Alcohol consumption at workplaces.

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Tangled Metal
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Alcohol consumption at workplaces.

Post by Tangled Metal »

Quick question, do you have bars at your workplace that you can frequent in working hours? If not why not?

I'm trying to understand why a workplace where such important work for our country goes on has 3 or more bars serving in working hours. If you did have alcohol during work times you'd be sacked straight away. The culture of taking your customers to a pub died decades ago in the companies I worked for and even now the only times it happens are with two customers representatives who our company owners have a personal friendship with that is kind of different.

I'm thinking about all those cases of MPs getting into trouble, blaming alcohol and going off to get "medical treatment ". Just shut the bars down now! For such bright people they're dumb as fcuk over this.

What's your view on bars at work?
Last edited by Tangled Metal on 4 Jul 2022, 8:06am, edited 1 time in total.
Jdsk
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by Jdsk »

The reasons include caring too much about history and not enough about the future, and "working hours" for MPs traditionally being rather unusual, and the lack of external accountability and review.

The patterns and pressures of work are terrible and it's very easy for them to fall into a harmful lifestyle.

Jonathan
Tangled Metal
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by Tangled Metal »

So just shut them down. Not the HoC but the bars there. There's been many a case of alcoholism in Westminster or issues relating to alcohol. If there's a problem with the hours and culture causing it then why is there not a requirement for it to be resolved? At least don't add to it.
Jdsk
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by Jdsk »

Tangled Metal wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 10:43pmIf there's a problem with the hours and culture causing it then why is there not a requirement for it to be resolved?
I refer to my previous answer for why it hasn't been resolved... a requirement by whom on whom?

Jonathan
axel_knutt
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by axel_knutt »

Jdsk wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 10:36pmthe lack of external accountability and review.

Jonathan
They're accountable to the PHSO (Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman)
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simonineaston
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by simonineaston »

Funnily enough, me and some mates were discussing this the other day - I've never liked lunchtime drinking and avoided it all my working life, but others in the group discussed marathon sessions that seemed to take place regularly, back in the eighties. Most involved in discussion worked in back-office it support, in the health service...
However to return to the Q.! No, the members of the group described how they did not go to on-site bars in the form of nearby hospital social club/s even though they could of, but rather, visited local pubs.
I recall that in the job-before-one (early noughties) I had colleagues, including my line manager, who would regularly (although not every day) pop out to the adjacent rub-a-dub, for a liquid lunch, which could be 5 pints of Strongbow (???) although to give him his due, he appeared to function perfectly well, post-meridiem...
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Jdsk
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by Jdsk »

axel_knutt wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 11:04pm
Jdsk wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 10:36pmthe lack of external accountability and review.
They're accountable to the PHSO (Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman)
Within the context of the original question... who is "they" and for what of relevance are they responsible to the PHSO?

Thanks

Jonathan
Pebble
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by Pebble »

Tangled Metal wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 10:25pm Quick question, do you have bars at your workplace that you can frequent in working hours? If not why not?

snip

Retired now - but as a wagon driver it could of sometimes helped the day along.....
Tangled Metal
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by Tangled Metal »

I got a holiday job at British Aerospace, as it was called then, when I was 16. There was a social club not out wasn't open during the working day. Plus I believe if it had been then use of it's bar would have given cause for removal from the job.

I think drinking on the job was ending in most workplaces in the 90s. How is it OK at Westminster?

Just out of curiosity, what benefit does alcohol give to MPs that couldn't be better found in another way? Better for them and others.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Alcohol consumpt8on at workplaces.

Post by al_yrpal »

Quite common in Bavaria, someones birthday? - Suckling pig and a few beers!

Al :lol:
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Mick F
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Re: Alcohol consumption at workplaces.

Post by Mick F »

I spent my service career with a bar available. I was in HMS Sirius as a CPO for instance, and we had permission for a 24hr bar.
Never an issue.
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VinceLedge
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Re: Alcohol consumption at workplaces.

Post by VinceLedge »

Worked in the NHS, bars never available on NHS property (although they had social clubs before my time). In the 80s people would occasionally go out at lunchtime for a pint or two.
That finished some where in the last 20 years when the NHS made being under the influence of alcohol a disciplinary issue and it put a stop to any lunchtime drinking being permissable/acceptable. This included stopping the serving of a glass of wine at the hospital Chritmas lunch in the canteen.
Can't imagine any public sector jobs other than the HoP or No.10 where drinking during work hours is acceptable or tolerated today.
Nearholmer
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Re: Alcohol consumption at workplaces.

Post by Nearholmer »

Antediluvian.

When I started work there was an “officers’ mess” for senior managers, with alcohol available with lunch, and a canteen for the rest of us, with bottled beers available at lunch, and big culture of Friday lunch-time boozing in pubs, followed by late return and straight home. And, there were a few guys who, in retrospect, had a drink problem and would have several in the staff association bar along the road every lunchtime, and were neither use nor ornament in the afternoon. It was normal, top to bottom across the industry.

It all ended in a serious accident, after which it was eradicated fairly swiftly.

Drinking and working definitely don’t mix IMO.
Psamathe
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Re: Alcohol consumption at workplaces.

Post by Psamathe »

I remember many many years ago going to the Harwell on-site bar for a pint, pasty, beans and chips most lunchtimes. But it made me a bit sleepy in the afternoon and I can't remember why or when I stopped (loads of possible reasons other than sleepy afternoons e.g. getting a mortgage).

Ian
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Re: Alcohol consumption at workplaces.

Post by Nearholmer »

As a PS, I once got chewed over by the manager of a depot I was at for a while as a trainee, for coming back late from the pub one lunchtime.

Fair enough, except that the manager was a notorious boozer himself, and as he told me off, I could see the scotch bottle tucked in the inside pocket of his jacket, hanging on the back of his chair. He was never late back from the pub, because he never went there, simply having the occasional swig throughout the day, getting through one of those half-bottles before going home!
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