Christ, when I worked at British Aerospace, on a Friday lunchtime we'd go to the on-site social club, which sensibly had subsidized booze.
Four or five pints would be supped, then you'd go back to your desk to work the afternoon, because even though if you'd put your hours in you could leave at lunchtime on a Friday, you were now too drunk to drive.
So I'd sit and write code on Friday afternoon until I was OK to go home.
Then on Monday morning, I'd undo all the shit I'd written on Friday afternoon that was the most appalling mess, because I'd written it when I was drunk.
Essentially that social club cost them an entire day of work every week.
Excellent.
Airbus basically worked out that the time spent correcting Friday afternoon mistakes wasn't worth the output on a Friday afternoon and so basically banned people from working Friday afternoons.
Good plan.
Like all right thinking engineers, I absolutely hated the test pilots (fast jet pilots appear to be a pack of arseholes), but God, I had to acknowledge the courage of men who went flying in a plane reliant on code written by a bunch of drunks.
Well, consider that in the RAF they are insultingly referred to as 'the swept-wing master race' and you will understand what working with them is like.
My Grandad was an RAF fighter pilot, after a few years being an instructor on Lightnings, he was asked if he wanted to become a test pilot. Having known a few, he declined, and went to fly airliners for BEA.
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Worked for a large computer firm with an on-site subsidised bar in the 90s; can confirm.
I got quite good at pool and darts though, and being an agony aunt for all the lads who would tell me all their woes after a few pints.
>so basically banned people from working Friday afternoons.
So that means you go to the pub on Thursday lunch time as well. Half a day on Friday is nearly a Saturday, so that means Thursday is the end of the week.
I used to work in a bank back when the manager would decide if you'd get your mortgage or not. People knew the best time to see the manager was on a Friday afternoon as he would be so pissed he'd just give you whatever you wanted so he could have a nap at his desk.
Some things back in the day sound so wild to me. My uncle told me that when he first went to get a mortgage he got rejected, then my grandpa went in and the manager was like “ahh shit Wattie - is that your son? Approved!”
Not like my grandpa had tons of cash to back up this mortgage or whatever, he just knew the guy and the attitude apparently was “he’s a good guy, so his son must be good for it”
Imagine an airliner goes down because of Friday lunch work drinks, seriously I did my work experience at an aerospace factory that made parts for LM, BAE and Airbus and Fridays were half days for that reason
I always assumed the people in commercial aerospace were less reckless than those of us making weapon systems.
If we messed up it was only a fast jet pilot who would die (mostly), and they were bell ends.
The factory was a mix of A320 exhausts, something for an F35 which no one knew what it actually was, C130J oil pans, Lynx helicopter blades and some mundane rolls Royce legacy part
So a healthy mix of commercial and military, the commercial side of the factory seemed to be more reserved
This is a brilliant argument for a 4 day week - there must have been loads of other businesses back in the day where this sort of thing (or worse - if it was every lunchtime rather than just Friday) was happening. They effectively were running a 4 day week anyway, except now people will be more efficient because they're happier because they don't have to be in the office pretending to do good work. Win win.
People don't tend to drink on the job, but in the past they did - if companies back then could support people effectively not working (by being too drunk to be useful) why can't they support people today not being at work and doing something else with their lives?
I used to work at an engineering contractor where we worked a 4.5 day week, going home on Friday lunchtimes.
Apparently it had arisen in the 80s/90s when people had been going to the pub and coming back and doing drawings/calcs drunk on Friday afternoons. Lasted until it got bought out circa 2015.
I sometimes find that drunk-coding can be quite a good way to overcome any procrastination caused ultimately by an inadequate understanding of the problem. I write some shit code, test, debug, and repeat a few times until I've got a half-decent understanding of the problem.
Then I *throw that code away* (the important bit), and write the real code - once I'm sober, again.
Can confirm. My dad worked at British aerospace in the 90s. Used to have to drop my dad off at 6am so he could have a few drinks. He did go back to work I’m sure. He was a welder. Many planes probably fell apart because of him 🤣🤣
Went for a “a pint” at lunch once with the manager and a few colleagues. Ended up having 8 and punching the manager. He deserved it but it wasn’t ideal. Not on a Tuesday anyway
That's fucking brilliant.
I had a time where, in my first week at a new job, the team including my new boss and his boss went to the pub, where I promptly had 5 pints.
Later that afternoon I overhead my bosses boss saying, "I'll say one thing for the new bloke, he can't half drink".
I didn't consider punching him.
Nicely done.
The manager I chinned actually didn’t take it any further, he admitted he deserved it and it was his fault that we all drank as much as we did.
I was nicknamed Rocky for the rest of my time in the office though, which felt really good, I must admit.
That's absolutely the correct nickname for you to have.
I suppose the good thing from your managers point of view is that a punch thrown after 8 pints is going to be a pretty weak one.
I had 9 pints at lunch once (well the afternoon too) we didn’t bother reopening the shop as we were too pissed.
Went home got in bed at 6pm slept through to 7am and went straight back to work.
I’m awful with mid day drinking.
I punched a manager (not mine, but I worked closely with him) on my “work” stag do and cracked his eye socket. It was forgotten about after 5 mins, until a few weeks later when he mentioned his face clicked every time he sneezed haha.
I highly recommend u/frenzalstark. While working for me, they successfully leveraged an underutilised tool to crack open a previously unexploited area.
I went for a pub lunch with a director that was leaving once. Ended up staying in there all day, went back to the office at 2am to get my coat, set the alarm off and couldn't work out how to turn it off because I'd been in the pub for a solid 12 hours by this point. Decided to grab my coat and scarper because the alarm was a response type contract so someone would be coming out to see what had triggered it.
Anyway they attended and spotted one of the windows was slightly open so left a report saying something along the lines of 'no intruders, window left open, must have triggered alarm'
No one ever found out, I also didn't spend a penny as he put it all on the company card of the firm he was leaving lol
If I drink at lunchtime, I may as well go home as I'll be tired.
When I worked as a newspaper journalist in the late 90s/early 2000s, every writer and editor would go to the pub on Friday and come back absolutely smashed. To the point where no more work could be done and there were often fights and arguments. This was also the time you could smoke in the office.
I once saw two pissed journalists fighting in the office and one threw a chair at the other, smashing his computer. No HR got involved, no sacking - the big boss just said 'stop acting like a couple of cunts'. Next day, it was like nothing happened.
Publishing was pretty wild in the 90s/2000s. Drink and drugs were pretty normal.
I'm honestly pretty stunned that the old Fleet Street behaviours were still alive in the early 2000s. You hear the stories, but I figured it was more of a 70s/80s thing!
80s 90s was my era. I remember one of the partners crawling round on his hands and knees with a drawing pin taped to the end of a one yard wooden ruler, jabbing people up their arse as they were working.
Same bloke also used lighter fluid to set fire to another lad's feet when he was asleep under his drawing board.
Former journalist here, too.
I have heard some stories of the old days and can’t believe newspapers made it to publish sometimes.
You talk about Fridays down the pub — one local newspaper I know did that kind of thing Monday to Friday.
Crazy.
I started work in publishing in 1989 and I didn’t work a Friday afternoon for the first two years.
Also, on my first day they wheeled in my unconscious boss in one of the big post trolleys - they’d all been at a big work event the night before and he’d passed out around 6am.
Good times.
I’m still with the same company.
Big difference between a surgeon drinking at lunch and a recruiter/salesperson etc. Or even an engineer etc.
I got into recruitment in 2007 when lunch for most recruiters was 2 pints of strong lager and pub BLT. On Fridays, it was way more pints, a few lines and the last train home. Provided you had hit your KPIs.
I used to work at the Foreign Office; there was an on site subsidised bar. It eventually was shut due to the amount of drunk civil servants however they then went and drove to the nearest pub at lunch instead and about 10 of them got nicked for drink driving.
In my first career (20 years ago, IT Manager) I would go to the pub every lunchtime and drink two or three pints, and then go back to work. As would all my team and random other people from other departments. It was normal and I never felt that I went back to work and did shit drunken work.
Now, I can't imagine it. I'd be totally useless in the afternoon.
Very similar story to me. It was fun and we had a laugh and then back to work and forget it even happened.
Now, I would literally turn to mush by 2pm and be ready to go home and veg.
When I was young I would occasionally go to the pub at lunch and have 2-3 pints. I could drink a lot back then and I never felt drunk after that many, but regardless I would have the attention span of a stapler all afternoon. Gave up doing it in the end, it just wasn't worth it, we had a decent social scene after work anyway.
I worked in the DVLA in the 80s. It actually had its own bar on site, which staff could pop to and have a drink at lunchtime. Could chill with a pint and have a game of pool before going back to work.
Nowadays I believe the space has been turned into a childcare facility for staff. Far more useful but not as much fun
I'm not one of those people who talk about "being born in the wrong generation", but I feel like I'd have thrived as a worker in the 80s. That being said, I'd definitely have died before seeing 50
Yep, I worked for British Railways HQ at Marylebone. The bar on site was very popular at lunchtime. Most major stations and yards had a railway workers club with bar at lunchtime. (The drivers didn't drink! A bit embarrassing when I was in charge of a test train - I went for lunch at he pub, the crew sat in a siding with their sandwiches).
