Nursery workers drinking at lunchtime.

Do you ever have a drink whilst looking after your children / or between meetings at work etc?

And is all over Facebook

@Brendathedoll your thread has been picked up by the sun

My husbands gran drinks non alcoholic wine in the pub every times shes there, she enjoys it but you, personally, think its vile.

I knock back sambucca shots like water but others think they are vile. Id rather die of dehydration than drink Irn Bru because its vile.

Its almost as if everyone has different tastes 🙄

It’s completely different having a few drinks at home than being paid to look after someone else’s children . If these women were on lunch break it is completely unacceptable. Looking after a group of small children is a huge responsibility and it is simply not acceptable to be drinking on your lunch break. Would you think it ok for a teacher or nurse or doctor to drink at lunch ? I doubt it. It’s the same thing. If they were on a day off it’s obviously fine

They were probably off for the afternoon.

This with bells on

That's what 'hypothetical' means, yes.

I would bet that the staff members would not have a lunch break nearly long enough to go and have a meal and glass of wine. I wouldn’t worry about it. I can only imagine they were not going to work after their lunch.

I'm a nursery manager.

Last year a staff member was working a split shift so she left to get children from school, then took them to her friends who was babysitting and came back at 5 to lock up. She let slip that she'd had a glass of wine at 4:30 when she arrived at her friends house as it was Friday and there were a few school mums doing it.

I had to follow our policy and she was dismissed due to gross misconduct. It is completely unacceptable to drink on your break or before coming in to work.

I really hope that they had an afternoon off and were enjoying a well earned wine.

No I wouldn’t have a problem with this and wouldn’t report them. A glass of wine with lunch is perfectly normal in many countries, no matter what your job is. It’s not going to make them feel drunk at all, unless they drink very infrequently, which I would assume they don’t, as people who drink infrequently don’t tend to have a glass of wine at lunchtime.

I'm sure the nursery have some form of drug and alcohol policy! We certainly do at work and we sit in an office behind closed doors (we write reports). I would assume if they were at work, it is unacceptable.

@Catandsquirrel .... IF!

If OP had been to collect DC form nursery and had been greeted by these 2 members of staff - there's more of a case, though it could have been alcohol free.

A "sheepish expression" is conjecture. Especially as OP had already assumed the worst, she would see them looking guilty as she has decided they are when it might have been "Oh no there's Jemima's mother. She had paint on her yesterday what if she wants to complain?" Or sheepish because "Oh no Jemima's mother has seen us out drinking on our day off and is going to assume the worst!"

There are teachers and youth workers who have been complained about because a parent saw them with alcohol in their SHOPPING before now. So they may well have worried OP would react... well exactly as she has done even though they did nothing wrong

No but the hypothetical point stands. If a mistake was made by a staff member managing the emergency, even if it could have happened anyway, and an investigation found the staff had drunk alcohol then I would imagine that may leave the nursery in a very different position legally, reputationally, than if they'd had no alcohol at all.

Exactly the whole thread is based on nothing more that two people who work at a nursery being in a pub together during the week. That's it that's the whole story and yet the amount of assumptions the OP and subsequent posters have made about the situation is just insane.

@CelesteCunningham the initial post is an assumption.....

Most of the posts with the assumptions are the ones assuming they weren't working that afternoon.

This. One glass of wine with a meal is not a problem.

All I can say is after reading this thread I hope a large proportion of you never serve on a jury. You've just assumed guilt with zero facts...

Exactly. A child in my friend's nursery died from choking last year. Imagine if it turned out the staff had had wine with lunch.

You are being totally dramatic, OP doesn't even know if they were working after their lunch.

Plus a glass of wine would not make them incapable of dealing with situations.

Report it.
Imagine if they returned from their boozy lunch break and one of the children had a medical emergency. How would they cope if a child started choking or had a seizure. Imagine if a child died and there’s an investigation. I’m not being dramatic. Things like this happen.

There’s a time and a place to enjoy a drink and it shouldn’t be in your lunch hour especially when looking after others.

I want to know how people feel about the following professions drinking at lunch

surgeon
pilot
firefighters
police

??? these are all safety critical jobs where people’s lives are depending on them
Nursery workers are responsible for the precious lives of children!

Report them at once.