Lunch without a fine bottle of red wine is a sin. I was thinking about this just the other day when I was enjoying the delicious roast beef (carved on the trolley of course) in my club with some fantastic Domaine de Chevalier 2000. It makes the conversation with your guest so much more interesting!

While there are certainly more puritanical abstainers in US vs EU, as alluded to corporate policies are more about liability issues; employers could be liable for any issues caused by serving alcohol to an employee. I'm sure that's what drives our policy, since alcohol consumption is allowed off-site.

The self-imposed non-consumption of alcohol during work hours also has to do with competitive pressures. Those of us with such jobs can't afford to waste an afternoon drunk, or worse, make a big mistake due to being impaired. Just like what's happening to smoking in the EU professional class, that will curtail EU work drinking more than any taboos.

What's happening?

My guess is if a smoker is outside the building on a smoke break and something significantly bad happens that could have been prevented if you were at your desk?

But what does that have to do with the EU, or with drinking at work?

I work for an Air Traffic Control Company; you will be no doubt be pleased to hear that alcohol is banned on site and there is a strict alcohol and drugs policy.

One less worry (Swanwick?)

Keep me safe brother. Not just on BA but also in the Piper PA46 Meridian.

Cheers

My company hosts the occasional happy hour on the patio outside the cafeteria.

Serious work drinking? No. My nature of work is one where it wouldn't be physically dangerous (i.e. working with machinery or heavy equipment), but everybody has far too much to do, not to mention the potential for embarrassment should it impact work quality.

But every company I've worked for has observed weekly Beer Fridays, where beer magically shows up in the fridge and most people will crack one open around 3-4 pm. On certain Fridays, special circumstances (i.e. celebrating completion of a large project, wishing a departing employee well, etc.) dictate that the beer is replaced with fine Scotch, always in the same timeframe and level of moderation.

We've never had any issues with it. Everybody knows taking it to excess would mean the end of it. My employers have all been the variety that don't confuse activity with results... they recognize the contributions (and often, long, hard hours) that employees have put in all week. So when Friday afternoon rolls around, they allow them to be human and socialize/unwind a little bit before heading home for the weekend. It fits in perfectly well with a high performance culture.

I work in a chemical refinery. I do not want my co-workers drinking on the job. Too many lives depend on their paying close attention to what is going on.

At my last employer, a group of us met in a bar after work once a week. One of the rules was no discussion of work. It was a nice team-building exercise and I miss that.

The HR manager there had a drinking problem. I remember sharing an elevator with her and another coworker coming back from lunch. The elevator stunk of alcohol. The coworker asked the HR manager what she had had for lunch. When the HR manager replied, "Soup", she asked if it was cream of bourbon. The woman eventually checked herself into rehab.

When I'm working from home, I almost always crack open a beer in the afternoon to get through the conference calls. My corporate office, however, is a soul-sucking hellhole, so there is no booze on site.

My wife keeps a bottle of bourbon and a couple of tumblers on her bookcase in her office. Then again, she's an attorney, so I believe the booze is a requirement.

Mrs Camarones worked for a startup a few years back that had onsite biotech research labs. There was a steady turnover of the beer kegs that the members of the QC dept stored in one of the cold rooms.

We did that when I worked for Enterprise Rent-a-Car right out of college. it was great, we had a bunch of bars we'd hang out at, a dozen of us fresh out of college kids killing a bunch of beers, flirting, plotting our revenge on the company, all still decked out in our stupid mandatory ties and shirts. When I look back on my time at the company, that's what I miss the most.