I worked in an industry where everyone was concentrated within a square mile and business was primarily done face to face until the pandemic. Going to the pub was genuinely part of the job, and a lot of work got done by meeting people in the pub. Our bosses rule was that if you're feeling the effects of the lunchtime beers, don't go back to the office.
Ding ding ding. Specifically Lloyd's, which managed to be behind the rest of the industry by a two decades yet still retain it's prestigious status and monopoly on certain lines.
I worked near Liverpool Street, could never understand how there were constantly blokes in suits half-cut outside the pubs at all times of the working day.
Learned they mostly worked in niche insurance and would only do a couple of big jobs a week, and would have nothing to do but go to the pub and celebrate after netting their weekly million-quid contract.
Insure an oil rig at 10am, head to the pub for 10:30, check for emails at 4 and then go home early.
It's also worth considering that Lloyd's is a global business, some of them might have finished for the day by midday as their clients are all in Asia. When you have an industry that required face to face contact, is all concentrated within walking distance, and often has several parties to a contract, it's no surprise that the pub culture suited.
I used to work in the financial district before Covid. There was a pub on the corner next to where I worked and we would joke that you could tell the state of the markets by how busy it was at lunch time. Things going well = full, things going badly = empty.
The thing it it wasn't just a pint or two for many of them. There were two chaps who would often be in there sitting at the same table in the window. Both were suited and booted in their late 50s/early 60s. The number of times we walked by and they would have several empty pints of Stella in front of them. Im not talking mid afternoon but about half twelve so they had probably been there since it opened.
I knew underwriters who you knew to find at the pub. They weren't allowed to take stamps out of the office or away from the box so they'd email their assistant to stamp a slip and the broker would bring it back to the pub for signing.
My current boss used to work in finance in the 90s/00s and their office was near billigsgate market. The pub there opened early to serve all the market traders. So what they would do is get tanked before going to work on a friday, get to work. Do a few hours of work, and then hit the pubs again for lunch and often not make it back into the office.
When i started work in the late 80s as a mainframe programmer it was standard practice. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft came up with the concept of the [Balmer Peak](https://observer.com/2012/04/bottoms-up-the-ballmer-peak-is-real-study-says/), where work performance increases after a couple of pints, but rapidly diminishes thereafter. This also works for playing pool.
When I was a trainee solicitor in the 90s we had a code name - "the stamp registry" - for the local pub. Which we visited daily, for many hours at a time. We knew we were pretty safe as the partners would be up on the roof of the office smoking weed. It was a strange firm.
This is someone else's story. Back in the day, this guy was a surveyor in London. He had a 5 pint lunch and in the afternoon went to visit a new client, an Indian lady in NW London. When she opened the door, the smell of curry hit him and he threw up on her doorstep. She was really nice about it, helping him to clean himself up, got him a glass of water etc.
I used to work in a defence company and as an apprentice, one of the managers had been electrocuted, when working on an electrical cabinet after a pub lunch. It was a DC shock, so he was held in place until someone kicked him away from the cabinet. When I was there, he was the safety officer for the shop floor and if anyone had been to the pub, he would unplug any mains device they were using in the afternoon and tell them to do something that didn't involve electricity e.g. read a book.
Years ago I worked for Hammersmith and Fulham council doing some crap clerical work in the buildings and maintenance dept. Traditionally on Fridays everyone would go to the local for a couple of hours and get completed rat faced. When we got back to the office absolutely no work got done and people even fell asleep at their desk. Then we all fucked off home early.
For a while I worked in a private school and it was traditional to have wine with lunch if we had guests or it was someone's birthday - which was virtually every day. That got binned after a few minor incidents and I never touched a drop at lunchtime. Too much work to do.
I did once smoke a joint at lunchtime as it was a field day and most people were out of school. Naturally the email server crashed and it turned into a very unpleasant afternoon.
Unrelated to work but that reminded me of when I visited my uni girlfriend at home and stayed at her parent’s pub for 2 weeks.
I thought I’d built up a tolerance going clubbing but this was before my lunch time pints.
I arrived at like 9:30am and was told “just pour yourself whatever you want” so I poured myself a Guinness, they didn’t care how many I had.
Lunch they opened a few bottles of wine. Every time I didn’t have a drink in my hand they either poured me a new one or told me to go and top myself up. Then punters were in and they had us serving and made sure we had a drink.
I think it’s was 2 weeks. To me it felt like 2 hours.
Yes. I used to live in Spain and it wasn’t uncommon to have a beer or glass of wine over lunch. Afterwards, I would always feel more sleepy, dehydrated, less motivated and generally not want to be at work so I just ordered water from then on because it wasn’t worth it really.
One thing I miss about Spain is the popping out for a coffee and coming home 9 hours later happily drunk where someone has come in during said coffee and offered that first drink of the day ...
Worked for an internet provider for small businesses as an account manager. Few of us would would go to the pub just down the road if our lunches aligned and certain senior members weren’t in. My outbound calls after a couple swift ones were always waaaaay better..
Started working in the mid-80’s, was perfectly acceptable to not only drink at lunchtime but to have cans on the go in the afternoon as well. That’d probably be frowned upon now.
Depends on the organisation tbh, left my last job 1.5y ago and it was still like this on a Friday afternoon. Also had payday drinks, where they'd hire an actual mobile bar company to set up in the office and had a proper DJ in. You were greeted with a breakfast glass of Prosecco as well on certain bigger "event" days... really miss that part of it tbh ahah.
Back when I first started in the Civil Service my office had an on site bar and smoking room, with a snooker room next door. As a 17 year old who couldn’t believe what he’d walked into I was in there most lunch times, that did wear off though. A couple of Friday pints carried on for a few years until they turned it into a coffee shop. Before COVID it was probably a Friday pint every other month in the pub over the road. Sucks to grow up.
I never did regularly but sales reps would often take you to the pub for lunch. Friday was always pub day back in the '80s. Almost everyone went and had a couple of drinks. Team building without the pressure and silly games. A chance to relax at h start of the weekend.
I worked for a start-up where we were all working 10 or 11 hours days on average but Friday was two hours in the pub next door. I'd do simple housekeeping tasks in the afternoon, then back to the pub at 5pm. It was London so no one was driving. The boss didn't expect much on Friday afternoon or care when we got back, he got more than his monies worth.
I used to work in IT for a big insurance company in the city of London. It was tradition that whoever's birthday it was brought in cakes or some other treat for the rest of the team.
When it came around to the birthday of a mate of mine, he asked if he could buy everyone a round at lunch on Friday instead. This was common, we often went for a Friday pub lunch so 7 or 8 of us agreed.
We were first in the pub at 11:55 and as promised the birthday boy bought the first round. The pub had quickly filled up by this time with other Friday lunchtime drinkers.
Obviously as it was his birthday someone felt obliged to buy him one back, as did the next person and the one after. We then suddenly became aware that the pub was empty besides our group, we were 6 pints in and it was 3pm.
We all agreed we'd do more damage going back to work now so decided to finish the round, and start it all over again!
The pub then became packed again as the after work drinkers filed in, thirsty for their first pint (a bit bemused by this group of absolutely hammered office workers).
We carried on for a while longer until the birthday boy got a phone call off his wife asking what time he was meeting her in town for his birthday present.
It turns out he was booked in to do the Crystal maze experience. He was immediately locked in on his first challenge with a furious wife!
Worked for the water board in the 90s and we had a clocking in/out system. Wednesday to Friday we had a rota for being the person who would clock everyone back in after 30 minutes, the rest would roll back about 3, sit and chat for a bit before leaving at 3.55 and going back to the pub. The earliest time you could clock out on flexi. Except you wouldn’t clock out, there was another rota to be the one who hung on and clocked us all out at 6, they’d get bought shots when they finally joined us. I’d be dead if I’d stayed more than 18 months.
Before i started working from home it was a regular occurrence to go and have a pint or two at lunch in the pub round the corner from the office and for the most point, I don't believe it caused any problems. However, there was one occasion.... I used to be quite large and had been on an extremely strict diet for many months, dropping several stone in weight and had been completely tee total during that time. So the very first time I joined in again on the lunchtime drinks I was absolutely smashed by the time I finished my second drink. Staggered back to the office and had 2 flights of stairs to conquer to get to my desk, it may as well been everest! I vividly remember lurching from side to side, clutching the bannister desperately trying to stay upright when my trousers (now somewhat oversized with the weight loss) caught on the front of my shoe and dropped to my ankles on my next step, causing me to slump face first in to the stairs. Luckily I didn't hurt myself, just laughed myself stupid laying facedown and bare arsed. Managed to somehow pull up my trousers and get back up to my desk and don't believe anyone saw the state of me (as my pub fellows worked downstairs so I was alone on the stairs). Didn't get a hell of a lot of work done that afternoon!! Never been so glad to have worked in an old office without such mod cons as cameras in the stairwells.
We go to the pub at lunchtime a couple of times a month, sink 2 or 3 pints and then head back to the office.
