Asklemmy

Sure, if I'm meeting a vendor for lunch it would be normal. If I'm just sitting at my desk working through lunch like I typically do, it would be really strange to have a drink and I'd probably be reprimanded.

USA, IT worker

no.

I work in manufacturing in America. There's NO FUCKING WAY. You'd be fired immediately if caught. I don't even think the union would try to back you up. It's simply too dangerous of an environment. However, reeking of booze from the night before? Apparently totally fine.

US IT. They provide us with drinks at lunch anytime there’s a company wide meeting.

I'm in the UK. I worked at a couple of places in the '90s - sysadmin and IT trainer - where this was considered perfectly acceptable at the time, but I definitely wouldn't now. I'm no longer in IT at all, but I don't think that it is seen as acceptable very widely anywhere now.

No. Work is giant liability now days.

Yes, I drink almost exclusively at lunch.

In the U.S. this has changed a bit over the years. I believe, based on watching Mad Men, that it used to be super common for people to drink and have alcohol at work, let alone at lunch. A friend of my dad used to take his Playboy subscription at work because he didn't want it to be available to his kids. Try that these days!

In the 90s, I worked at a job were it wasn't uncommon to have a drink with lunch, especially when we were out with our Managing Director.

In the 2000s it was essentially something you'd get fired for.

Now? My current job (IT in the aviation industry) wouldn't allow it but there are apparently a lot of start ups that bring beer around to people's desks on Friday afternoons.

Pretty much everwhere I've worked; there's a no alcohol or drugs clause in the employment contract/policies. So officially it's not permitted; but one beer, or a couple hits from a dab pen (weed vape) hasn't been uncommon in most places either; just don't let management see it.

I'd regularly have a pint or two (no more than three) with my boss on Wednesday lunchtimes! And, in another workplace, while I was a young'un throwing an almighty tantrum, I spent a month having four double vodkas for lunch most days. Stunned I wasn't fired, honestly. (UK)

I worked in 3 different European countries, in both academia and industry,

While not being common, it's not that rare to take a glass of wine or beer when doing a real-restaurant for lunch break at work. At least for people working in office.

Most places have an alcohol restriction on premises. But lunch time is your own time. Bars near the auto plants used to have 30+ beers already opened so the workers could come in slap their money down and get right to drinking at 12:05. I worked at one place where boss bought beer and pizza for the whole company for doing well that week. I think shop guys had 1 beer restrictions, for "safety". Us office guys could have more. 2 beer and pizza makes it hard to stay awake at the computer though.

US, audit & tax

Once in a blue moon, on a really nice day, we would get a patio table and have a margarita with lunch. Only if it was a slow work day, like with nothing but webinars scheduled for the afternoon (as attendees, not presenters).

It was not uncommon to see beer in the office fridge during tax season because those folks would be pulling 15+ hour days for pretty much 3 months straight.

I'm currently in a production support role in the US, and I'd never consider it: I work too closely with production operatives that they'd smell it on me. My last couple of role involved programming automated forklifts, so it was strictly forbidden.

Ten years ago I was doing an internship an engineering firm in the UK, and a few times we went out for a beer with lunch. It wasn't exactly common, but it did happen.

IT related to ships and geophysical surveys.

For larger projects, as long as the heavy duty work is out of the way, grabbing a beer or two with the meal is pretty common.

Related story:
We were mobilizing for a project, and I had a real headscratcher of a problem. Work day was over, and we all headed back to the hotel for the evening. We all met at dinner, and I called it "a night" early as I excused myself after a few beers to head back ip to my room.

Project manager, who knew of the issues I was having with the system said something along the lines of the issues being serious when it caused me to be the first to leave the bar. "Nah, I'm gonna VPN in and try something I just thought of"

Yup, turns out it was abgood idea: Misconfigured soanning tree was the root cause, and the fix took 5 minutes. It was fun rejoining the others and Announce that the system would be ready the next day after some cleanup, and all that was missing was a few beers. The Ballmer Peak is real.

If my boss gets a drink and I want a drink, it's fair game. Otherwise no.

Depends on what the boss does, but if I'm the most senior person, and especially if it's a conference or lunch meeting with someone I know well, and the itemized bill isn't required for reimbursement, sure thing. Have many times.

Some older companies have policies in place that define appropriate circumstances under which staff can have 1 drink during duty hours and it not be an actionable offense.

In my previous job I had to travel very often to customer's sites or or other offices

The ones in Germany drank regularly during lunch time. I never felt comfortable to do it since my job was very technical. In one office they even had a fridge full of beers and wines that you could grab freely. I never saw anybody drinking at the office tho

Years ago, I was working on a house where there were several nests of these wicked looking red wasps. I had been working around them all morning quite safely. At lunch, I drank half a beer, and was almost immediately stung twice when I went back to work. I don't know if it affected my timing or my scent, or something else.

I personally don't drink, but my team is all WFH, so I don't doubt at all that there are some that have a beer or two with lunch. Or a glass of wine.

When we have in person events, there's a pretty strict no drinking culture, but once the event is over, usually people will shuffle off to the nearest pub or bar or we've done a board game cafe with booze before.

Don't drink.
Sometimes the colleagues crack open a cold one near the end on a Friday or we chill in an office corner as a sort of after-work "party"

Forbidden by company policy. Zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol. Federally regulated manufacturing in the US.

I have worked in 6 different manufacturing companies in the US and none of them allow it. Must be a safety and liability thing.

I had a bottle of hot saki at a restaurant that we walked to last month.

Alcohol is bad for you health. Workplaces should be better so folks don’t feel the need to injest poison to tolerate it.

Just one?

My current job is WFH, so no one would know or care. But I previously had a safety sensitive job that held us to either the same or higher standards as the federal Dept of Transportation. They were so strict that we had posters advising against drinking kombucha at lunch or using pure CBD products at all. My SO at the time had a CBD balm that I would put gloves on to help apply because I didn't want to risk it. The company said that while these products were likely fine, if an accident or something happened and we had to then take a drug test, any registerable amount would be grounds for immediate dismissal with no recourse.