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"  I&amp;#039;m the boss of a small company and have a problem that I don&amp;#039;t know how to deal with. One of my employees frequently comes to work smelling of alcohol. His performance is hit-or-miss on those days. If his work was consistently terrible, I feel like I could say, &amp;quot;Stop coming to work hung-over.&amp;quot; So, in some ways, it&amp;#039;s mostly the hygienic aspect that makes it so difficult. It isn&amp;#039;t easy to say, &amp;quot;You still reek of whatever you were drinking last night!&amp;quot; Letting such unprofessional behavior go on at the workplace makes me feel like a chump. What should I do? -- L.M., 37, San Francisco Since I&amp;#039;m a self-employed writer and haven&amp;#039;t had the occasion to don a pair of panty hose and march into the workplace in many years (do people even don panty hose anymore?), I consulted a friend who&amp;#039;s worked in management at small companies like yours.  My friend said that your employee&amp;#039;s work doesn&amp;#039;t need to be &amp;quot;consistently terrible&amp;quot; for you to have a talk with him. The next time he has one of his pungent &amp;quot;hit-or-miss days,&amp;quot; call him into your office and say something like, &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a level of professionalism I expect all my employees to maintain at work. I&amp;#039;ve noticed that you&amp;#039;ve come to work reeking of alcohol, and on those days your work has been erratic. What you do on your own time is your business, but when you&amp;#039;re here, I expect you to be clean and sober.&amp;quot;  Tell him you&amp;#039;re making a note of this meeting and it&amp;#039;s going into his file. He should consider this a warning, and the next time it happens, he&amp;#039;ll lose his job. You don&amp;#039;t need to parse the finer points of his hygiene, or whatever alcoholic odor he&amp;#039;s emitting. All you&amp;#039;re concerned with is his work. After all, you&amp;#039;re the boss.  Karen Karbo is the author of How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great. Shes also a mom, a writing teacher, and a horse owner. Send your questions to her at: The Hard Stuff, REDBOOK, 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019, or karenkarbo@redbookmag.com. Letters may be edited for clarity and length, and must include your initials, age, city, and state. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/money-career/q-and-a/a2266/hs-hangover-hell-office/>