Workmen having a beer while they work

[TheBrilloPad]

Three men laying a patio outside in your back garden in the heat. They are polite, reasonably priced, and doing a good job. On a three day job, it's day one at lunch time and they are each opening a bottle of beer to have with their lunch.

Are you bothered?

In France last week I saw several builders having beer with lunch, but they were small beers slowly sipped over an hour. As others have said normal in Europe.

Lunchtime seems fine. We had a guy doing the patio a few years ago and he started on the Tennants Extra at 8am

I am in your back garden. Can I have a beer please?

I am properly laughing at some of these responses!

Having worked in many pubs over the last 15 years, most of them where builders go to "lunch", let me assure you cracking a (less than english pint size) beer is the least of your worries.
Especially if they are drinking in front of you!

If I was you I'd be more worried about them going out to lunch (NAB-Not All Builders btw- before anyone starts!)

There are a huge amount of builders in my area, who rock up at lunch time, buy a strong pint (say 5.4% vs 3.8%) then proceed to snort lines of coke in the toilets.

You would not believe the amount of builders- rocking up in company vans who got banned from my various pubs due to things like obvious coke use, being too drunk, and leaving lines of coke in the loos for each other

Trust me, a brief beer at lunch, in plain view, is nothing!

Oh and before anyone starts.....DP is in the construction trade, and we are council house tenants, so it's def not a class judgement....just years of observation.

Is or any different to a banker going for lunch and having a few wines?
Very much so, I hate to be a H&S bore but most of my technicians through college/uni had missing fingers. The circular saw I used had resulted in a huge H&S fine, £50,000, when many H&S laws were breached and the idiot cut his own fingers off.
I still think a single beer, slowly with food would be fine for many people and jobs. But why risk it?

Is or any different to a banker going for lunch and having a few wines?

Yes, it is. You may not have realised there are differences between laying patio and banking, but surprisingly there are several.

Wouldn't bother me, they aren't my employees.

Depends exactly what task they are doing I guess and how difficult it is.

But generally speaking fine if they stop at one.

then proceed to snort lines of coke in the toilets Oh dear is that still in, how very very dulllllllllllllll. Not much has changed then. It's when you're kind of an apprentice type and have to argue that you want a soft drink, or popping to the loo in the student union (nearest loo) and your mate buys you a pint because they saw you, it was speed then as well.

When I lived in the UK then builders having a beer at lunch was no issue. I'd often offer them one.

Now I'm in the Netherlands, and over a year into major renovations so have had many tradesmen from many companies in and out of the house, I am now of a very different view - they will not touch a drop until they clock off for the day, no matter what the weather. It's just not done.

Horses for courses I guess. I think I prefer it this way - makes the beer a mark of a day completed.

Even the prisoners in The Shawshank Redemption had a beer in the hot weather

I wouldn't be happy

I don't see a problem with it and probably would have offered them a beer on a day like today.

@Scaredycat3000 you are absolutely right....literally boring as shit, and still the same as it ever was!

We can drink at lunch; as long as it's not a regular occurrence, you are still capable of doing your job afterwards; and you pay for it yourself.

It wouldn't bother me unless they got drunk and started making mistakes or fell off the agreed timescale because of it.

It's true about being a bit pissed being the least of the problems you get with builders on big sites.

Loads turn up to work still high as a kite from the night before, unable to concentrate, on the weed all day, and yep, washed down with a liquid lunch at the pub.

Not all of them. But a high percentage.

Oh...and meant to add.... the moral of my story???

That anyone, out of employers/ general public sight, will do a lot of unacceptable things and don't judge a book by it's cover!

I've had everyone from bankers living in £5,000,000 farmhouses, to people on benefits, to middle class "up right citizens" banned from my pubs for drug use/ abuse / general shitty behaviour

I suspect a lawyer having a glass of wine with lunch, then going back to his desk and snorting coke wouldn't get the same reaction, but everyone does it ime.

Will they be using power tools after this beer? Or laying slabs that may end up not so straight? These would be my concerns.

Not sure I would approve of them drinking on the job.
That said I have always treated my builders like gold dust, gallons of tea and bacon/bacon n egg rolls mid morning and a crate of beer on completion.

Nope. We are also having new paving laid (except it is week 3, not day 3) and we have been keeping them readily topped up with tea, cold drinks, biscuits and ice-cream.

I don't see the problem. I always give my gardener a cold beer, especially on such a hot day.

Rorty, Would you give your chauffeur a beer for lunch? 'Cause as I've said many times I like not hurting myself or others whenever possible.
And Lana YY Pub work in the city was an eye opener for lunch time drinking in suits. It is quite common to see teachers in one school I worked in to be in the standard, it wouldn't surprise to see more. Two young teachers still wiping and sniffing coke off their noses whilst making a beeline for the on site Policeman to sexually harass him, poor man was so innocent.

My parents back in Europe always offer cold beer and some lunch to whoever is working on their property/garden.