Drinking at work

The boredom of boozeless business

The sad demise of the three-Martini lunch

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Readers' comments



There has got to be some sort of societal insecurity regarding booze that fuels these "alcohol does the body good" articles. People, specifically drinkers, *want* to believe it. I sure did my share of believing it, but the only thing alcohol did for me was make me a miserable SOB. I'm now a year sober and I feel just as creative as I ever did.

St. Teilo



"...a couple of drinks makes workers more creative."

Hunter S. Thompson immediately comes to mind. If only the "hacks" at Bloomberg Businessweek would drop acid, down bottles of Johnny Walker, and eat five packs of cigarettes a day. I wonder what we would be left with...

Oh well, if wishes were fishes....


A splash of the universal solvent frequently helps one get past the insoluble, and a hollow-legged conviviality can be a major asset. Two of our top oil-industry clients in Japan years ago seemed always to have a Board-level exec who could drink our best under the table and surface the next day with a reasonably clear-headed assessment of where agreement could be reached.

I never checked the cirrhosis of the liver aftermath, but it was an effective ploy whenever we attempted to do a bit of ingratiating. Who knows, Mitt might even have succeeded in persuading the French to give up wine had he learned towikeld awicked glass.

AB ve

No wonder, the adverts in the 60s were much more honest and less misleading than what we get to see today.


After one pitch to a couple of investors in 2003, they insisted on taking me and my partner out to a local pub. We didn't have a drink - we had lots, and then some more.

After my 15th(?) trip to the bathroom (approximately one trip per pint of Guinness)I saw them standing at the bar and signalling to me.

When I arrived they said, "OK, we'll do it. But we don't just want the first round, (£200k) we'll do the lot (£8.5m)".

Sometime later they explained that they always insisted on getting drunk with anyone they were going to invest in because it was their way of getting past the image that entrepreneurs create about themselves so that they could see the real person underneath.

Different folks different strokes


We never drank at lunch but we had champagne at birthday parties during work hours (early 1990's). This was at a chemistry lab. Another place I worked had beer stocked in the fridge but it was rare to see one cracked. Of course I've also worked with many alcoholics who were drunk dawn to dusk

I wouldn't want to be anywhere near my job with any sort of buzz on.


The dangers of too much alcohol are clear. That said, a drink after work (note - I am not suggesting a long session) can help build teams and encourage collaboration. People are more prone to let down their guard and get to know one another. People are freer with ideas. Clearly not all those ideas are going to be good, but a relaxed social setting can encourage people to think laterally and explore new ways to solve problems. Can all this be achieved without alcohol? Of course, but in experience, a glass of wine can lubricate the process.


In the 90s, fresh out of college, I had the opportunity to work out of our Parisian office for a few months. I was astounded by how much the French drank, even at lunch. Bottles of wine were ordered everday at lunch in the "officer's" dining room(separate from the workers' cafeteria, where only beer was served). After lunch, everyone in the office disappeared for a couple of hours, then it's back to work until 7 or 8. After that we'd all go out to dinner and more wine, grappa...this happened daily.

The French co-workers made a point of informing me that the Germans strictly frown upon drinking at lunch, not even a beer. Back then I thought the French were so much cooler and was thankful that I didn't get sent to Germany instead like some other co-workers. Now I think that explains why Germany is the country with the roaring economy while France and the rest of the wine-drinking Mediterranean countries are down in the dumps economically.

When I worked in NYC and SF, people did occasionally had their martini lunches. It was quite rare though, mostly for those trying to make partner, and saw it as a way to cozy up to senior partners in their private clubs.

Since then I went into software, and I have NEVER seen any hard drinks in the fridge. Not sure which companies the author is referring to. We did occasionally get served beer during the Friday socials or launch parties(never wine or hard liquor), but not everyone part take. Most tech geeks drink soda like it's the source of life(esp. Mountain Dew), and pride themselves on the stacks of empty soda cans in their office. Most of them are very young, many are also foreign, from asia, who tend not to be big drinkers.

