Worked at a restaurant in college that sold a ton of frozen cocktails. Thus, they went through a shit ton of rum. Pretty much all the staff enjoyed a shot of rum in their Styrofoam cups of coke.
I worked informally at a bar, I was a regular there and occasionally worked the door, checking IDs. I was paid in drinks.
3, I worked a long term temp job with a variety of responsibilities. One of the tasks was to send out brochures, a time consuming and mindless job. I usually had to work Saturday during summers for a few hours. I’d bring in beer and listen to baseball on the radio. No one was there except for the security guard who I happily gave a cold one to when he’d come back to check the score.
At my current professional job, we have beer and wine for office events a couple times a year, I’ve occasionally gone back to my desk with a bottle of beer to finish up a couple reports rather than submit myself to the awful karaoke.
We occasionally have office lunches, or other events where wine and beer are served. No one expects any work to get done once they begin.
I would not drink on a regular work day. I had a beer at lunch one time decades ago before I returned to court for a very routine appearance. Nothing bad happened, but I felt very irresponsible and have never done that again. In my early days as a lawyer, it was not uncommon for the judges to go to the bar across the street for lunch and have a cocktail or two. Times have changed, that’s for sure.
I’m in a very small satellite office now, which doesn’t really do this. But when I worked at the San Francisco HQ this wasn’t unusual. The fridges were stocked with beer and wine and on some Fridays and other work celebrations we’d be drinking in the afternoon. Some people took their beers back to their desks afterwards.
Some of my colleagues will order a beer with lunch if we go out as a group. I don’t object to others doing so but refrain myself because it’ll make me extra sleepy in the afternoon.
Pretty much never. Once the president brought some assorted microbrews for the VP’s 20th anniversary and once he took a bottle from his office and poured a couple of drinks after we were awarded a particularly lucrative contract during a rough stretch but that’s it. As for his “office bottle”, he seems to sit and chew the fat over a drink with the VP maybe four times a year after some arduous stretch. Nothing Mad Men-esque.
Aside from that, a couple drinks of company Christmas parties but that’s it since I don’t drink much anyway and I’ll need to drive home at some point.
My current job is very non-drinking, but at previous jobs a beer at lunch was pretty normal. I worked at one (smaller) company where, like clockwork, on Friday at around 4PM one of the VPs would wheel around a cart loaded with vodka and beer. I also worked at a large company that did a ‘beer and snacks’ thing every other Friday for our building, though I think they gradually phased it out.
A couple times, I had a glass of wine at lunch and it ruined me for getting any work done in the afternoon. Gave me a headache too.
Off-topic: Once in my fast-food days, I shared a joint with another employee behind the dumpster. We returned to work, and shortly thereafter my dumpster buddy came up to me with the manager in tow, and said, “Julie! [Manager] thinks we’re stoned, can you believe that?” They both recoiled in shock as I faced them, trying to part my swollen eyelids in an expression of innocence. I said something too, I don’t know what. I was stoned enough for all of us. Well, we didn’t get fired.
Had an extensive audit earlier this year, and my co-worker spearheading it - assembling requested documentation, completing a report, etc. I used to do it, and I knew what a pain in the ass it could be.
They told the co-worker that it’d only last 3 days, and when I insisted that they would be here much longer, he didn’t believe me. After a week or so, I could tell that his normally soft-spoken demeanor was starting to crack. I told him we were going to do a shot when the auditor finally left for good.
I went to the liquor store nearby and bought two of those mini-bottles, and brought it to the office the next day.
The auditor left mid-morning, and he didn’t make mention of it, so I thought he either forgot or felt self-conscious about it. Then, an hour before we were going to leave, he asked for it, and I obliged. We toasted his “survival” of the ordeal, and finished up the workday.
In one of our office fridges, you’ll also frequently find a 6-pack, with bottles “disappearing” throughout the day. I’m not sure who is bringing / drinking them, but I’ve definitely noticed a depletion over an afternoon’s span.
I’ll have a beer or glass of wine with my lunch or dinner if I eat out, but normally I brown-bag it. Alcohol isn’t allowed in our building, but nobody cares if you have a drink with a meal. I’m a children’s librarian.
For a while I tended bar at a private club. All the bar and kitchen staff could have a drink at the end of their shift. They had a good scotch selection.
I don’t really like drinking during the day, so even if it were allowed at my job, I wouldn’t.
I used to work for an art film house, and we’d take movies to the back room of a bar and show them. I didn’t drink when I was showing movies, though, because beer was free for employees, but I don’t like beer, and mixed drinks are bloody expensive.
There were two exceptions. Once the bartender made a mistake on a coffee drink, which the waitress knew I liked, and she offered it to me. Another time, we had a print of Reefer Madness. The owner decided to do something for the employees, so after the place closed to the public, he opened the bar free to the employees, and I showed Reefer Madness. I used the opportunity to try some mixed drinks I’d heard were good, but never wanted to pay for. I had three or four, and got totally sloshed.
I’ve never had another job where drinking was acceptable, and one where it was expressly not allowed.
When I first started work in the 70s, we’d have a beer or two at lunch. It’s not something I would have bragged about, but it wasn’t so taboo as to be nonexistent. I did come back to my desk a little loaded a few times, but we had real offices then, and no one could notice. Also, I was doing a lot of business in Europe for awhile, and we’d always have beer or wine at lunch. No biggie there. These days, I’m self-employed so my boss would probably be OK with me having a glass of wine at lunch, but I maybe do once or twice a year.
For a year I ran a sailing club that included a lot of social events where a keg would be rolled out. In as much as any club related activities were a part of my job I suppose those events were work for me even if I didn’t have any particular duties specific to the event. I was known to enjoy a pint or two during the course of a typical cookout.
But never a single alcoholic drink during any other job. Not even a swig of beer while running the grill at the smaller student union at my university on a cold weekend afternoon. Not a nip when closing down company operations for Aramark at a arena which had a liquor stock they were required to destroy.
For 7 years I worked at a nuclear facility with zero tolerance. At previous places, a beer or two at lunch, upon occasion, is completely tolerated. Most people only go out for lunch once every week or two. It’s pretty much the same at my new place, but for obvious reasons I’m laying low for a bit.
In the booming years of high tech, in the late 90s, early 00s, I worked for a place that had a fully stocked beer fridge, but the direction was to not touch anything until after 4:00 PM. At the same place at Christmas the VP of Operations would have an open bar in his office for most of the day - drop by and have a few shots. Times have changed.
Yes sir. Just today there’s a guy sharing a growler of some Wolf Hills double IPA. It’s wretched stuff, but I appreciate him sharing it. We may share a laugh and a beer late in the afternoon, but we still have work to do and drive home. So I guess it’s not really drinkin’.
