THE WORK PLACE DRUNK!

When I was growing up, I used to hear the term "Functional Drunk" and probably never grasped the full meaning of this term.  Now that I'm a grown man and actually work to pay bills, I have come to understand this phrase's full meaning and know that it's both funny and sad.

We have a person at work who comes in early, sits at their desk, works a little, looks up stuff on the internet, takes their 2 (or sometimes more) 15 minute breaks and then leaves for lunch and later, for the day.  You know, what almost everyone who works in an office does.

The funny thing is that this person litteraly comes in daily with alcohol on their breath.  Somedays, the smell is more pungent than others.  There are times when you can smell the alcohol, the toothpaste and mouthwash all mixed together like some sort of drunk witches brew - on those days, it's hard to be around this person.  On other days, the smell is less detectable.  If I were to guess, this person shows up at work 4 out of 5 days in the more exaggerated condition.

I'm not one to take bread out of a parent's hands, especially when I know what it's like to not have a job and still need to have bills, groceries and indulgent lessons paid for.  I'm just rather curious as to why this person hasn't been fired? 

I guess the bigger question is should this person be fired? 

In the end, maybe the recycled adage is true, "Drunks are people too!"