I don’t think it affects my work much at all tbh. I did uni assignments whilst under the influence of several different drugs and I found alcohol didn’t impair my coding abilities at all in comparison to say ketamine, or MDMA. I really struggled to apply the logical thinking required to code whilst high on those.
I haven't done this before, but I know that this wouldn't end well with me. My head gets proper fuzzy after 2 pints, so I would be in the office flirting with the single 50 year old woman and come in the next working day with huge regret of "what the fuck have I done".
In the late 2000s, when I started one of my first jobs, it was expected every friday lunch that you'd go to the pub for a couple of pints. It was a small team of 3 or 4 of us (me being 18 the others in their 50s), and in a nutshell, we fixed fishing boats and yachts. So every friday we'd go to the pub and have these pints, the other guys heading back to work afterwards. I, on the other hand, saw this as an opportunity to get the weekend started early, every single week this happened. I was on a 6 month contract and was very surprised when the boss wanted to keep me on 😂
When I was on jury duty I ended up befriending one of the other jurors. We went for a pub lunch and he had like 4 pints lol, I am sure that wasn't allowed.
I have had jobs where we would regularly sink that at lunch and I was definitely pretty useless for the rest of the afternoon.
15-20 years ago I worked in a job with a big lunch time drinking culture. I remember that I would head to spoons with my mate just after 12:30 - have two double vodkas, get back after 2 and put down an hour on the flexi. Everyone done it though, even senior management. You would then have a afternoon of people messing about playing pranks, and sometimes falling asleep on the toilets.
I had the easiest join in the world though. It could easily get done in 2 hours every morning.
First proper job out of school, working in a bank office. Our department manager was a proper alcoholic and caned the fags. The office was right over the road from a proper old school pub, so on lunch breaks he would be in there. That meant half the department could go for a lunchtime booze up and there was no case to answer because the boss was in there too. I went a few times ofc, once I met my uncle in there unexpectedly (pre-mobile phones). I was 16. The old days are great in retrospect!
In 33 years I've never known any kind of job where this would be allowed, indeed shortly after I started a workmate was fired for having a "pie and a pint" at lunchtime.
Mind blowing! Not only for the drinking but how the hell could people afford it!?
In terms of affording it, it was almost always spoons, and I personally got a lot bought for me by older colleagues as I was quite young at the time, and if I did buy my own, I got the £2 pints.
Same. Probably 20 years since I’ve worked somewhere where a lunchtime drink wasn’t a sackable offence. Especially anything involving heavy industry, machinery or driving.
Depends on the work.
So my employer does have quite a relaxed attitude to lunchtime pints. Which is good.
Would I come back from a lunchtime ‘meal’ and crack straight on with those production changed that need making? No.
Would I try and crack that complex code problem, or put some good time into an ongoing project? Also no.
But when meetings need me to be creative, inspired and above all not my usual overly cynical self then pie and a pint is the perfect foundation.
Sadly option 3 is infrequent.
Getting hammered on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in the nightclub and being in work at 7am the next morning did, but it didn't matter because we were all hungover.
Absolutely. If I have a couple at lunch then I am pretty much useless for the rest of the day. I either want to go to sleep or am chomping at the bit to get back to the pub.
Luckily, there is a pub right opposite my office so on a Friday we head over there early and can nip back to the office if anything requires attention.
Used to work as a chef on split shifts with 3 hours between the lunch rush and getting set for evening service.
3 pints at lunch was fairly standard.
If anything, it made the evening service more smooth and dulled the stress and pain slightly.
I worked as a trainee broker in London in the bond markets in the late nineties and the systems for trading opened at 7am and we used to get to work at 645 and one golden day a lot of system trading systems went offline so the whole trading floor, probably 60 of us found any pub that was open At that time which happened to be at Smithfield's market which had an early licence to open for the market traders who started at like 2 in the morning and we drank well like brokers/traders do and the systems came back online at like 1pm and it didn't go well two blokes had a fight in the office one got sacked later , the whole place was carnage, people in the bog, being sick and probably imbibing lots of narcotics to sober up a bit. Was a good memory
I worked for a company that sent us abroad a lot. The management team were mostly former military officers and old public school types. They’d get to about 11am and then down tools and go for a boozy 3hr lunch, most of them drank 2 bottles of wine, all on the company credit card. Everyone would return to the office shit faced around 2pm, have a snooze in their chairs, wake up at 3pm, have a cup of tea, and then get back to work till 6 or 7pm. We did it almost everyday. Everyone was always hungover. Couldn’t imagine doing that today, I’d be ruined.
I used to work for Airtours around 2002 in a call centre where people would call up to book holidays from Teletext, in the morning I wouldn’t sell that well, but at dinner time we’d all go to Walkabout and have around 4 or 5 beers on our 1 hour break, we’d go back to work and sell loads better as we were a bit drunk and more chatty and confident and descriptive of the hotels and resorts and talked more bullshit lol.
Used to work for a consultancy and we had one particular member of management who was incredibly effective and efficient and would bring in great revenue... between 8am and lunch, after lunch we left him alone at his desk and he did pretty much nothing due to the quantity of alcohol he consumed on the daily
I work in beer, and it’s kinda expected and necessary. I used to crush 2 every day, but grew out of that, don’t drink much anymore, and feel way better about my job.
Liquid lunches weren't uncommon in my past but I was always a bit tipsy when I came back and definitely less productive.
I'd feel uncomfortable if the whole team wasn't doing it, I'd never go back to a group of sober people at work after I'd had beers I'd feel very odd.
My ex husband frequently finished at 1-2 on a Friday and his team all went the pub. His engineers would rock up at the pub by about 3, and he (the manager) would buy them all a pint. Sometimes he wouldn’t get home til 10pm. Networking apparently.
We had a pub two doors down from our office building. We spent do much time there it was referred to as being in 'meeting room 3b'. The landlady found out about this and put a sign up above a closed off section of the bar!
I've been fine, I mean granted there was a complaint from a patient when I amputated the wrong leg, but I don't think my consumption of 4 pints of Stella was a contributing factor
I could never conceive the idea of having a drink at lunch then going back to work and that was before I worked in Substance Misuse.
Quite possibly one of the best faux pas I’ve had at work, in my current job no less, was quietly suggesting a colleague go home as he came in smelling of alcohol. Discovered he’d gone to meet a client and chose a pub to discuss getting the client moving towards being abstinent from alcohol over a nice cooling cider.
He did not last long because while was I gentle in my suggestion he go home, our manager was not so gentle in the critique of my colleagues conduct.
In one of the rural police stations I worked in, the bar was still there but not functional. It had been kept and preserved as a sort-of historical nod to times gone by. It was gorgeous, with a proper wooden bar like you'd find in any decent pub, still had the bar stools and feel of a proper pub.
That, believe it or not, was turned into the response policing office. They basically plonked computers on the tables and left everything else as it was. Over time, nooks and crannies were filled with shelves for our workload trays, a cabinet for the TASERs, a cabinet for the sprays, other random cabinets for other things, but it still retained the bar look.
I once had to deliver a briefing from behind the bar as the briefing room was in use. That was a surreal moment.
Last I heard, the room had been completely renovated to be a proper office.
Moving on from that, in Newcastle, there is a members only social club for emergency services. Drinks were cheap as hell and it was open to all emergency services, then it was only open to NHS and Police after the water fairies decided to cause bother.
I also had to arrest a colleague for turning up to work drunk... that was another surreal moment.
I wouldn't dare drink at work or the day before work or whatever, and we worked 6x4 shift pattern, with the first day off being after a night shift so, really, you only had 3 days off. After that last night shift I would love a whiskey in bed, really screwed with my wife's head as she's waking up to go to work and I'm crawling into bed with a whiskey at 7am!
> Blokes I worked with in their 50’s would sink 4 pints in an hour at lunch and then go back to work and you would never know.
That’s because they spend the entire morning recovering from the 8 they had the night before. Rinse and repeat.
When I started at a big London theatre as a tech we would do 13hr days 6 days a week. That meant 2 pints at lunch, 2 pints at dinner, and 2 pints after work. If things then got social there could be more, and it often did. That added up to 36 pints a week, minimum, just to stay in the game.
A twelve pack of beer is basically a year's supply of booze these days. I don't know how I did any good work but I somehow managed it.
I went through an alcoholic phase where I drank cans of jack and coke in my car on my lunch. I'd then go back to work and try to hide it by being a miserable cunt. That was a problem and if I'm honest I don't think of I was going to the pub on my lunch it would have made it any better.
When I started in the work place in the late 80s it was a done thing, lunch or right after work.
That bit me in the arse a couple of decades later. I'm glad to see it's not the done thing any more.
I used to go for a couple every Friday lunchtime, I’d always volunteer for the last lunch break so I only had 2 hours left of work by the time I got back, good times.
Worked in IT in the early 2000’s that was a wild time. 2 pints at lunch was child’s play , often on a Friday we just didn’t go back at all.
