Sure. In New Orleans, nobody thought it was odd.
I ran the truck and vehicle repair shop for a large coffee company. Somehow my office became the “Bar”. On a daily basis all times of the day various execs would stop by for a drink while their car was being looed at. Most of them made sure I had their brand on hand at all times. After about 10 years of that I was questioning as to whether or not I had become alcoholic.
We have Beer Fridays at the office maybe a few times a year. That’s about it.
Same for me in the 70s in the military. Lunch at the club, or “hydraulic sandwiches” as we called the pitchers of beer. Dangerous and foolish, and I’m glad I stopped.
The year-end parties at the newspapers in Thailand get started before the paper’s put out. At the Bangkok Post, the parties were always right there in the newsroom while we were trying to work. Same with the papers’ anniversary parties. Those are usually some interesting editions the following day.
Yep. A few weeks ago some of our marketing team went to a local brewery and made a big batch of beer. They passed out samples to everyone who wanted one with HR’s blessing. I was walking back to my desk with one of my friends holding our beers and we both said something at the same time about how weird it was walking around work while holding a beer.
Yeah, baby. As some have mentioned, in the late '70s and all through the '80s, we drank at lunch. Definitely. I worked at one major arts organization for a while, and we would not go to a place for lunch unless they served liquor (i.e., not just beer and wine). During one reckless period around 1980, my colleague and I used to split a bottle of wine for lunch just about every day. :smack: And we kidded ourselves that no one noticed. What a couple of shit-for-brains we were.
At events you had to have an open bar if you expected anyone to show up.
Today my drinking is limited to a glass of wine (maybe) once a month at my book club.
No, never. Even at a late afternoon reception where there was alcohol, I felt I was still at work and I don’t drink at work.
When I was super young I did drink wine at a weekend event where it was coworkers and probably their families (some sort of picnic) and I am not pleased with my younger self. Especially when I came in to work the next day and everyone knew why I was sick. :o I’m lucky I didn’t get in trouble for that.
On particularly rotten days at the University I have been known to walk to the nearest pub and have some wine or Diet Coke and a shot with lunch. Sometimes, I am joined by students. As long as they are of legal age to drink, no one cares. Though for job security, I absolutely would not permit students I know to be underage drinking around me.
Heh, I just remembered as a young adult in West Texas and working in that convenience store, I had the graveyard shift one New Year’s Eve, and customers kept giving me drinks. That was a good night.
Several years after I graduated, I worked at a place where I would periodically meet with the hospice workers to discuss patients. At the end of one such meeting, someone got out a bottle of wine for some kind of commemoration, and we each had about a thimbleful, knowing full well that we would all have been fired on the spot if we’d been caught.
That place was, and still is, shady for other reasons. My boss, who was universally disliked by anyone who met her (except for the big shots) was in a near-fatal car crash a couple years later, and she had the local newspaper and TV stations do big, sappy stories about her. At least one reporter’s e-mailbox crashed because of the volume this person got of people telling her what this woman was really like. :eek:
My pastor does it every Sunday, with communion wine. 
I’ve encountered the trope of “hard-drinking journalists” before, but when I briefly worked for a business newspaper in the early 90’s, no one (to my knowledge) drank at work. Or if they did, it was minor enough not to be noticeable - maybe a glass of wine at lunch. Now, after our company softball games, we’d adjourn to a bar and split a pitcher or two of beer, but I never noticed anyone getting anywhere close to tipsy. Made it much more of a shock when I went to a party at the house of one of the more respected reporters, and found him and a group of others smoking weed. But that was on a Saturday night.
For the last twenty-odd years, I’ve worked for a retailer with a strict zero-tolerance policy. As I don’t drink (purely for aesthetic reasons - just don’t like the taste), this hasn’t been a burden.
I taught secondary school for 30 years. So, as nice as a good slug of booze might have been from time to time, no.
It wasn’t a huge thing at our newspaper, but a beer or two at lunch was common, with the occasional celebratory putting-the-paper-to-bed drinks at the office. Here in Chicago, I still hang out with a number of journos, and I’ve quite often met up with them while they were on call (on their shift, waiting for an assignment to come in from the office) at a bar. I no longer do editorial work but journalists are some of the hardest drinking folks I’ve come across, especially the hard news or correspondent types. It obviously varies a good bit; some I know do not touch alcohol at all. But, as a whole, fairly fond of drinking. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone sloshed at a job, but lubricated, yes. Most of the ones I know who drink can really hold their liquor well.
My folks also enjoy telling me the story of how when I was born (back in 1975) the physician who did our delivery was totally sloshed. They were all non-chalant about it, too, laughing and telling me “yeah, he was drunk, but he was a good doctor.” I really don’t think they could get away with that now. (And in high school, we had at least one teacher who was routinely pretty visibly sloshed when teaching. How he managed to get away with it, I don’t know, but he never got fired. He was the tennis coach and taught some random class nobody cared about. Actually, thinking about my high school teachers, I’m pretty shocked some of them got away with what they got away with.)
Beer or wine at lunch was always a thing from my career in medical research through the end of my software career. At the end, what we called “Tea Time” on Fridays at 4 was fueled wirh company supplied beer.
My office has beer and wine in the fridge. On my first or second week there, a friend who worked there came over with a bottle of red and a bottle of white, and said, “Happy Hour day!” Most of the office had a drink. I don’t think anyone had more than two. I was shocked because the only other time I’d had a drink at work was when we were caught at work during a blizzard and we raided people’s desks known to have booze. There was also pizza that someone brought in.
Happens every so often, mostly when the marketing team makes a big sale, though we also will have a drink or two during the annual Halloween party (we decorate the departments, and employees bring their kids in to trick or treat). You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a senior VP dressed as a banana, drinking a beer. 
My gf is in advertising. Her agency has a bar, including a keg system. When things get tense, one of the partners bartends. Smoking weed in the bathroom is tolerated so long as it’s kept discrete.
I never drank at work, but I’ve gone to work with some amazing hangovers from binge drinking the night before. Fortunately I gave up alcohol.
Not really, personally.
But I will say the 1989 workday Christmas party at Lorimar Telepictures came pretty close to the way office parties were once depicted in films from the 1950s and 1960s. The champagne started flowing and kept on flowing, with everyone circulating around and visiting in each other’s offices. A group wandered through the halls singing carols while holding up a sort of cardboard sleigh around them.
In short a good time was had by all.