Lunchtime beers. Sorely missed...

summerskin · 25-05-2012 12:20PM #1

Working in the UK, and particularly in London, we used to go out for a pint most lunchtimes, and every friday lunch meant about three hours in the pub followed by an hour of chilling in the office doing nothing. How i miss those days.

How come nobody in Ireland seem to do that? Last time I mentioned it to someone they looked at me as though I was from another planet, and shouldn't I just get a chicken roll and a can of pop from Spar like everyone else???

So, how many of you would like to go for lunchtime pints, and how many think it's just another step down the rocky road to alcoholism and is unprofessional?

seantorious · 25-05-2012 12:24PM

Cause the pub is expensive. The naggin in my drawer is much closer too.

Battered Mars Bar · 25-05-2012 12:26PM

I often do beers at lunch

Doesn't everyone?
Have a hip flask aswell

Kerrydude1981 · 25-05-2012 12:28PM

I dunno about ye but having three pints at lunch would only give you the taste for more and before you know it your inside some nightclub working the top shelf

summerskin · 25-05-2012 12:30PM

Kerrydude1981 wrote: »

I dunno about ye but having three pints at lunch would only give you the taste for more and before you know it your inside some nightclub working the top shelf

funny you should say that, but i've had a fair few of my irish friends asking me how i can go to the pub and only have one or two pints and then go home. they all say that once they've started they need to carry on and have at least six or seven just to "make it worth it". I'd never come across that attitude before.

Kerrydude1981 · 25-05-2012 12:33PM

summerskin wrote: »

funny you should say that, but i've had a fair few of my irish friends asking me how i can go to the pub and only have one or two pints and then go home. they all say that once they've started they need to carry on and have at least six or seven just to "make it worth it". I'd never come across that attitude before.

The only time ive done the lunch time pints was when the 02 World Cup was on,went to the pub to watch Ireland playing Germany and never went back to work,I blame Robbie Keane really he owes me a half days wages

Micky Dolenz · 25-05-2012 12:35PM

Used to do it a lot in different countries I worked in. Most people were amazed when I told them it wasn't the done thing in Ireland.

When I'm working, I'm working. when I'm drinking, I'm drinking. Best to get them both separate.

chin_grin · 25-05-2012 12:36PM

Do it insanity wolf style!

Bring a few cans in to work. Take one out (could be at anytime, but just make sure you're boss is looking at you), open it and take a glug. All while maintaining intense eye contact with aforementioned boss.

I Heart Internet · 25-05-2012 12:37PM

That sounds Yock to be honest. I'd have a headache if I had just the one pint especially early in the day like that.

I can think of ffew things worse than sitting in a stuffy office on a sunny day AFTER having one or two pints. Groggy, headachy, stinking of drink yockness.

But to each his own.

Btw, if Coronation Street has taught of nothing else (and it hasn't) it's that the English are a breed of raging alcoholics who are in the pub at all hours of the day.

jester77 · 25-05-2012 12:37PM

Fairly normal here, you can get beer in most company canteens. The difference is people will have just one with their meal and go back to work. They wouldn't be trying to wolf down 3 pints and head back.

summerskin · 25-05-2012 12:40PM

I Heart Internet wrote: »

That sounds Yock to be honest. I'd have a headache if I had just the one pint especially early in the day like that.

I can think of ffew things worse than sitting in a stuffy office on a sunny day AFTER having one or two pints. Groggy, headachy, stinking of drink yockness.

But to each his own.

Btw, if Coronation Street has taught of nothing else (and it hasn't) it's that the English are a breed of raging alcoholics who are in the pub at all hours of the day.

I'd say it's not the people who have one or two pints in the afternoon that have much of a problem, more the people that binge drink all weekend to the point of blacking out.

*did that way too much in my younger days. can hardly remember when the last time i actually got drunk was now. much prefer to have one or two pints and then stop.

mikemac1 · 25-05-2012 12:42PM

Worked in a Dublin branch of a Dutch company

Before I started I was told there was a fridge full of beer in the canteen.
BS I said

It was true!
Staying late? Weekend coming? Working long hours? Hot day?

Just head up the canteen, grab a longneck or two and drink at your desk
Everyone did it, from the top managers to the lowly skivvies like me

Long live the Dutch!

Now you don't take the piss
Some lads would have six bottles and that's just wrong
But three is perfectly grand

Sykk · 25-05-2012 12:43PM

If you can't get through a day of work without having need for a pint then you've got a problem, man.

ejmaztec · 25-05-2012 12:43PM

summerskin wrote: »

funny you should say that, but i've had a fair few of my irish friends asking me how i can go to the pub and only have one or two pints and then go home. they all say that once they've started they need to carry on and have at least six or seven just to "make it worth it". I'd never come across that attitude before.

I worked with someone in an office over there (English through and through), who used to drink 4 or 5 pints every lunchtime, then nod off at his desk at about 3.30. He never got caught napping once, and must have had some kind of inbuilt early warning system letting him know that the boss was on the way.

On the whole though, having a couple of pints and a ploughman's is a very civilised way of breaking the monotony of a day on the treadmill.

summerskin · 25-05-2012 12:46PM

Sykk wrote: »

If you can't get through a day of work without having need for a pint then you've got a problem, man.

Hmm it's not a need, it's a want. Sometimes I want a beer with my lunch. I used to do it. And now i don't. Quite simple, no problem. Why do you see having a pint as a "need"? If I said coffee would you feel differently? The way some people view/fear alcohol in this country amuses me. Like when people say they have "taken a drink", it makes it sound like drugs. What's wrong with "had a drink"? Nobody says they had "taken a rock shandy", do they?

