I’m an Executive Officer for a General and a Colonel (a double whammy), and I keep Johnny Black on hand for late-night work at the office. The Goddamned problem is that being an Exec for a MAJCOM, I’m so damned busy, I never have time to drink it. . .
So my six-month bottles sit full. I relish the day I can break that seal, flip off the secretary, and have a Scotch in the office.
Tripler
Okay, most of that was untrue, except the part about flipping off the secretary and having a scotch.
Here is my similar thread from a couple of years ago.
Back in my 20s, when I was a drunk (I never had to go to those damn meetings … 
), I was drinking, at minimum, a 12-pack every single night. Usually more. It wasn’t unusual for me to get off work, start drinking, and keep drinking until I couldn’t drink any more. At one point during that time, I had to be to work every day at 4:30 AM. I’d get off work at half past noon, go to the bar next door, and drink until midnight. Then I’d go home and pass out in bed, pop back up at 3:00 AM, and start it all over again. In all that time, I showed up for work every single day, on time, and put in a good day’s work.
Which is why I have no tolerance for people who make a habit of calling in sick because they’re hung over. (Also because the people who do that tend to always do it on my friggin’ day off, and I get called in. Grr.)
I’m in the “special class” at my company of people who are allowed to drink during work hours, because I entertain and sell to clients directly. There is even a secret “club” at my company on the top floor, where whales can be taken to relax in leather splendour with liveried servants to bring them whatever drink they want. Hey, if someone’s going to dump a $100 million bit of work on you, do a lot of things. Shoot, my company would probably set up a hookah and opium den if they thought it would help sell. But yes, my drinks are reimbursable, so I don’t even pay for them in the end (but I do have to expense them separately due to IRS rules).
Technically speaking, my company’s rules say that you’re on your honour not to be drunk while on work, and if you’re in the construction side and have an accident, or even driving a rental car and have an accident, the boom comes down on you pretty hard, and your career will be over. It will then be time for an early retirement and blacklisting, punctuated by stints as a short-order cook at Burger King to make your house payments.
This apparently has changed over time - in the 1950’s and such, my company was notorious in the industry as being a prohibitionist company in terms of alcohol, which, according to corporate legend, cost us several large projects when we refused to supply potential clients with alcohol. Part of this was due to the founders belonging to a temperance-oriented church, and part of it was due to a rigid system of almost brutal working conditions, where you could be asked to leave if you wore above an ankle-length skirt, or your tie had a design on it which was not paisley or striped.
This thread could also cover the issue of prostitution during working hours…some of our competitors are notorious in Eastern countries for providing prostitutes for clients, including a (reputed) scandal where a strict Mormon client ended up with 2 (likely) 12 year-old Thai hookers in his room… I’ve met one person, a VP at a competing company, who personally claimed in Japan they entered their room and thought they were in the wrong room because there was a nearly naked Russian woman in bed. Turns out she was his “welcome basket”. He claims to have been horribly embarrassed and he finally had to call for the bellhops to remove her, as she claimed wasn’t going to get paid until she did “something.”
Now that is one perk I do not offer my employees (who are all female, BTW). 
Not an issue as long as **Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute ** is on the job!
Paisley was preferable to solid colors? Or eeensy pin dots? :dubious:
Maybe the 1950s was Silly Decade at your company, where people could be summarily fired for saying “Clamato” or “Abernathy” on Wednesday mornings, or failing to place Jujubes under their tires in the parking lot.
<clicks intercom> “Miss Kubelick, bring us two gin-and-scotches…oh, and the intestines of a freshly killed marmoset.”
And I assume you had the “Ah Ha” moment and realized that Vodka does in fact, smell on one’s breath? I thought vodka didn’t smell either, until Mrs.Phlosphr quite eloquently put it one night many years ago after an evening of Vodka Tonics…"You fucking wreak like alcohol…"
I haven’t touched a drink in several years now…Quite happy about it too.
Is this a serious comment or are you intending to be snarky? If you are intending to be snarky, I’d urge you to sign up as a member to the SDMB to discuss this further.
Are you serious? :dubious:
Most if not all pubs sell mild beers alomg with the rest, I suggest you get out more.
Also, what Phlosphr said in his closing
I went to work as an underliing at an engineering firm in 1978. There was a written procedure dated in the mid 60’s as to how to set up the bar for board of director meetings. About 15 years later the facilities manager called me up and told me to dispose of inventory since that era was over. I dumped over 30 opened bottles of hard liquor down the utility sink. Some of it hadn’t been touched for 10 years.
I believe that this somewhat controversial guest has vowed not to sign up after his thirty days have expired, though he does seem pretty keen on posting an average of over twelve posts per day until that time comes.
Damn! Interesting anecdote, Una. You’d think that if they were going to that much trouble to procure a client, they’d have some kind of handle on his personality beforehand. I’d have been just as embarrassed and offended as he was in that situation!
