Drinking at work?
- Thread starter Duffyjr
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manicrodder
$50 site donor 2022
Think Homer Simpson.
Back in the late '70's, early '80's I'd often have beer on ice in the car. I was set up in my department and my supervisor told me once he didn't care what I did as long as I kept the machines running so if everything was running good I'd go once or twice a night and have a beer. If I didn't have beer in the car there was a bar less than a mile up the road and I'd often drive there pick up a couple beers during my 20 minute lunch and have them drank before I got back to the parking lot. The work environment in my department was often 100-120 degrees in the summer so killing a couple beers wasn't hard to do. Looking back now I realize this probably wasn't the best decisions I made in my life. When I worked 2nd shift lots of us including the supervisor would sit in the parking lot after work and drink beer. Often we'd still be there drinking when 1st shift was coming in to work. I was in my late teen's/early twenties and didn't give much thought about drinking then driving or drinking while driving. I wouldn't do it now if I still drank. Maybe experience has taught me a few lessons over the years. A few years later I started working construction and sometimes had to be at work at 3-4 AM for a concrete pour on high rise buildings after having been up drinking till midnight. Again not some of my better decisions.
Back in the 90’s I worked for a beer distribution company. On Tuesday evenings at 6pm we would have our weekly sales meeting. In this conference room they would have this huge tub with ice in it and dump cases of beer in to it. There were usually about 15-20 guys attending. Meetings lasted up until about 8pm. People would get stupid drunk. I NEVER once had even one beer at these meetings. No way I was going to drink then drive home. I would grab a beer or two and take them with me. Even though I was a younger man then I couldn’t believe the company would hand out alcohol and let people get rip roaring drunk then hop in their cars to drive.
I was down in Santiago, Chile for about a week a couple years ago spending some time checking up on a vendor who wrote a lot of our technical manuals for us, and when they took me out to lunch every day around 11:30 or so, they would all have wine and beer along with their food, and I don't just mean a little. It was like happy hour to them and it was barely noon. They couldn't believe I wasn't drinking along with them, I told them if I did this back in the U.S. we would get marched out the door, which they found incredulous. Somewhat explained the quality of their work....
Back in the early 90's I worked for a cellular phone company and once per quarter they would have all the sales people, probably a hundred people or so, up to the main local office for a happy hour and hors d'oeuvres type of get together on the last Friday of the quarter, and they would wheel out huge coolers full of beer and wine. No limits. People would get blitzed. Whats more bizarre is that the president of the company was very religious and anti-alcohol, but he was the one who arranged it all. Made no sense to anyone, but we all enjoyed it. Less than zero chance that would happen in this day and age. Looking back, seems like a really, really bad idea.
Back in the early 90's I worked for a cellular phone company and once per quarter they would have all the sales people, probably a hundred people or so, up to the main local office for a happy hour and hors d'oeuvres type of get together on the last Friday of the quarter, and they would wheel out huge coolers full of beer and wine. No limits. People would get blitzed. Whats more bizarre is that the president of the company was very religious and anti-alcohol, but he was the one who arranged it all. Made no sense to anyone, but we all enjoyed it. Less than zero chance that would happen in this day and age. Looking back, seems like a really, really bad idea.
Years ago when i was working construction, there were always guys that when they went to lunch actually went to the bar Everyday. The hardcore ones would try to pound down as many beers as they could, before they started shaking. I never drank during the day, especially at work. Some jobs sites didn't care what you did, while other sites would post someone at the gate of the parking lot with a pair of binoculars. If they spotted you drinking in your car at lunch, they wouldn't let you back on the site. Your were gone for good. I asked my wife who is a teacher, if any teachers drink at lunch and she looked at me like I was nuts. They also would be gone.,,,
I'm surprised the thread went on for three pages before someone mentioned construction. I have too many examples to list!
Speaking of bars, I'll just mention this one concrete sub we used to see on various jobsites. They used to go (every day) to a certain bar which featured a lingerie show at lunchtime. The funniest part about this is sometimes the bar would be an hour or more away from the site.... They'd go anyway! They'd keep a close watch on the time, and then just drop everything to pile into one or two vehicles to go to the bar. Eventually, they'd come back, all smelling like breweries and strippers.
Sexual harassment lawsuits don't come from drunk people. They come from companies that do not respond to the complaints in an appropriate manner.
Years ago I performed an inspection at a chemical factory in France. We had a great lunch with wine, stinky cheese, some weird meat loafs. Stinky cheese, wine, and baguette is awesome. Weird loaf not so awesome.
We still go out drinking at my work about every other month or when we need to blow off some stress. We expect people to act like adults and not over indulge. We also have virtual happy hours over Zoom.
