My anger for someone like this aside, and with all due respect for a veteran board member, may I ask a question? Please, again, no offence is meant.
Why would you do this? What business of it is yours? Are they harming you in some way? Is this a person who can do harm to others or themselves, or are they just bothering you in some way?
Aye, that’s what I meant. Oops. :smack:
But yeah, two ounces? Small potatoes. Four ounces? No big deal. No one was smelling any alcohol on your breath, that’s for certain. Not with burger, fries and a salad. They’d be more likely to smell the dressing from the salad (if you used any).
Unless you were drooling, weaving, puking, and passing out on the floor, I’m not sure why anyone would care. Yet there’s always someone, isn’t there?
It may help if you know that Qadgop is a doctor in a prison hospital. Both a profession and a work environment where impaired judgement can be fatal.
You want me to ignore an impaired nurse or doctor who is rendering patient care? Or an impaired security officer who is supervising maximum-security inmates?
Security and safety and patient health are all part of my job description. So it is my business.
I’m going to second what Shagnasty said. When my programming job in the past became really bad and I pulled a 80 hour week between Christmas and New Years. I wasn’t worried about drinking at lunchtime. One or two beers could only help at that point. Another time my boss took me out for a dinner break and we both had a few beers. dmatsch isn’t driving a Bus with School kids or keeping Prisoners under control. It really isn’t that bad.
On the other hand, I got out of the job, because it was chewing me up and my current job is largely 8-5 and a few hours for month-end.
Jim
And, again, no offence meant, but how many hours/minutes/seconds during *your *working day do you surf/post on this board? According to standard HR rules, even ONE post/one minute is too much.
How would you feel if someone ratted you out for this, seemingly minor thing?
Qadgop is a doctor at a prison, which is quite another thing, indeed. His underlings had best not have ethanol breath; it’s the best for all involved. 
Pardon me if I am speaking out of turn, Qadgop, I do not mean to speak for you.
The way I see it is, Qadgop and Mr Bus Guy work in places that have very good reasons for no-alcohol policies and would probably be negligent not to drop the hammer on someone. But the OP? He’s sitting at a desk for 16 hours typing code. Unless a drink has an effect on his coding, I don’t see how it matters unless there is a specific workplace regulation. Besides, I’ve seen too many programs I’d swear were written by drunk programmers. What’s one more?
Exactly my point, and the difference between your job and mine. Nobody under my charge in my department is in direct responsibility for someone’s lives. I’m a web programmer for Og’s sake.
This is why I should preview and scroll back for new posts. Your job is very different from a Programmer. Typically no one dies if the new version is not ready on time and slightly inebriated might actually be better than Stressed out and ready to walk out. I speak from past experience. Medical care requires your full facilities. Of course this does buck the entire concept of the typical Residency.
Every time I write a bug, Og kills a kitten. I should have taken the poo wittwle kittie’s lives in account when I made my OP mistake.
Remember back in the fifties and sixties when managers would invite a client in and tell a few “stupid nigger/kike/chink” joke and everyone laughed?
Yeah.
(Not that I’m trying to start a Godwin, I just hate it when people say, ‘But back in such and such we did it and it was fine!’)
I am completely on your side here, especially in light of this in the OP:
My workplace is similar. On special occasions, not only is alcohol tolerated but senior staff will spring for it to be brought in. My former boss (now retired) most certainly DID have a bottle of scotch in the cabinet for those times where the working group needed to have a little speakeasy time to let off some steam. We work our asses off and the higher ups know it.
Thursday is my supervisor’s 50th birthday. He’s a great guy and our working group likes and respects him. Yes, about 2:30 we’re going have a “meeting” in one of the conference rooms and knock a few back.
The work we produce is prodigious. Several years ago, if we were to look ahead and see what we would be doing, we would have agreed it was outside the bounds of reality. Like you and your 16 hour days, sometimes in cases like this you just have to get everone together for some “team-building” time.
