Alcohol at work

No never. I was a nurse. Events such as leaving, retiring - staff provided food, coffee, tea, juice - never alcohol. You couldn't go back to looking after patients if you had drunk alcohol.

Alcohol and work where I worked would have meant instant dismissal. If somebody was leaving those working would not have been allowed to have one glass of wine.

That is why those clowns should do the decent thing.

Our daughter was really shocked the first time she went to America on business, her London companies HO was in Silicone Valley, staff were in shorts and flip flops, the staff kitchen had fridges full of wine and beer!
She thought there must be a forthcoming party, no it was there for the taking all day any day!

I worked in the City for 20 years where alcohol was normal for a celebration. I am not saying that was the right thing.

I work with children so it’s definitely a no go!

When I was an academic drinks parties were commonplace. However they were invariably held at the end of the working day along with "nibbles". We would then go on to one of the ethnic restaurants for which our city was famed.

Our department had one about once a month - usually to welcome visitors to the uni. Showing people from funding bodies around the department/campus and offering them hospitality was expected. I dont recall anyone getting drunk or sitting on one anothers laps!

I dont know if this still goes on now as I left employed work in 2008. However our RG uni was a very rich one which attracted visitors worldwide and was sloshing with Euro money.

And over pandemic weren't done. People working in hospitals, paramedics, shop workers, bin men, most working people in fact also worked very hard and were not treated to workplace events because IT WAS AGAINST THE RULES! DH lost a dear uncle and we couldn't go to the funeral because it was against the rules.

It was the norm to have alcohol at a working or client lunch or in the office when I was working as a solicitor.

A school I worked at in Spain had wine in the staff room for teachers to drink with their lunch if they wished.

I wouldn't want to be in charge of 35 teenagers if I'd been drinking.

In relation to Partygate, a glass of wine with a meal during or at the end of the working day when restaurants were closed I don’t have any problem with. They had been working in close quarters all day and would not be any greater risk to themselves or others.

It’s obvious that it went a good deal further than that.

Yes, local authority dept for birthdays/leaving/Christmas, drinks and nibbles in the office after 5pm. I retired in 2016.

No, never in local authority. No never at meetings with our I-own legal team or with barristers, solicitors I’d instructed.

We had a solicitor doing work for us who left the firm suddenly delaying everything, enquiring why, discretely we were told cocaine!. Given that traces of drugs have been identified in HoC alcohol is the least of our problems.

I haven’t come across drugs but lawyers and doctors are known to drink a lot so drugs wouldn’t surprise me. Not all lawyers or doctors obviously, but a good many.

In my many years of working - yes very occasionally and very small amounts.

We sometimes had wine which had been donated by reps as a christmas present and had a glass or 2 at a staff meeting
The staff meeting were always held after work so nobody was working after that

and when I worked in Aged Care there was a relative who brought in a bottle of bubbly every New Year to share with his wife and offered a glass to staff
Nobody had a problem with staff having 1 glass at midnight to bring in the New Year.

I didn't drink alcohol at work. I would have been disciplined.

There is a difference between a glass or two in the office at the end of the day and excessive drinking till 4am during a pandemic when it was against the law.

No. Teaching and alcohol is a bad idea.
What worries me more is that I doubt if this was any different from the usual behaviour of government ministers outside lockdown. Alcohol in the HoC and the HoL seems to be acceptable.

I worked for a government department for many years. Alcohol was permitted at leaving,
retirement dos etc. They took full advantage.

I shall write to my MP and ask. He's SNP but he may know about the "culture" in the house of commons.
I am shocked but then I am easily shocked.
Only once I remember when I was working as a junior in a geriatric/psychiatric ward, at the end of a shift one of the nurses would whisper to come into the office and a bottle of sweet sherry was served in medicine cups!

It was in my contract that if you had an alcholic drink at all it was instant dismissal.
And rightly so,as machines were being used.

Never. I worked in the NHS for 30 and my husband worked as a Teacher for 38 years. Drinking at work and even coming back from lunch smelling of alcohol constituted ‘Gross Professional Misconduct’ and could result in instant dismissal. That remains the case across the public sector. Unless you are a self-entitled member of Politics ?

I worked at the head office of a well known motoring organisation in the 1980’s. The building had 3 bars. One on the top floor for visiting dignitaries, one for senior managers and where we could take customers and one for the rest of us. Long gone I’m sure. Prior to that I worked at an I.T. company. It was opposite a wine bar to which the entire building went to on a Friday lunchtime never to return. One Friday afternoon a company manager from a nearby town called in to find the entire building empty.

My career was in education and alcohol was definitely not allowed in schools even after hours. If we were saying goodbye to a colleague then we had nibbles in the staff room with juices and then sometimes moved on to a local pub for a meal and drinks. Drinking alcohol on education premises would definitely been a sackable offence and was accepted as perfectly right.

People's attirude to alcohol differs in many countries. The UK seems to have a 'drink as much as you can' view whilst others have a much more 'accepting and controlled' view. I have worked in places where alcohol was available to staff.. Never experienced any problems. Last place I was located had rule no alcohol allowed on premises. However it was available for Local Councillors in their restaurant and for entertaining in Committee Rooms, bit like H of P.