Nothingbetter2d · 25-05-2012 12:47PM

when i used to work for John Moylan & Associates on the last friday of the month they used to put a table up in the office full of beer/wine/and softdrinks... they would also have crisps and nuts there too.

we could drink at our desks while we worked.

mikemac1 · 25-05-2012 12:48PM

Sykk wrote: »

If you can't get through a day of work without having need for a pint then you've got a problem, man.

It's this kind of attitude that sets up our woeful relationship with drink

The French may drink every single day but that's a few glasses of wine

Your post makes it seem that alcohol is some forbidden problem and so people go days without drinking and then just abuse it on a night out

It's not a mature relationship at all

meoklmrk91 · 25-05-2012 12:49PM

Few of us did it a few times during the college year, grand craic nice to get away and sit down and relax, we never had a problem with just having the one and then heading back for class. Nothing better on a nice day.

starbelgrade · 25-05-2012 12:56PM

Lunchtime bears are cooler.

aujopimur · 25-05-2012 12:59PM

I did in my younger days, but we used to skip the going back to work bit.

Marcusm · 25-05-2012 01:04PM

In Ireland, too many people commute by driving to make drinking that possible.

In London, I have found it job/ team specific thing. The last place I worked, some spent 2 hours a day in the gym ad sneered at anyone who had a lunchtime drink. Needless to say, I assisted in changing that culture. ;-)

o1s1n · 25-05-2012 01:06PM

Whenever I go out for 'just one pint' with the lads in work it usually results in at least 10 and a taxi home in the early hours in the morning.

I cannot see this going down well!

120_Minutes · 25-05-2012 01:21PM

It's not done in Ireland simply because we're weak willed with an immature attitude to drink, and can't stop at " just one"

iguana · 25-05-2012 01:36PM

summerskin wrote: »

Like when people say they have "taken a drink", it makes it sound like drugs.

Alcohol is a drug, just a legal one. And tbh, it's a hell of a lot more problematic than many drugs, even those in the Class A category.

omgitsthelazor · 25-05-2012 01:42PM

summerskin wrote: »

can of pop

:pac:

Who calls it this?

grindle · 25-05-2012 01:49PM

120_Minutes wrote: »

It's not done in Ireland simply because we're weak willed with an immature attitude to drink, and can't stop at " just one"

This (and all posts like it).

Went to Denmark in Transition Year, walked into one of the (doorless!) classrooms in their school, and the bins had beer cans in them, there were a couple of students dotted around the room with a can in their hand, and other students leaving whenever they wanted a cigarette!
In my conditioned Irish brain I thought "This can only end in chaos!"
Nope. Most attentive students I've ever sat around.
Apparently, if you treat people maturely, like adults, they behave maturely.
Crazy. Unthinkable in Ireland.

What do we have to change to become less... cünty?
At what point is it conditioned into us to go "Jesus, I can take advantage here, better act the spastic."?

seamus · 25-05-2012 02:09PM

If it was a job where you have minimal interaction with other people, you'd get away with it. A programmer or something sucking on a couple of bottles while tying up loose ends on a friday afternoon.

If you have to talk to other people, go to meetings or write up mails and such though, I can't see how being even the slightest bit tiddly would be in any way a good career move. Personally I would find it very frustrating having to deal with a colleague who'd had 3 pints this afternoon and came back to work.

A pint, grand. Two or three bottles over the course of an afternoon would also be fine, you wouldn't even feel it. But three hours in the pub before going back to work? No way.

I've gone out for lunches which include wine and even after a glass and a half I'm nearly nodding off at the desk and ridiculously unproductive. Then about 4.30 the goo kicks in and all I can think about is getting out of work and down to the pub for a nice pint.

"Weak willed and immature" is a very naive and simplistic way of looking at it. Having the willpower to stop after two pints doesn't make you any more productive when you go back to work. I don't avoid drinking at lunchtime because I'm afraid I won't stop, it's because I know that once I've had a couple of drinks, I'll get nothing else done that day (either in work or at home).

Sea Filly · 25-05-2012 02:18PM

jester77 wrote: »

Fairly normal here, you can get beer in most company canteens. The difference is people will have just one with their meal and go back to work. They wouldn't be trying to wolf down 3 pints and head back.

Hate daytime drinking, makes me feel wrecked and disorientated and unmotivated, even if I only have ONE.

BTW, I used to work in the UK and in my workplace, it was NOT the done thing and would be seriously frowned upon. It was scientific work though, an area not compatible with a liquid lunch.

Dangerous Man · 25-05-2012 02:20PM

I have a beer on ocassion with my lunch. I went last Friday to bar with a colleague for a feed and a beer. I had two beers and a bloody lovely Irish stew, went back to the office and answered some emails. Don't get me wrong, I like to have a few, but I'm also able to leave it at one or two.

westendgirlie · 25-05-2012 02:23PM

I had a brunch, for lunch.

This isn't the hemingway thread, is it?

Cee-Jay-Cee · 25-05-2012 02:24PM

Its because we Irish are physically unable to go into a pub without getting absolutely bladdered. It actually shows great resilience on our part where we resist the urge to go to the pub for an hour and save it for that night or the weekend when we can go and stay for much much longer.

Lunchtime beers. Sorely missed...

LunchBeers? Yay or Nay? 113 votes

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