So what if you had a couple at lunch? The fact that someone narc’d you out for that is pretty low, man. “I thought I smelled alcohol on his breath”? and feel the burning need to tell someone? WTF? Keep it to yourself, Mrs. Krabbitz.
OK now you just crossed into idiot territory. How the fuck do you know what QTM’s rules are? I bet you dollars to donuts he ain’t breakin any posting here. You are an idiot. You work for somebody else they ain’t paying you to throow back a few hard drinks at lunch. If you worked for me you would be so fucking fired, it ain’t even funny.
But that clearly isn’t the case here, since he was at the office. Most people don’t go to the office and conduct meetings on their own time, as the OP described in his account of the incident.
Alcohol may have been tolerated, but I seriously doubt it was expressly allowed. Very few employers would be able to gain WC insurance if they had a written policy of allowing alcohol consumption on the job. And I don’t recall anyone here being SHOCKED at dmatsch’s behaviour.
In general, I agree that MYOB is a good rule of thumb. In cases where someone else’s business can affect my business, tho, I am like Qadgop and I’ll speak up. I’ve done so about this very subject (drinking at lunch) as a matter of fact. Of course, in my business, a few drinks can lead to things dropping out of the ceiling onto people’s heads or heavy equipment running people over. Obviously isn’t a danger in dmatsch’s line of work, but as I said, that time is not your own; it belongs to your employer.
And I guess my point is that there are times and places where alcohol consumption is so inappropriate that it’s everyone’s responsibility to take action when someone behaves that way.
Would you consider it snitching and a pittable offense if a receptionist reported that the brain surgeon was about to perform an aneurysm resection with alcohol on his breath?
As for internet at work, it doesn’t rise to the same level as intoxication at work frankly. But my boss and find out where I’ve been anytime he wants. And he’ll let me know if it’s a problem. Hell, my work internet habits brought him to the Straight Dope, which he found quite fascinating. 
I think that is the whole point. Different job, different rules. The job I worked at, we would have Business lunches and the CFO would order a bucket of Coronas. I still typically drank Ice Teas but their was an implied understanding that drinking at lunch was not going to get you fired if it was occasional. I believe dmatsch is describing a similar circumstance.
As far as his questions to QtM, he is new to the board and probably had no idea that **QtM ** is a Doctor. Try a little understanding askeptic.
Jim
Again, yes I talked about my workplace, but also my ethics, which say drink and other intoxicants stay separate from work. Regardless of whether or not you’re in a safety-related field or not, alcohol has an impairing effect.
But…
I’ve been in jobs where drinking was not just ignored but even, like the OP’s workplace, part of the group culture. And, as bricker pointed out, that makes a difference in this instance. If the bosses do it, and everyone does it, then clearly no one cares. Hell, in the office my wife works in, they end each day in the bar downstairs, and half of their lunches involve a few drinks.
Which should make the OP groundless anyway. Ok, he still has a beef with the busybody, but if this is tolerated, then what’s the foul? Where’s the real harm if you got narc’d out for something thay’s winked at?
As far as how much of the day someone spends here, actually no - I don’t have a specific prohibition from being on the internet or posting to message boards. I’m expected to get my work done, be available and not be distracted by anything to the extent that it gets in the way of my job.
I have not stooped to the level of insulting someone. I reserve the respect that you do the same. QTM’s rules HAVE been spelled out in threads here. Take the time to read them. He is a Prison medic that’s responsible for people’s LIVES. In that situation, yes, I agree that “throow”-ing a few back at lunch would be a bad thing.
Re-read what I do. I’m a programmer. Read read some of my posts regarding what goes on at “working” lunch meetings, even involving the owners of the company.
Again, I will ask you the same question I asked him. How many minutes of your work day do you spend on this board?
My lunch time was not on company time. It was my time. As long as it didn’t affect work performance (which it didn’t – I worked until midnight that night), it’s nobody’s business.
Don’t get nasty, now. Let’s keep this civilized.
Even my boss, after an 18 hour day would be known to proclaim, “I need a bud, and I’m not talking about a beer.”
How’s that describing the atmosphere of my company?