Drink spiked by staff – sabotage (5,2)
I believe the answer is:
screw up
'sabotage' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with social activities as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'drink spiked by staff' is the wordplay.
'drink' becomes 'sup' (to sup is to drink).
'spiked by' is an insertion indicator (the word is spiked with inserted letters).
'staff' becomes 'crew' (crew of workers).
'sup' going around 'crew' is 'SCREW-UP'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for screw up that I've seen before include "Ruin; distort" , "Completely mismanage a situation" , "tense" , "Mishandle a situation" , "Bungle" .)