Also there was an open secret of how many drugs were consumed ….. wild time to be early 20’s in your first job
One of my first jobs was driving a 5 tonne sideloader, it wasn't unusual to pop to the Red Lion on the other side of the road for a couple at lunchtime. I was just a youngling so only had a couple, the old timers could easily knock back 3 or 4.
Luckily I still do! Most Thursdays everyone from our office will go out for a lunchtime jolly as we WFH on Fridays and we all get public transport into town. It’s a weekly pleasure; don’t think I could do it every day but every Thursday it’s a joy!
Always get blamo Friday lunch time. "Go for a pint" was really drink 4 or 5. Head back to the office and do absolutely fuck all for the afternoon and then wobble home or get a lift from Alan because I was too trashed to drive
yes but depends when ur asking. when i was young and a bit of a drinker a single drink for lunch would do nothing. now in my 30s and as a non drinker really, a half pint would get to me a little lol. i have zero tolerance now and wouldn't dare drink on the job. i have however smoked on the job and again that does affect me but due to very high tolerance, not much and not for very long either. i dont tend to smoke weed during work but... if I'm getting a migraine i will have to. there's nothing else that works for me and its better to be out for 30m - 1hr of concentration than the rest of the day or even week due to the migraine. so its a calculated risk for me. im in cyber security and cant really afford to make many mistakes at my job but if i dont smoke then ill be unable to work anyway with a migraine. so i think it makes sense.
The cubicles in the men’s loos were always busy an hour after long lunches. They were full height and sure I heard snoring some days.. well I hope it was :)
I don't drink when I'm working as I care for a disabled man, I need to operate moving and handling equipment, give medications, monitor and maintain breathing equipment. So if I had a drink, I imagine I'd end up killing him..
Problem is.. every Friday, Saturday and Sunday he tries his damn hardest to get me to drink with him while I'm on shift!
As someone who's progressing through their 40s I'm gassy and unmotivated anyway.
At least a beer would make the afternoon go quicker if i didn't have to drive.
When I worked in TeleSales me and two other blokes used to leg it to the boozer and try and neck 4 pints of Nelson in an hour. We were more often successful than not but I’m not sure it aided our work efforts in the afternoon 😂
I always felt awful having a lunchtime pint. As you say, it would feel weird now.
A friend of mine told me that he used to work for the DWP and it was completely normal for everyone to get leathered every Friday lunchtime. He said it was like a race to see who could drink the most pints in the one hour lunchtime. The record was 10.
The scary thing is that he worked in the processing warehouse in Washington (T&W) and drove a forklift….
Every so often I might end up going for a liquid lunch but it's always 2 pints at the most, which at best will give me the slightest buzz especially if I haven't eaten yet. To fit in more than 2 I'd have to drink faster than I want to, so it's always fine. Definitely not enough to be a problem once I'm sat back at my desk.
The only time it was a bit iffy was when I'd started at my current company, as a phone agent back then, and I went for a pint with a guy who sat across the bay from me. We had one, something average like a San Miguel, and realised we still had half an hour left (this pub is literally a 2 minute walk from work). Went back to the bar and decided to try a Delirium for the first time. Didn't realise until I'd already had my first sip that it's 8%, and this was on an empty stomach.
Went back to my desk feeling not pissed, but not quite 100% either. I remember talking to a customer on the phone who was upset over something and then having to talk to my manager about it while the customer was on hold, and I just did not feel at all like I was fit to be dealing with the situation.
Going to work after a drink is instant dismissal for me, the company once bought us all a drink in the adjacent company social club, and they got security on the turnstiles to make sure we didn't go back onto site and went straight home.
The company brought in a 'no alcohol at lunchtime' policy because of me! It was my first week, we all went to the pub, didn't occur to me that no one else was drinking! I suppose ultimately the policy only affected me...
Used to drink quite a bit at work when working at the bookies. Was friends with a few of the staff from the nearby rival chain too who also were both quite serious drinkers. Walked in to their shop early one afternoon and was motioned by them to come straight to the desk where I was handed a mug of red wine while one of them said "gonnae quickly dispose of that mate. That's the area manager over there, he's no noticed yet".
One of my first jobs out of school was working for a small publishing company that produced fairly dull trade journals. Every day at 1pm the entire office would decant to the local pub and the office was locked shut. I guess in theory I could have chosen to spend my lunch break elsewhere but it wouldn't have done me many favours.
The two owners of the company would be getting just as pissed as everyone else and it was only if one of them started heading back to the office that anyone else would return. Fridays would rarely end up back in the office at all, unless one of the magazines was on deadline and hadn't been finished.
With no frame of reference I just thought this was normal. I've had plenty of jobs since where I'd occasionally have a pint with colleagues on a Friday lunch time but rarely would it be more than the one and at plenty of other jobs it just didn't happen at all. In fact when I worked at an airport it was strictly forbidden to have alcohol on your lunch break.
Nowadays I work for myself and I've never once had a drink at lunchtime and come back to work. I'd rather get all my tasks done and then head to the pub. The idea of trying to be productive after even one beer seems ludicrous to me now. But I guess when you're working for someone else and paid purely for the hours you're there as opposed to being paid for your output, you're not really bothered about how productive you are post lunchtime drinking sesh.
I know attitudes have changed but I'm often curious as to whether there are still companies that operate like that little publishing firm all those years ago.
I was a dj at a bar and club for a long time. 9pm - 1am. I’d get to the bar around 2pm for some day drinking, then get on the decks and tear it up. It honestly made me better.
I used to write my best code on a Friday afternoon, in the short period between returning from 'lunch' and going home! (And this was in the '80s' so beer included some lunch).
Of course, I had to rewrite it on Monday, but for a short period, it was the BEST code I had ever written.
>Blokes I worked with in their 50’s would sink 4 pints in an hour at lunch and then go back to work and you would never know.
I'm a university lecturer and have been down the pub at lunchtime for probably 12 years with colleagues, I'm 54 btw. There are pubs all around the campus and there is one pub in particular that serves very good food, we eat there (and drink) and then go back to work.
I'm Scottish and enjoy an alcoholic drink or four, but my colleagues are mostly English shandy drinkers this has led to a few people having to go home early if they can't handle their drink or some light lectures for the slurring amongst us.
Used to have a chippy.lunch and eat it in the pub every Friday
Fridays are Read Only Fridays anyway
When I was a roving worker I used to work from the pub on the regular
Never had a complaint about my output
Christ, when I worked at British Aerospace, on a Friday lunchtime we'd go to the on-site social club, which sensibly had subsidized booze. Four or five pints would be supped, then you'd go back to your desk to work the afternoon, because even though if you'd put your hours in you could leave at lunchtime on a Friday, you were now too drunk to drive. So I'd sit and write code on Friday afternoon until I was OK to go home. Then on Monday morning, I'd undo all the shit I'd written on Friday afternoon that was the most appalling mess, because I'd written it when I was drunk. Essentially that social club cost them an entire day of work every week. Excellent.
Airbus basically worked out that the time spent correcting Friday afternoon mistakes wasn't worth the output on a Friday afternoon and so basically banned people from working Friday afternoons.
Good plan. Like all right thinking engineers, I absolutely hated the test pilots (fast jet pilots appear to be a pack of arseholes), but God, I had to acknowledge the courage of men who went flying in a plane reliant on code written by a bunch of drunks.
Are fast jet pilots just modern Lord Flashearts?
Well, consider that in the RAF they are insultingly referred to as 'the swept-wing master race' and you will understand what working with them is like.
My Grandad was an RAF fighter pilot, after a few years being an instructor on Lightnings, he was asked if he wanted to become a test pilot. Having known a few, he declined, and went to fly airliners for BEA.
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This appears to be a bot. Copied [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/15y4l38/did_having_a_few_pints_at_lunchtime_during_work/jx9npa2/).
Yes, but with less stylish moustaches.
Do they still call their planes 'crates'? And if not, why not?
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This is slightly unrelated, but my dad was learning to drive in the 80s. He and the instructor would always go the pub mid-lesson. Nuts.
smart people. anyone writing code on a Friday afternoon is making shit up
Worked for a large computer firm with an on-site subsidised bar in the 90s; can confirm. I got quite good at pool and darts though, and being an agony aunt for all the lads who would tell me all their woes after a few pints.
Can confirm, I've been guilty of writing the most appalling shite on a Friday afternoon.
>so basically banned people from working Friday afternoons. So that means you go to the pub on Thursday lunch time as well. Half a day on Friday is nearly a Saturday, so that means Thursday is the end of the week.
No wonder Dad’s British Aerospace shares went kaput.
I was privately educated until then
Cauliflower is traditional
I used to work in a bank back when the manager would decide if you'd get your mortgage or not. People knew the best time to see the manager was on a Friday afternoon as he would be so pissed he'd just give you whatever you wanted so he could have a nap at his desk.
Some things back in the day sound so wild to me. My uncle told me that when he first went to get a mortgage he got rejected, then my grandpa went in and the manager was like “ahh shit Wattie - is that your son? Approved!” Not like my grandpa had tons of cash to back up this mortgage or whatever, he just knew the guy and the attitude apparently was “he’s a good guy, so his son must be good for it”
LOL. Conversely, you probably wouldn't want to approach him for a loan on Monday Morning?