When I was stationed in Europe, I noticed that the civilian contracters (germans) would drink a couple beers at lunch. This privilege was enshrined in their labor agreement. Clever, those Germans. American GIs used to be able to do this as well, a good and noble tradition.
I used to wonder how Prohibition could possibly have passed in the US, but not any longer.
Very much a “control freak” society.
Well, I don’t know about a specific colour, but I do know that men were being sent home at my company, all time lost to be made up by them later, to change their ties if they were too “unconventional.” One man did fight the system, though, and it almost brought the whole company to its knees. He started wearing WWF (World Wildlife Fund, not wrestling) ties, and was sent home several times because it was “unprofessional” to have animals on a tie. So he wore an American Bald Eagle one day, and that erupted into a massive debate where one manager wanted to send him home without pay, and another said that he was “god damned” if anyone was going to be sent home for wearing a bald eagle tie, the symbol of freedom, Jesus, and our fighting men and women…and similar dreck. That turned into a series of meeting among the upper management to discuss, with no resolution pending. Then, this rebel of a guy, he started wearing ties which had other birds on them. Endangered birds, raptors, owls, and again he was sent home. This time, however, he started to raise a fuss, since the ties were technically a charity thing, and other people were allowed, once a year, to wear their United Way (which is run by Satan) ties.
This turned into a massive debate which again shook the foundations of the company to the core, and he was not sent home, although he did get a “talking to” nearly every week about how “unprofessional” a Red Tailed Hawk tie was, or how “professional people do NOT wear a tie with a picture of an owl on it. This isn’t the college dorms, you know.” Finally, after a process which must have consumed hundreds of person-hours, a very painfully-worded memo was released, to the entire company, which was solemnly read out loud over the intercom, which said that the company was “loosening its restrictions” and would allow tasteful ties which depicted wildlife in a non cartoon manner, on a case by case basis. And from that time on, that man who wore the WWF ties was the Spartacus of the Department.
The year was 1995, and I personally witnessed it. Now that’s old-freaking-school. And it wasn’t until 2000 that women were allowed to not wear hose. Hey, got to get in touch with the new millennium, right…?
The horror… the horror! Would they have objected if you’d just taken the booze home with you? Or wouldn’t you have been interested?
I’ve worked for both the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County (the greater Cleveland area), both of which prohibit any alcohol consumption by employees during the workday. Don’t know if that’s typical of American local government.
Some Eastern companies are very, very out of touch with Western companies and practices, especially when they haven’t dealt with them before. And some Western companies are out of touch with Eastern companies as well. In this case, the company in question was only used to dealing with a couple of big-name companies in the US (you’d recognize them immediately if I said there names) where the sales people fully expect underage hookers to be waiting for them. Nothing shows the good side of America like insisting on fucking 12 year old girls and burnt out Ukrainian whores to work off your jet lag. :rolleyes:
And you did it on a lousy steenkin’ PHONE CALL. No one breathing down your neck counting bottles and saying you have five minutes and you will show me all 30odd empties when I come back, plus walk a straight line on the carpet and allow me to smell you in a personally invasive fashion.
Were you perhaps gunning for Employee of the Month? Or Decade?
Gotta love those pedophilic movers and shakers in corporate America who make ten times more than I ever will.
God, that’s so depressing. :mad:
From my experience in management consulting firms, drinking during lunch (when one actually has time to take a lunch) isn’t all that common, but drinking after work is fairly common. Often you are with a team out of town so you might go out to dinner with drinks or a bottle of wine. We frequently have organized open bar happy hours and socials which often escalate in some senior guy taking some of the folks out to a strip club or something. Many of the technology firms I’ve worked at have the occassional friday beer bash or whatever during the day.
Well, just because it is seen on a (very unrealistic) TV show doesn’t mean it was like that IRL. My Uncle was on Madison Avenue, and there was quite a bit of the old “two martini lunch” but anyone who drank during work hours was considered a “lush” and shunned. I am not saying that after work they might not pour one, but rarely during working hours (except for lunch).
Based on this thread, and the one that dalej42 referenced, I fully intend to bring in a small bottle of rye to keep in my desk drawer come Monday.
In my career, I have never seen anyone drink during 9-5 business hours, with the exception of Christmas lunch or a fancy farewell lunch for a longtime employee. And with the exception of a known alcoholic at my previous job, who was inebriated on the job, but never drank before witnesses.
In our office, there’s a kitchen, and we usually have a couple of bottles of wine, and maybe some beer or ciders. However, those supplies are only used on Friday evening “wine and whine” sessions, and those have become less frequent in the last year. We used to have a fairly regular post-work-week gang with wine and nibblies, and I know the company was invoiced for the booze on occasion.
Cathartic, and enjoyable, I say.