All the time. I worked for a couple of software companies. We didn’t have the ping-pong and foosball tables to take a break at, but Friday around noon the alcohol would start to flow.
I work at an ad agency (and worked at a different ad agency previously). There’s always some beer and / or wine in the fridge, and we have a big liquor company as a client (my old ad agency had one of the major breweries as a client). Plus, probably once every few months, we have some sort of an “in-office, during work hours” celebration (such as for winning a new account) at which there’ll be beer and wine.
Ad agencies are, generally, loose, casual environments, and a drink here and there is part of the culture.
LOL, that brought back a pleasant memory. This would have been in the early 2000s.
I and a particular court reporter were paired up and worked together for years for the same judge. We were friends as well as co-workers. One fine spring Friday, we had nothing on our afternoon calendar and although we could be called to work for another judge in such circumstances, the chances were remote. We decided to take a hunky-dory afternoon with a long lunch at a nice restaurant close to the courthouse.
We ordered our meals and decided one little glass of wine with our lunches wouldn’t be a big deal. Just as we were toasting our good fortune, 3 judges (including our own) wandered in and caught us red-handed.
Judge One: “It would be YOUR staff, Bob.”
Our Judge: “Can’t let 'em out out of my sight on days like this.”
We were mortified.
After the judges were seated and served their own glasses of wine, they toasted in our general direction.
It was kind of them. No one spoke of it ever after. 
Obviously drinking on the job was not permitted, but most Friday evenings (and often Thursdays, too), judges, lawyers, court and legal office staff gathered together at the designated lawyer watering hole and enjoyed regular camaraderie. I still smile to remember some of those times. Fun, funny people with friendships that endure to this day.
I’m self-employed now, but I can’t remember the last time I drank during business hours. I’m sure I have, I just can’t remember the last time. Never know when a new client might call.
It is entirely possible for most people to behave as responsible adults and have a few celebratory shots.
Hard to believe now. I know.
Yeah, the agency I work for is not in the advertising biz, but we’re still on the creative side of the fence, so therefore there’s a kegerator in the kitchen. And I keep a couple bottles of better stuff stashed in my desk.
I had a guy working for me that was a connoisseur of mediocre scotches and would host “Scotch O’Clock” at his desk on Fridays at 3:30. I miss that guy.
Of course most of the time now I work remotely so I suppose I could be likkered up most of the time and people wouldn’t know as long as I keep turning work in.
Absolutely. It’s that one guy who isn’t “most people” that you have to worry about.
Never & I once worked in a package store.
Back in the day (in the 80’s) we had company Christmas parties with an open bar. Yes, I drank. Then we had to come back to work for 2-3 hours in the afternoon while mostly sozzled. I don’t know how we got any work done. We probably didn’t.
Also back in that era, a few of us used to go across the street to a bar and have a cocktail during the afternoon break. Looking back, that was not a good idea, but it was not against policy at that time, and it didn’t seem so bad compared to one manager who came back from lunch completely drunk nearly every day.
Some time during the 90’s this all changed, with written policies against drinking or using recreational drugs during the work day, or coming in under the influence. That manager had retired by then and the rest were already pretty sober. Things were better after that.
I was an editor at a book publishing house throughout the '80s and '90s. Most days you had to take an agent or an author out to lunch somewhere in Manhattan, and by GOD, those people could drink. On those days you just planned to have a “quiet” afternoon.
Did a mystery novel once by a retired publisher who created a publisher-detective. The character had to testify in court. The defense lawyer said “HAD YOU BEEN DRINKING?” And the protagonist said “Just the usual lunch…we had a couple of cocktails each, shared a bottle of wine…oh, and brandy afterwards.” The lawyer was able to throw the case out, and our hero’s feeling were hurt: “That was a LIGHT day for us.”
Shoot. My mother worked as an executive in the 80s. She told me her company had a fully stocked open bar (Complete with a paid bartender) on the executive floor of her building.
Crazy frick’n times.
Never. Not once.
All my jobs have a “people die when you mess up” aspect.
A short list of my careers: Truck driver, crane operator, submersible operator, ferry pilot, flight instructor, ambulance driver, heavy (factory) equipment operator, mechanic, and programmer for guidance and flight controls. Presumably, errors in the last two would be discovered prior to actual flights, but they would be career limiting. I sometimes wonder if programmers might do better with a couple of shots at lunch, but I’m not going to try it.
I’ve worked at various tech companies in the Puget Sound region. And at plenty of them people would gather around 4:00 on Friday to have a couple of beers, or there’d be a morale event with beer and wine, or we’d go out to lunch and have a beer or two.
But this would average out to a couple of beers every couple of weeks.
When I was in college, I worked as a call-in clerk at a big liquor warehouse type store. Whenever we would get a new product in, we were all given a shot glass full to test so we could be knowledgeable about the product.
I worked in the oil industry for many years, and it’s a boom or bust industry. Wnenever word would come up from corporate that there would be yet another layoff, it was longstanding tradition to gather in the top ranking manager’s office at 4 pm and break out the booze… We called it the Farewell Party.
Never during ‘official’ working hours, but I worked for a dot.com in the late 90s and it was a well lubricated era. Most of the senior staff had bottles in their desks and the beer fridge was fully stocked on Fridays. The office was directly over a VFW bar where they all knew our names. The Christmas party at corp HQ was an overnight event at a country club (yeah, they got us rooms :eek:) Thank god there were no cellphone cameras or social media then.
Utterly unthinkable in this day and age. I’ve moved around since then but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone order a beer at a company lunch in the past decade.
When I wasn’t self-employed, I worked for a newspaper and I worked for a small criminal defense law firm. Nobody would say a word if I had a drink or two for lunch, especially since often they’d be joining me, and we even had drinks in the office occasionally, but it was not like a stereotypical 40s or 50s newsroom where every reporter had a bottle of Old Overholt in their desk or anything.
I work in the television industry in London. We have a highly professional outlook and we take our work seriously but alcohol is very much a part of the social environment here. Successful and open collaboration plays such a vital part in my industry that we are encouraged to socialise as much as possible. We get lots of free alcohol but strictly after work ends or on a designated away day or suchlike. The odd pint of beer at lunch is acceptable though. Around my desk we have emergency bottles of whisky, vodka and prosecco - because you never know…
But what we do is not exactly life and death and we are not operating machinery.
Generally not “at” work i.e. in the office or while at a client. But most of the consulting firms where I worked have a long rich tradition of drinking after work. Happy hours, client dinners, strip clubs, etc.
The firm I work at now, once a month we get together for the “state of the company” meeting. Drinks are served during the meeting. Then we head down to the bar and drink some more.
A few years back I remember telling an analyst to go to Duane Reade and buy whatever he needed to clean himself up, then go to The Gap or wherever and get a new shirt because it was very obvious that he slept in his clothes from the night before…in the office…bathroom…in his own (or someone else’s) vomit.
This thread makes me want to have a beer.
I’m going to get one.
I’ll be right back.
Here I go…
The first time I smoked weed (decades ago), it was at work. At the end of the night, I got my cleanup work done in about a third the time.
A few years later, at a different place, a guy came in and gave me a handful of grass and clover with some mushrooms in it. At ate them (just the mushrooms) at closing. That turned out to be one memorable night – apart from being the last night of October, though that helped.
But alcohol? No. Just never seemed like the right idea.
I’m joining you, man.
I don’t have a ten-bob note up my nose though.