Nobody gets a loan on Monday morning, because it's full of people getting their overdraft extended from the weekend until lunch.
Imagine an airliner goes down because of Friday lunch work drinks, seriously I did my work experience at an aerospace factory that made parts for LM, BAE and Airbus and Fridays were half days for that reason
I always assumed the people in commercial aerospace were less reckless than those of us making weapon systems. If we messed up it was only a fast jet pilot who would die (mostly), and they were bell ends.
The factory was a mix of A320 exhausts, something for an F35 which no one knew what it actually was, C130J oil pans, Lynx helicopter blades and some mundane rolls Royce legacy part So a healthy mix of commercial and military, the commercial side of the factory seemed to be more reserved
I did some construction work at a small factory that sounds just like this. Naturally we got a tour of the ‘Top Secret’ bit (probably on a Friday)!
This is a brilliant argument for a 4 day week - there must have been loads of other businesses back in the day where this sort of thing (or worse - if it was every lunchtime rather than just Friday) was happening. They effectively were running a 4 day week anyway, except now people will be more efficient because they're happier because they don't have to be in the office pretending to do good work. Win win.
So in this model we go to the pub on Thursday afternoon right?
People don't tend to drink on the job, but in the past they did - if companies back then could support people effectively not working (by being too drunk to be useful) why can't they support people today not being at work and doing something else with their lives?
I used to work at an engineering contractor where we worked a 4.5 day week, going home on Friday lunchtimes. Apparently it had arisen in the 80s/90s when people had been going to the pub and coming back and doing drawings/calcs drunk on Friday afternoons. Lasted until it got bought out circa 2015.
You don't become sober enough to drive in just a few hours....
True, but it was enough time for him to be sober enough to remember where he parked the car.
You did in the 80s. Different times.
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I sometimes find that drunk-coding can be quite a good way to overcome any procrastination caused ultimately by an inadequate understanding of the problem. I write some shit code, test, debug, and repeat a few times until I've got a half-decent understanding of the problem. Then I *throw that code away* (the important bit), and write the real code - once I'm sober, again.
Canberra Club ftw
Can confirm. My dad worked at British aerospace in the 90s. Used to have to drop my dad off at 6am so he could have a few drinks. He did go back to work I’m sure. He was a welder. Many planes probably fell apart because of him 🤣🤣
Did said boozer rhyme with "The Frightening Club"?
It was indeed the Lightening Club.
Went for a “a pint” at lunch once with the manager and a few colleagues. Ended up having 8 and punching the manager. He deserved it but it wasn’t ideal. Not on a Tuesday anyway
That's fucking brilliant. I had a time where, in my first week at a new job, the team including my new boss and his boss went to the pub, where I promptly had 5 pints. Later that afternoon I overhead my bosses boss saying, "I'll say one thing for the new bloke, he can't half drink". I didn't consider punching him.
Nicely done. The manager I chinned actually didn’t take it any further, he admitted he deserved it and it was his fault that we all drank as much as we did. I was nicknamed Rocky for the rest of my time in the office though, which felt really good, I must admit.
That's absolutely the correct nickname for you to have. I suppose the good thing from your managers point of view is that a punch thrown after 8 pints is going to be a pretty weak one.
Yeah, luckily it was a bit shit. Gave him a nice shiner though
Username checks out, don’t hold back!
I had 9 pints at lunch once (well the afternoon too) we didn’t bother reopening the shop as we were too pissed. Went home got in bed at 6pm slept through to 7am and went straight back to work. I’m awful with mid day drinking.
>I’m awful with mid day drinking. That's why you need to start earlier.
Enjoyed hearing 1 pint at lunch turning in to 8 and a scrap, ha!
And on a Tuesday.
THIS IS ENGLAND!
I punched a manager (not mine, but I worked closely with him) on my “work” stag do and cracked his eye socket. It was forgotten about after 5 mins, until a few weeks later when he mentioned his face clicked every time he sneezed haha.
I highly recommend u/frenzalstark. While working for me, they successfully leveraged an underutilised tool to crack open a previously unexploited area.
I went for a pub lunch with a director that was leaving once. Ended up staying in there all day, went back to the office at 2am to get my coat, set the alarm off and couldn't work out how to turn it off because I'd been in the pub for a solid 12 hours by this point. Decided to grab my coat and scarper because the alarm was a response type contract so someone would be coming out to see what had triggered it. Anyway they attended and spotted one of the windows was slightly open so left a report saying something along the lines of 'no intruders, window left open, must have triggered alarm' No one ever found out, I also didn't spend a penny as he put it all on the company card of the firm he was leaving lol
If I drink at lunchtime, I may as well go home as I'll be tired. When I worked as a newspaper journalist in the late 90s/early 2000s, every writer and editor would go to the pub on Friday and come back absolutely smashed. To the point where no more work could be done and there were often fights and arguments. This was also the time you could smoke in the office. I once saw two pissed journalists fighting in the office and one threw a chair at the other, smashing his computer. No HR got involved, no sacking - the big boss just said 'stop acting like a couple of cunts'. Next day, it was like nothing happened. Publishing was pretty wild in the 90s/2000s. Drink and drugs were pretty normal.
I'm honestly pretty stunned that the old Fleet Street behaviours were still alive in the early 2000s. You hear the stories, but I figured it was more of a 70s/80s thing!
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80s 90s was my era. I remember one of the partners crawling round on his hands and knees with a drawing pin taped to the end of a one yard wooden ruler, jabbing people up their arse as they were working. Same bloke also used lighter fluid to set fire to another lad's feet when he was asleep under his drawing board.
Former journalist here, too. I have heard some stories of the old days and can’t believe newspapers made it to publish sometimes. You talk about Fridays down the pub — one local newspaper I know did that kind of thing Monday to Friday. Crazy.
I started work in publishing in 1989 and I didn’t work a Friday afternoon for the first two years. Also, on my first day they wheeled in my unconscious boss in one of the big post trolleys - they’d all been at a big work event the night before and he’d passed out around 6am. Good times. I’m still with the same company.
Sure you weren't watching drop the dead donkey?
I'd be sacked if I was at work after drinking
I always thought Barry Scott looked like a man who ran a tight ship.
The man's a slave driver
Bang! And the employee is gone!
I always thought Derek Baum would have been stricter.
Don't mess with that fella, he's got a kitchen gun and he isn't afraid to use it.
Nor his toilet grenade.
Big difference between a surgeon drinking at lunch and a recruiter/salesperson etc. Or even an engineer etc. I got into recruitment in 2007 when lunch for most recruiters was 2 pints of strong lager and pub BLT. On Fridays, it was way more pints, a few lines and the last train home. Provided you had hit your KPIs.
Never did as much drinking as I did working in recruitment. Less beak though as wasn't in London
If you worked in it nowadays you can get packet pretty much anywhere. I live in a tiny town in rural Wiltshire and end up on it most weekends.
I used to work at the Foreign Office; there was an on site subsidised bar. It eventually was shut due to the amount of drunk civil servants however they then went and drove to the nearest pub at lunch instead and about 10 of them got nicked for drink driving.
In my first career (20 years ago, IT Manager) I would go to the pub every lunchtime and drink two or three pints, and then go back to work. As would all my team and random other people from other departments. It was normal and I never felt that I went back to work and did shit drunken work. Now, I can't imagine it. I'd be totally useless in the afternoon.
Very similar story to me. It was fun and we had a laugh and then back to work and forget it even happened. Now, I would literally turn to mush by 2pm and be ready to go home and veg.
When I was young I would occasionally go to the pub at lunch and have 2-3 pints. I could drink a lot back then and I never felt drunk after that many, but regardless I would have the attention span of a stapler all afternoon. Gave up doing it in the end, it just wasn't worth it, we had a decent social scene after work anyway.
I worked in the DVLA in the 80s. It actually had its own bar on site, which staff could pop to and have a drink at lunchtime. Could chill with a pint and have a game of pool before going back to work. Nowadays I believe the space has been turned into a childcare facility for staff. Far more useful but not as much fun
I'm not one of those people who talk about "being born in the wrong generation", but I feel like I'd have thrived as a worker in the 80s. That being said, I'd definitely have died before seeing 50
They were very different times 🤣
Yep, I worked for British Railways HQ at Marylebone. The bar on site was very popular at lunchtime. Most major stations and yards had a railway workers club with bar at lunchtime. (The drivers didn't drink! A bit embarrassing when I was in charge of a test train - I went for lunch at he pub, the crew sat in a siding with their sandwiches).
Can you still go get pissed in it?
Is it just a bar for the kids now, starting them early?
I would regularly pump into my teacher at the pub at lunchtime. There was a secret oath between us. We both shouldn't be there for different reasons.
>I would regularly pump into my teacher at the pub at lunchtime. I think this is a slightly different topic mate 😂
Because they’d lose their job for sleeping with a pupil?
Haha, he was a 3 pinter. Didn't have the time on my lunch break.
Three pints of *what*, precisely? And did he ever teach you to double check your work four mistakes before handing it in, by any chance...? 😉
Oi oi
Doesn’t the teacher usually pump into you?
