Can you drink at work?

[MayorDusty]

I was listening to something about parliament and the free booze and it got me thinking.
I'd be sacked and I don't work with machinery or driving. Most people I know wouldn't be allowed apart from one who works in a pub and then it's a two drink maximum.
What jobs/industries still allow alcohol consumption?
Can you drink and what's the job?

In the creative industries (advertising/marketing/public relations) and lunches with booze (with clients, colleagues etc) or meeting for drinks outside the office for work relationship purposes are still completely normal and regular. Loads of evening networking events/awards dos, too, with big drinking culture (although absolutely no judgement on those who don't partake). If there was a gross misconduct clause for imbibing alcohol the industry would collapse overnight.

I’m in a creative industry and it’s calmed down a lot over last 10 years. We used to drink most lunchtimes, after work and often in office. We had drinks trolleys, drinks fridges, wine in mugs….the lot.

Nowadays less drinking in office but it’s still perfectly fine to go for lunch and have drinks - in fact I did yesterday!

I used to be a buyer in the 90s, we would often be wined and dined by suppliers, it was great
I work in a school now and it would be dismissal I would guess.

In a previous job, I was an IT accounts manager, we'd regularly have work events with us all drinking, bottles of wine brought into the office...etc
In my current job, we have an extremely strict policy, no alcohol at all, there's even a high accuracy breathalyser on site and drug/alcohol tests are carried out randomly. Even prescription medications are iffy, very very strict policy.

I actually think my father in law said that his father would think nothing of drinking 20 pints but I couldn’t imagine how that could be true! But reading your post about strength of the ale and sweating it out, then yes, it seems very possible.

One poster on this thread mentions a 'forty pint a week beer allowance' and also a comment about the furnace man drinking '20 pints a day'

www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/topic/17259-beer-and-steelworks/

In hospitality it's pretty standard to have a drink on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve but it's always been one or in the case of last year 2 shots.

It's never been acceptable to just randomly drink on shift and it would be a stackable offence.

Could be very different in a family run pub though but I can't imagine they would want staff drinking all the profits.

All the schools I have taught at have had occasional after work drinks in the hall/staff room/garden. Obviously not acceptable during school hours.

I'm a teacher. It's never actually come up as a thought before but pretty sure it's not allowed and you would be sacked!

Not allowed to, and indeed in my employment contract.

We have beer fridges at my work, we're a tech company. We don't drink until after work though unless there's something to celebrate. The Christmas party day we tend to start at lunchtime. There's something really nice about grabbing a beer at your desk at 4pm with the people you sit next to

This for my work too. Not entirely unusual to go for lunch and have a beer or glass of wine with it then go back to work either. Noone takes the piss, we're all adults and responsible for getting our work done to an excellent standard.

We have a beer fridge too. But no one takes the piss.
The chat about having a sunny beer started about 3.30 today but we never actually got round to it.

We’ll have the occasional lunchtime drink but no one is rolling around. It’s just quite nice and sociable.

@BarbaraofSeville thank you very much for that link! I’m going to have a good read later :)

Haha. Yes, it was quite strong. I don't know how. 🤔 Sorry about that.
But @Thebeastofsleep's husband firm is npt the only tech company to have a beer fridge. @justanotherlaura's has one too. So your disbelief maybe should be turned on your own tech company and demand to know why you haven't got one? 😉 Again. Sorry.

Care-lucky to have time for a cup of tea!