day so it’s unlikely a huge issue to just chat it up). Worst case scenario, you can find a maintenance project for the next hour.
Leave for Lunch: Step outside to eat something, make sure you drink water/gatorade and continue to drink caffiene, at this point you are nearing the inflection of feeling normal again so you can go back to work. Be sure to eat something that sucks up water, sandwiches and pasta are good options.
Relax and Go Home: If you made it this far you have likely survived the gauntlet, simply work as best as you can to finish out and go straight home to sleep. Some may suggest going for a jog to sweat out the alcohol, this is a toss up so go ahead and jog for 30 minutes or go back home and pass out immediately.
Conclusion: Many people on the Street will be in this situation, so we hope this helps mitigate some of the terrible pain. For those that may never put themselves in this situation, congratulations, but the odds are quite slim that you will remain in that state for longer than a year or two. With that said please go out and stock up on deodorant, vitamin B and chewing gum. God speed.