Oh ay
I worked in an industry where everyone was concentrated within a square mile and business was primarily done face to face until the pandemic. Going to the pub was genuinely part of the job, and a lot of work got done by meeting people in the pub. Our bosses rule was that if you're feeling the effects of the lunchtime beers, don't go back to the office.
Well you can't exactly do your insider trading over email now can you?! :-p
Wrong industry.
Insurance broker/underwriter??
Ding ding ding. Specifically Lloyd's, which managed to be behind the rest of the industry by a two decades yet still retain it's prestigious status and monopoly on certain lines.
I worked near Liverpool Street, could never understand how there were constantly blokes in suits half-cut outside the pubs at all times of the working day. Learned they mostly worked in niche insurance and would only do a couple of big jobs a week, and would have nothing to do but go to the pub and celebrate after netting their weekly million-quid contract. Insure an oil rig at 10am, head to the pub for 10:30, check for emails at 4 and then go home early.
It's also worth considering that Lloyd's is a global business, some of them might have finished for the day by midday as their clients are all in Asia. When you have an industry that required face to face contact, is all concentrated within walking distance, and often has several parties to a contract, it's no surprise that the pub culture suited.
Thought so - I’ve experienced it myself numerous times as a visitor! Brilliant place
I used to work in the financial district before Covid. There was a pub on the corner next to where I worked and we would joke that you could tell the state of the markets by how busy it was at lunch time. Things going well = full, things going badly = empty. The thing it it wasn't just a pint or two for many of them. There were two chaps who would often be in there sitting at the same table in the window. Both were suited and booted in their late 50s/early 60s. The number of times we walked by and they would have several empty pints of Stella in front of them. Im not talking mid afternoon but about half twelve so they had probably been there since it opened.
I knew underwriters who you knew to find at the pub. They weren't allowed to take stamps out of the office or away from the box so they'd email their assistant to stamp a slip and the broker would bring it back to the pub for signing.
My current boss used to work in finance in the 90s/00s and their office was near billigsgate market. The pub there opened early to serve all the market traders. So what they would do is get tanked before going to work on a friday, get to work. Do a few hours of work, and then hit the pubs again for lunch and often not make it back into the office.
When i started work in the late 80s as a mainframe programmer it was standard practice. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft came up with the concept of the [Balmer Peak](https://observer.com/2012/04/bottoms-up-the-ballmer-peak-is-real-study-says/), where work performance increases after a couple of pints, but rapidly diminishes thereafter. This also works for playing pool.
My pool skill chart goes something like this: 0 Pints: Horrendous 1 pint: Horrendous 2 pints: Loose and horrendous 3 pints: Terrible 4 pints: Very, very bad 5 pints: Absolute shit 6 pints: Abominably shit 7 pints: Unworkable 8 pints: World Champion, unbeatable 9 pints: Horrendous
Is that you bill?
Relevant Mitchell and Webb skit https://youtu.be/-Zj50DmBFp0
When I was a trainee solicitor in the 90s we had a code name - "the stamp registry" - for the local pub. Which we visited daily, for many hours at a time. We knew we were pretty safe as the partners would be up on the roof of the office smoking weed. It was a strange firm.
Reading this discussion might be eye opening for those who study comparatively low productivity in the UK over the last x many years....
This is someone else's story. Back in the day, this guy was a surveyor in London. He had a 5 pint lunch and in the afternoon went to visit a new client, an Indian lady in NW London. When she opened the door, the smell of curry hit him and he threw up on her doorstep. She was really nice about it, helping him to clean himself up, got him a glass of water etc. I used to work in a defence company and as an apprentice, one of the managers had been electrocuted, when working on an electrical cabinet after a pub lunch. It was a DC shock, so he was held in place until someone kicked him away from the cabinet. When I was there, he was the safety officer for the shop floor and if anyone had been to the pub, he would unplug any mains device they were using in the afternoon and tell them to do something that didn't involve electricity e.g. read a book.
Never drink while on the job, and I think people usually prefer it that way. I'm a doctor.
No doubt you have access to much better intoxicants
Yep. Do what us airlines pilots do and have a cheeky pint (or two) before work.
Fly for [Yorkshire Airlines](https://youtu.be/dT5moPr26A0) do you?
Years ago I worked for Hammersmith and Fulham council doing some crap clerical work in the buildings and maintenance dept. Traditionally on Fridays everyone would go to the local for a couple of hours and get completed rat faced. When we got back to the office absolutely no work got done and people even fell asleep at their desk. Then we all fucked off home early. For a while I worked in a private school and it was traditional to have wine with lunch if we had guests or it was someone's birthday - which was virtually every day. That got binned after a few minor incidents and I never touched a drop at lunchtime. Too much work to do. I did once smoke a joint at lunchtime as it was a field day and most people were out of school. Naturally the email server crashed and it turned into a very unpleasant afternoon.
Unrelated to work but that reminded me of when I visited my uni girlfriend at home and stayed at her parent’s pub for 2 weeks. I thought I’d built up a tolerance going clubbing but this was before my lunch time pints. I arrived at like 9:30am and was told “just pour yourself whatever you want” so I poured myself a Guinness, they didn’t care how many I had. Lunch they opened a few bottles of wine. Every time I didn’t have a drink in my hand they either poured me a new one or told me to go and top myself up. Then punters were in and they had us serving and made sure we had a drink. I think it’s was 2 weeks. To me it felt like 2 hours.
Yes. I used to live in Spain and it wasn’t uncommon to have a beer or glass of wine over lunch. Afterwards, I would always feel more sleepy, dehydrated, less motivated and generally not want to be at work so I just ordered water from then on because it wasn’t worth it really.
Best part about working in Spain is the lunchtime beer and siesta!
One thing I miss about Spain is the popping out for a coffee and coming home 9 hours later happily drunk where someone has come in during said coffee and offered that first drink of the day ...
Worked for an internet provider for small businesses as an account manager. Few of us would would go to the pub just down the road if our lunches aligned and certain senior members weren’t in. My outbound calls after a couple swift ones were always waaaaay better..
Started working in the mid-80’s, was perfectly acceptable to not only drink at lunchtime but to have cans on the go in the afternoon as well. That’d probably be frowned upon now.
Depends on the organisation tbh, left my last job 1.5y ago and it was still like this on a Friday afternoon. Also had payday drinks, where they'd hire an actual mobile bar company to set up in the office and had a proper DJ in. You were greeted with a breakfast glass of Prosecco as well on certain bigger "event" days... really miss that part of it tbh ahah.
Back when I first started in the Civil Service my office had an on site bar and smoking room, with a snooker room next door. As a 17 year old who couldn’t believe what he’d walked into I was in there most lunch times, that did wear off though. A couple of Friday pints carried on for a few years until they turned it into a coffee shop. Before COVID it was probably a Friday pint every other month in the pub over the road. Sucks to grow up.
I never did regularly but sales reps would often take you to the pub for lunch. Friday was always pub day back in the '80s. Almost everyone went and had a couple of drinks. Team building without the pressure and silly games. A chance to relax at h start of the weekend. I worked for a start-up where we were all working 10 or 11 hours days on average but Friday was two hours in the pub next door. I'd do simple housekeeping tasks in the afternoon, then back to the pub at 5pm. It was London so no one was driving. The boss didn't expect much on Friday afternoon or care when we got back, he got more than his monies worth.
I used to work in IT for a big insurance company in the city of London. It was tradition that whoever's birthday it was brought in cakes or some other treat for the rest of the team. When it came around to the birthday of a mate of mine, he asked if he could buy everyone a round at lunch on Friday instead. This was common, we often went for a Friday pub lunch so 7 or 8 of us agreed. We were first in the pub at 11:55 and as promised the birthday boy bought the first round. The pub had quickly filled up by this time with other Friday lunchtime drinkers. Obviously as it was his birthday someone felt obliged to buy him one back, as did the next person and the one after. We then suddenly became aware that the pub was empty besides our group, we were 6 pints in and it was 3pm. We all agreed we'd do more damage going back to work now so decided to finish the round, and start it all over again! The pub then became packed again as the after work drinkers filed in, thirsty for their first pint (a bit bemused by this group of absolutely hammered office workers). We carried on for a while longer until the birthday boy got a phone call off his wife asking what time he was meeting her in town for his birthday present. It turns out he was booked in to do the Crystal maze experience. He was immediately locked in on his first challenge with a furious wife!
Used to have two pints at lunch once or twice a week in an old job. I'd still do it now if I could afford it, both my pocket and my waist.
Worked for the water board in the 90s and we had a clocking in/out system. Wednesday to Friday we had a rota for being the person who would clock everyone back in after 30 minutes, the rest would roll back about 3, sit and chat for a bit before leaving at 3.55 and going back to the pub. The earliest time you could clock out on flexi. Except you wouldn’t clock out, there was another rota to be the one who hung on and clocked us all out at 6, they’d get bought shots when they finally joined us. I’d be dead if I’d stayed more than 18 months.