Back in the 80s, people drank a lot at the factory where I worked. Guys would pound a 6 pack in 20 minutes at lunch. I didn't even know that was possible. We'd often sneak beers back to work and drink on the roof. People would smoke weed and we'd find needles in the parking lot from the night shift folks.
Woman that I worked with passed out in the bathroom at our holiday party and the CEO's wife found her on the floor. She told me her husband would only accompany her if she agreed to control herself and she said what fun would that be so he wasn't there and she got a ride to the party with a coworker. She's one of those people whose personality changes a lot when they drink. She is very attractive and aloof when sober but a drink or two in her and all she wants to talk about is sex. She showed up to work the next work day like nothing happened. No one said anything to her as far as I know and she left the company for a higher paying position after a couple years.
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Imo it's totally unprofessional to mix business with pleasure.
Funny story:
Back in my retail days, everyone in our department (shoe and clothing store at the mall) was to bring a snack or desert for us all to share one Christmas Eve. I made chocolate chip cookies. Well, our supervisor (70-ish lady), she made Jack Daniels chocolate balls and brought them. Man in no time at all, we all had totally passed out right there in our department's stockroom which was right behind the cash registers haha!!
Funny story:
Back in my retail days, everyone in our department (shoe and clothing store at the mall) was to bring a snack or desert for us all to share one Christmas Eve. I made chocolate chip cookies. Well, our supervisor (70-ish lady), she made Jack Daniels chocolate balls and brought them. Man in no time at all, we all had totally passed out right there in our department's stockroom which was right behind the cash registers haha!!
I work at a CNC machine shop. Owner of the company keeps a cooler stocked on his side of the warehouse. (He keeps his car collection, RVs, tractors, etc. In a segregated portion of our material stock warehouse) Anyways, there is almost always someone up there having a drink after work hours. Been like that for many years. Apparently, the drinking used to be much more prevalent in the past, and is currently mild in comparison. Still, I like it. It really does bring some of us together and has created bonds that go beyond just business. I'm glad and thankful to be invited to these social gatherings.
Many years before I was hired at my city fire department there was a two beer limit with dinner. In fact the station i spent a year of my stint as lieutenant at used to have a huge brewery across the street and the "dinner bucket" that was walked across the street to get free beer with still hung on the wall when the station was replaced with a new one a couple blocks away.
Those days of course are gone now but I have seen a cooler or two in a trunk here and there on all nighters
Those days of course are gone now but I have seen a cooler or two in a trunk here and there on all nighters
the only time i drank on the job was during the bosnian wars 93-95. i was there 6 months in 93 and 7 months in 95. i drank a lot of coffee and i had a gigantic bottle of baileys. i was a field engineer in the canadian forces and served as a blue helmet for the united nations in bosnia.
I must not drink on the job. If I'm on break nobody will say anything if I have a beer or a glass of wine with a meal. If I were to pull out a hip flask at the office they'd send me to see the excessively corpulent and mustachioed HR lady. They'd put me on leave, send me into a program, and if there were any recurrence they'd take my creds and I'd be escorted off the premises for good in disgrace. Luckily there's no conflict of interest because I barely drink any alcohol.
This might be part of my companies problem, no HR department.
So today is "beer cart" Friday, anyone want to take a guess at what time it will actually start?
I'll keep you posted.
Depends on the culture and maturity of the employees. I was never at a drink on the job place.
Drinking AT the job (site) is what we allowed.
We had a beer and chips Friday that started at 5 PM in our Montreal office.
It wasn't unlimited and both the beer and chips ran out after about an hour and I cant recall anyone being profoundly stupid.
Drinking AT the job (site) is what we allowed.
We had a beer and chips Friday that started at 5 PM in our Montreal office.
It wasn't unlimited and both the beer and chips ran out after about an hour and I cant recall anyone being profoundly stupid.
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Only drank "on the job" two times...
One was about 8 years ago and I was visiting a supplier with a customer of ours in Italy (both large name companies). We went to lunch at the company cafeteria to find they had pitchers of red wine at all the tables, free and unlimited. I did have a glass of wine at lunch.
The other was when I worked door/bouncer at a bar, needless to say I kept the bartenders happy, and they kept me happy.
One was about 8 years ago and I was visiting a supplier with a customer of ours in Italy (both large name companies). We went to lunch at the company cafeteria to find they had pitchers of red wine at all the tables, free and unlimited. I did have a glass of wine at lunch.
The other was when I worked door/bouncer at a bar, needless to say I kept the bartenders happy, and they kept me happy.
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Back in a different life, we had a surprise celebration for our CEO, best Champagne, Shrimp so big you could choke, I sipped a little it was a requirement, ended by 2.30 left at 6pm ok
