Drinking on the job – did you have a boozy lockdown?

The millions whose homes became offices during Lockdown have, unwittingly, been able to do something safely that was once accepted as normal at work –  downing a drink or two.

Once upon a time no-one raised an eyebrow when staff flocked to the pub in lunch break. Many offices provided their own social clubs, with bars, darts, pool, just like a pub.

I worked at The Law Society in Chancery Lane with wine and beer served in its canteen; United Magazines in Woolwich had a pub-style staff club; American Express in Brighton had excellent facilities. Even Police Stations had their Staff drinking facilities – Milton Keynes nick had a dance floor and disco.

Setting the worst possible example for workplace drinking was the old Fleet Street newspaper hub. ‘Private Eye’ lampooned Fleet Street’s rampant drinking culture with their Lunchtime O’Booze sozzled hack byline, still going strong today.

In a bid to keep staff out of The Street of Shame’s myriad pubs, Express newspaper group laid on a good quality bar in their offices right up until the late 1990s. The Daily Mirror followed suit.

Lawyers had their dining halls and butteries dotted around the Inns of Court. The City chaps had their livery clubs, chop-shops and private members’ institutes.

Pubs in The City of London opened their doors at 9 am or even earlier, for market workers ending their stints at Smithfield, Billingsgate, Petticoat Lane; medics off night shift at Bart’s hospital; Post Office sorters from Mount Pleasant.

By midday, office workers began to flow in. It was sardines by 1pm, amid frenzied boozing scenes which London’s acerbic 18^th Century caricaturist Hogarth would have recognised.

All vestiges of this widespread workplace boozing have been banished today. I set the tipping-point of change as somewhere between John Major’s 1992 Conservative government and Tony Blair’s landslide Labour victory in 1997.

Today a tipple at lunchtime, if you’re even allowed out of your office, would be frowned upon, a career stopper. In the NHS it’s viewed as a very grave offence, even meriting the sack. Rumours swirl that modern offices have booze-sensors and staff face random tests for alcohol.

Only three occupational workplaces have survived this colossal change in lifestyle: the Palace of Westminster’s elite bars for politicians, the Armed Forces and their Messes, and University students with their Union bars. Strangely, all three are subsidised by the tax-payer.

I wonder, did it dawn on Lockdown’s Work-from-Homers they could reach with impunity for a beer from the fridge when their Zoom cameras weren’t looking? Or pour a glass or two of chilled Rosé in the garden, as they populated their spreadsheets and sent off their reports? I bet they did. Apparently half of Work-from-Homers would now prefer to keep their home-based offices post-Lockdown – I wonder why.