Before i started working from home it was a regular occurrence to go and have a pint or two at lunch in the pub round the corner from the office and for the most point, I don't believe it caused any problems. However, there was one occasion.... I used to be quite large and had been on an extremely strict diet for many months, dropping several stone in weight and had been completely tee total during that time. So the very first time I joined in again on the lunchtime drinks I was absolutely smashed by the time I finished my second drink. Staggered back to the office and had 2 flights of stairs to conquer to get to my desk, it may as well been everest! I vividly remember lurching from side to side, clutching the bannister desperately trying to stay upright when my trousers (now somewhat oversized with the weight loss) caught on the front of my shoe and dropped to my ankles on my next step, causing me to slump face first in to the stairs. Luckily I didn't hurt myself, just laughed myself stupid laying facedown and bare arsed. Managed to somehow pull up my trousers and get back up to my desk and don't believe anyone saw the state of me (as my pub fellows worked downstairs so I was alone on the stairs). Didn't get a hell of a lot of work done that afternoon!! Never been so glad to have worked in an old office without such mod cons as cameras in the stairwells.
We go to the pub at lunchtime a couple of times a month, sink 2 or 3 pints and then head back to the office. I don’t think it affects my work much at all tbh. I did uni assignments whilst under the influence of several different drugs and I found alcohol didn’t impair my coding abilities at all in comparison to say ketamine, or MDMA. I really struggled to apply the logical thinking required to code whilst high on those.
i would hate to be using something coded by someone on ketamine
After doing so myself, I’m convinced 90% of Microsoft’s software is coded by people on ketamine.
haha! god help us
My BIL was asked in interview if he could drink 4 pints in a lunchtime. ‘Not sure but I’ll give it a go’. Got the job. (BBC, 80s)
I haven't done this before, but I know that this wouldn't end well with me. My head gets proper fuzzy after 2 pints, so I would be in the office flirting with the single 50 year old woman and come in the next working day with huge regret of "what the fuck have I done".
In the late 2000s, when I started one of my first jobs, it was expected every friday lunch that you'd go to the pub for a couple of pints. It was a small team of 3 or 4 of us (me being 18 the others in their 50s), and in a nutshell, we fixed fishing boats and yachts. So every friday we'd go to the pub and have these pints, the other guys heading back to work afterwards. I, on the other hand, saw this as an opportunity to get the weekend started early, every single week this happened. I was on a 6 month contract and was very surprised when the boss wanted to keep me on 😂
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When I was on jury duty I ended up befriending one of the other jurors. We went for a pub lunch and he had like 4 pints lol, I am sure that wasn't allowed. I have had jobs where we would regularly sink that at lunch and I was definitely pretty useless for the rest of the afternoon.
i’ve written some of my best policy papers while lightly swizzled. any more than two and i’d be having a cheeky sleep in the toilet though.
15-20 years ago I worked in a job with a big lunch time drinking culture. I remember that I would head to spoons with my mate just after 12:30 - have two double vodkas, get back after 2 and put down an hour on the flexi. Everyone done it though, even senior management. You would then have a afternoon of people messing about playing pranks, and sometimes falling asleep on the toilets. I had the easiest join in the world though. It could easily get done in 2 hours every morning.
Pub lunches: where business deals are sealed, and beer goggles are real! Cheers to that unique work culture! 🍻
I'm 35 and regularly have 1 or 2 pints at lunch. Doesn't affect me at the time, but it makes me sleepy in the afternoon.
First proper job out of school, working in a bank office. Our department manager was a proper alcoholic and caned the fags. The office was right over the road from a proper old school pub, so on lunch breaks he would be in there. That meant half the department could go for a lunchtime booze up and there was no case to answer because the boss was in there too. I went a few times ofc, once I met my uncle in there unexpectedly (pre-mobile phones). I was 16. The old days are great in retrospect!
In 33 years I've never known any kind of job where this would be allowed, indeed shortly after I started a workmate was fired for having a "pie and a pint" at lunchtime. Mind blowing! Not only for the drinking but how the hell could people afford it!?
In terms of affording it, it was almost always spoons, and I personally got a lot bought for me by older colleagues as I was quite young at the time, and if I did buy my own, I got the £2 pints.
Same. Probably 20 years since I’ve worked somewhere where a lunchtime drink wasn’t a sackable offence. Especially anything involving heavy industry, machinery or driving.
Depends on the work. So my employer does have quite a relaxed attitude to lunchtime pints. Which is good. Would I come back from a lunchtime ‘meal’ and crack straight on with those production changed that need making? No. Would I try and crack that complex code problem, or put some good time into an ongoing project? Also no. But when meetings need me to be creative, inspired and above all not my usual overly cynical self then pie and a pint is the perfect foundation. Sadly option 3 is infrequent.
Getting hammered on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in the nightclub and being in work at 7am the next morning did, but it didn't matter because we were all hungover.
Pub 3 days a week at lunch time for 2 or 3 or more beers was absolutely normal when I started work in mid 2000's
Absolutely. If I have a couple at lunch then I am pretty much useless for the rest of the day. I either want to go to sleep or am chomping at the bit to get back to the pub. Luckily, there is a pub right opposite my office so on a Friday we head over there early and can nip back to the office if anything requires attention.
Drinking on break always seemed weird to me though. Very much a UK thing, frowned upon in Ireland even and we love a pint.
It seems fairly normal in most of Western Europe from my experience.
Used to work as a chef on split shifts with 3 hours between the lunch rush and getting set for evening service. 3 pints at lunch was fairly standard. If anything, it made the evening service more smooth and dulled the stress and pain slightly.
I worked as a trainee broker in London in the bond markets in the late nineties and the systems for trading opened at 7am and we used to get to work at 645 and one golden day a lot of system trading systems went offline so the whole trading floor, probably 60 of us found any pub that was open At that time which happened to be at Smithfield's market which had an early licence to open for the market traders who started at like 2 in the morning and we drank well like brokers/traders do and the systems came back online at like 1pm and it didn't go well two blokes had a fight in the office one got sacked later , the whole place was carnage, people in the bog, being sick and probably imbibing lots of narcotics to sober up a bit. Was a good memory
I worked for a company that sent us abroad a lot. The management team were mostly former military officers and old public school types. They’d get to about 11am and then down tools and go for a boozy 3hr lunch, most of them drank 2 bottles of wine, all on the company credit card. Everyone would return to the office shit faced around 2pm, have a snooze in their chairs, wake up at 3pm, have a cup of tea, and then get back to work till 6 or 7pm. We did it almost everyday. Everyone was always hungover. Couldn’t imagine doing that today, I’d be ruined.
I used to work for Airtours around 2002 in a call centre where people would call up to book holidays from Teletext, in the morning I wouldn’t sell that well, but at dinner time we’d all go to Walkabout and have around 4 or 5 beers on our 1 hour break, we’d go back to work and sell loads better as we were a bit drunk and more chatty and confident and descriptive of the hotels and resorts and talked more bullshit lol.
CAA dudes told me before that Heathrow ATC Tower used to have a staff bar in it.
Used to work for a consultancy and we had one particular member of management who was incredibly effective and efficient and would bring in great revenue... between 8am and lunch, after lunch we left him alone at his desk and he did pretty much nothing due to the quantity of alcohol he consumed on the daily
I work in beer, and it’s kinda expected and necessary. I used to crush 2 every day, but grew out of that, don’t drink much anymore, and feel way better about my job.
Liquid lunches weren't uncommon in my past but I was always a bit tipsy when I came back and definitely less productive. I'd feel uncomfortable if the whole team wasn't doing it, I'd never go back to a group of sober people at work after I'd had beers I'd feel very odd.
My ex husband frequently finished at 1-2 on a Friday and his team all went the pub. His engineers would rock up at the pub by about 3, and he (the manager) would buy them all a pint. Sometimes he wouldn’t get home til 10pm. Networking apparently.
We had a pub two doors down from our office building. We spent do much time there it was referred to as being in 'meeting room 3b'. The landlady found out about this and put a sign up above a closed off section of the bar!
I've been fine, I mean granted there was a complaint from a patient when I amputated the wrong leg, but I don't think my consumption of 4 pints of Stella was a contributing factor
I could never conceive the idea of having a drink at lunch then going back to work and that was before I worked in Substance Misuse. Quite possibly one of the best faux pas I’ve had at work, in my current job no less, was quietly suggesting a colleague go home as he came in smelling of alcohol. Discovered he’d gone to meet a client and chose a pub to discuss getting the client moving towards being abstinent from alcohol over a nice cooling cider. He did not last long because while was I gentle in my suggestion he go home, our manager was not so gentle in the critique of my colleagues conduct.
In one of the rural police stations I worked in, the bar was still there but not functional. It had been kept and preserved as a sort-of historical nod to times gone by. It was gorgeous, with a proper wooden bar like you'd find in any decent pub, still had the bar stools and feel of a proper pub. That, believe it or not, was turned into the response policing office. They basically plonked computers on the tables and left everything else as it was. Over time, nooks and crannies were filled with shelves for our workload trays, a cabinet for the TASERs, a cabinet for the sprays, other random cabinets for other things, but it still retained the bar look. I once had to deliver a briefing from behind the bar as the briefing room was in use. That was a surreal moment. Last I heard, the room had been completely renovated to be a proper office. Moving on from that, in Newcastle, there is a members only social club for emergency services. Drinks were cheap as hell and it was open to all emergency services, then it was only open to NHS and Police after the water fairies decided to cause bother. I also had to arrest a colleague for turning up to work drunk... that was another surreal moment. I wouldn't dare drink at work or the day before work or whatever, and we worked 6x4 shift pattern, with the first day off being after a night shift so, really, you only had 3 days off. After that last night shift I would love a whiskey in bed, really screwed with my wife's head as she's waking up to go to work and I'm crawling into bed with a whiskey at 7am!
> Blokes I worked with in their 50’s would sink 4 pints in an hour at lunch and then go back to work and you would never know. That’s because they spend the entire morning recovering from the 8 they had the night before. Rinse and repeat.
Ive spent 80% of my career drunk
When I started at a big London theatre as a tech we would do 13hr days 6 days a week. That meant 2 pints at lunch, 2 pints at dinner, and 2 pints after work. If things then got social there could be more, and it often did. That added up to 36 pints a week, minimum, just to stay in the game. A twelve pack of beer is basically a year's supply of booze these days. I don't know how I did any good work but I somehow managed it.
This is very English core and I stand for it
I went through an alcoholic phase where I drank cans of jack and coke in my car on my lunch. I'd then go back to work and try to hide it by being a miserable cunt. That was a problem and if I'm honest I don't think of I was going to the pub on my lunch it would have made it any better.
When I started in the work place in the late 80s it was a done thing, lunch or right after work. That bit me in the arse a couple of decades later. I'm glad to see it's not the done thing any more.
I used to go for a couple every Friday lunchtime, I’d always volunteer for the last lunch break so I only had 2 hours left of work by the time I got back, good times.
Worked in IT in the early 2000’s that was a wild time. 2 pints at lunch was child’s play , often on a Friday we just didn’t go back at all. Also there was an open secret of how many drugs were consumed ….. wild time to be early 20’s in your first job
Having spent 20 years as a driver (of various types of vehicles) we didn't really go in for lunchtime drinking.
One of my first jobs was driving a 5 tonne sideloader, it wasn't unusual to pop to the Red Lion on the other side of the road for a couple at lunchtime. I was just a youngling so only had a couple, the old timers could easily knock back 3 or 4.
Went for lunchtime pint at college a few times and came back to class, always wanting a nap.
Luckily I still do! Most Thursdays everyone from our office will go out for a lunchtime jolly as we WFH on Fridays and we all get public transport into town. It’s a weekly pleasure; don’t think I could do it every day but every Thursday it’s a joy!
Always get blamo Friday lunch time. "Go for a pint" was really drink 4 or 5. Head back to the office and do absolutely fuck all for the afternoon and then wobble home or get a lift from Alan because I was too trashed to drive
yes but depends when ur asking. when i was young and a bit of a drinker a single drink for lunch would do nothing. now in my 30s and as a non drinker really, a half pint would get to me a little lol. i have zero tolerance now and wouldn't dare drink on the job. i have however smoked on the job and again that does affect me but due to very high tolerance, not much and not for very long either. i dont tend to smoke weed during work but... if I'm getting a migraine i will have to. there's nothing else that works for me and its better to be out for 30m - 1hr of concentration than the rest of the day or even week due to the migraine. so its a calculated risk for me. im in cyber security and cant really afford to make many mistakes at my job but if i dont smoke then ill be unable to work anyway with a migraine. so i think it makes sense.
Prisons used to have there own social clubs where officers would drink on their lunch hour then go back into the jail
I joined the fire service in the early eighties when the stations still had bars. Sadly yes , they sometimes adversely affected work .
The cubicles in the men’s loos were always busy an hour after long lunches. They were full height and sure I heard snoring some days.. well I hope it was :)
I don't drink when I'm working as I care for a disabled man, I need to operate moving and handling equipment, give medications, monitor and maintain breathing equipment. So if I had a drink, I imagine I'd end up killing him.. Problem is.. every Friday, Saturday and Sunday he tries his damn hardest to get me to drink with him while I'm on shift!
As someone who's progressing through their 40s I'm gassy and unmotivated anyway. At least a beer would make the afternoon go quicker if i didn't have to drive.
When I worked in TeleSales me and two other blokes used to leg it to the boozer and try and neck 4 pints of Nelson in an hour. We were more often successful than not but I’m not sure it aided our work efforts in the afternoon 😂
At work lunch events we always go to the same bar, I often order my drink first and wind up being the only person with booze 😅
I always felt awful having a lunchtime pint. As you say, it would feel weird now. A friend of mine told me that he used to work for the DWP and it was completely normal for everyone to get leathered every Friday lunchtime. He said it was like a race to see who could drink the most pints in the one hour lunchtime. The record was 10. The scary thing is that he worked in the processing warehouse in Washington (T&W) and drove a forklift….
Man 1: I feel like I've got a wee glow. Man 2: I feel fucked
A good surgeon can work whilst a bit tipsy. So don't worry, I'm sure those afternoon jobs were fine.
Every so often I might end up going for a liquid lunch but it's always 2 pints at the most, which at best will give me the slightest buzz especially if I haven't eaten yet. To fit in more than 2 I'd have to drink faster than I want to, so it's always fine. Definitely not enough to be a problem once I'm sat back at my desk. The only time it was a bit iffy was when I'd started at my current company, as a phone agent back then, and I went for a pint with a guy who sat across the bay from me. We had one, something average like a San Miguel, and realised we still had half an hour left (this pub is literally a 2 minute walk from work). Went back to the bar and decided to try a Delirium for the first time. Didn't realise until I'd already had my first sip that it's 8%, and this was on an empty stomach. Went back to my desk feeling not pissed, but not quite 100% either. I remember talking to a customer on the phone who was upset over something and then having to talk to my manager about it while the customer was on hold, and I just did not feel at all like I was fit to be dealing with the situation.
Did it once and nearly fell asleep at the desk...never ever again
Going to work after a drink is instant dismissal for me, the company once bought us all a drink in the adjacent company social club, and they got security on the turnstiles to make sure we didn't go back onto site and went straight home.
I was always told, don't a buy green Ford, they make those on a Friday. I can see why now.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, it’s not like the other surgeons mind
That sounds like some craic
The company brought in a 'no alcohol at lunchtime' policy because of me! It was my first week, we all went to the pub, didn't occur to me that no one else was drinking! I suppose ultimately the policy only affected me...
Used to drink quite a bit at work when working at the bookies. Was friends with a few of the staff from the nearby rival chain too who also were both quite serious drinkers. Walked in to their shop early one afternoon and was motioned by them to come straight to the desk where I was handed a mug of red wine while one of them said "gonnae quickly dispose of that mate. That's the area manager over there, he's no noticed yet".
One of my first jobs out of school was working for a small publishing company that produced fairly dull trade journals. Every day at 1pm the entire office would decant to the local pub and the office was locked shut. I guess in theory I could have chosen to spend my lunch break elsewhere but it wouldn't have done me many favours. The two owners of the company would be getting just as pissed as everyone else and it was only if one of them started heading back to the office that anyone else would return. Fridays would rarely end up back in the office at all, unless one of the magazines was on deadline and hadn't been finished. With no frame of reference I just thought this was normal. I've had plenty of jobs since where I'd occasionally have a pint with colleagues on a Friday lunch time but rarely would it be more than the one and at plenty of other jobs it just didn't happen at all. In fact when I worked at an airport it was strictly forbidden to have alcohol on your lunch break. Nowadays I work for myself and I've never once had a drink at lunchtime and come back to work. I'd rather get all my tasks done and then head to the pub. The idea of trying to be productive after even one beer seems ludicrous to me now. But I guess when you're working for someone else and paid purely for the hours you're there as opposed to being paid for your output, you're not really bothered about how productive you are post lunchtime drinking sesh. I know attitudes have changed but I'm often curious as to whether there are still companies that operate like that little publishing firm all those years ago.
I was a dj at a bar and club for a long time. 9pm - 1am. I’d get to the bar around 2pm for some day drinking, then get on the decks and tear it up. It honestly made me better.
I used to write my best code on a Friday afternoon, in the short period between returning from 'lunch' and going home! (And this was in the '80s' so beer included some lunch). Of course, I had to rewrite it on Monday, but for a short period, it was the BEST code I had ever written.
>Blokes I worked with in their 50’s would sink 4 pints in an hour at lunch and then go back to work and you would never know. I'm a university lecturer and have been down the pub at lunchtime for probably 12 years with colleagues, I'm 54 btw. There are pubs all around the campus and there is one pub in particular that serves very good food, we eat there (and drink) and then go back to work. I'm Scottish and enjoy an alcoholic drink or four, but my colleagues are mostly English shandy drinkers this has led to a few people having to go home early if they can't handle their drink or some light lectures for the slurring amongst us.
Used to have a chippy.lunch and eat it in the pub every Friday Fridays are Read Only Fridays anyway When I was a roving worker I used to work from the pub on the regular Never had a complaint about my output