In my 20s, while in consulting and traveling a lot, I thought drinking was a good way to socialize with co-workers and get to know the boss/climb the corporate ladder. Since my late 20s when I began to work in the software industry, I started to think it's a bad idea to get drunk in front of people you work with. I guess people in different industries think differently about this subject in the US, or maybe it's just an age and maturity issue.

Ah Beng

The three-Martini lunch was a cultural disgrace that allowed the well-off in companies to eat sumptuous foods and booze up for hours while their underlings actually did work and seldom took breaks. You do realize why the three-martini lunch died an ignominious death, right? It's because Japanese competition inspired fitness-for-work programs that stripped upper level workers of their privileges and, in doing so, increased their hours worked to the same levels as workers on the bottom of the food chain.

But go ahead, complain about how we yanks are so puritanical about a pint at lunch and how our culture doesn't respect someone who enjoys a glass every now and then during working hours. It has nothing to do with increased productivity and an egalitarian workplace, nooooooo.

The Ban in reply to Ah Beng

I don't think anyone is advocating going back to the days of getting drunk at work. The issue is that many people view even a glass of champagne at a going-away party or some wine with dinner as unacceptable. I seriously doubt that a glass of champagne on special occasions during work hours is a serious hindrance to professionalism.

Michael Dunne in reply to Ah Beng

The Japanese were big on taking salary men out for after hours drinking at various places like izakayas.
For trips to say hotspring hotels (onsen) I think they performed all sorts of party tricks, like paint faces on their bellies and dance about... (maybe that was early 80s)
You can certainly hear them when the karaoke gets cranked up, whether in Ito, on the Izu peninsula, or Urashima on the Kii peninsula...

Corporateanarchist in reply to The Ban

I am (not really). I had some of my most creative times (as a programmer) in the 3-4 pint window. Work was also a lot more social and fun in those days (although it could just be an age thing). I also did more as there was no internet. I do feel there is an american conspiracy to take all the "fun" out of the workplace as it gets in the way of work but I'm unconvinced it yields results. I do realise that much of this "fun", e.g. the sexism, is no loss to the world.


Being an American that worked in London for a time I was amazed how much everyone drank both during lunch and after work at the local pub. In America we consider a drunk/alcoholic as someone who consumes more than 4 drinks per day on a frequent basis. While I was in London (working for a very large professional organization on Newgate Street) a majority of my colleagues would fit that discription. I came to find that drinking in the UK is the main way of bonding and getting to know your co-workers. It's more of a cultural difference than a moral issue.

Damn Dirty Ape in reply to d3EJRbxGtV


Where did you get this from? I always thought the definition of an alcoholic was someone that drinks more than you do. The medical community seems to focus on the effects of alcohol, dependence, problems with the law, guilty feelings, etc.


At my job every Friday at 5:00 pm is beer hour. They roll in a couple kegs and everyone hangs out until they're empty. Technically it's not on the job because we typically go home after, but I still found it refreshing that drinking in the workplace was actually encouraged. Then again, I do research in a biology lab. We never get drug tested either. Scientists are a lot more laid back than corporate types I guess.

J. Kemp


Truly creative people do not, repeat not, need substances to stimulate their creativity. Their creativity cycle comes from the excitement rewards ("rush") which their completely sober minds enjoy from coming up with a new idea and acting upon it.

It does not take much time observing people who are intoxicated to see that the real effect of their altered mental state is that they perceive their "ideas" to be better than they really are. Is it possible that intoxication may cause the marginal idea to be blurted out which might have otherwise not been mentioned (or thought of)? Yes. However, the likely value of that rare marginal contribution should be weighed against the cost of wading through the majority of the idea-dross which flows from the minds of those same intoxicated individuals.

My advice: seek out and retain soberly-creative people, and send the drunks to work for your competitors. That is a winning formula.

Angus Cunningham in reply to J. Kemp


Amen. Nice to see someone use the word 'truly' in conjunction with the word 'creative'. Creative is a word that you would not want, I imagine, to confuse with 'off the wall', and neither would I. So thanks to the inventors of those highly useful words and woe to the drunks who fail to distinguish between them.

Personally, I find many economy-expanding ideas not only 'off the wall' but offensive not only to true health, but also to true wealth and true decency. Example: high-frequency trading, and derivatives of a design whose truly conceived potential benefit is limited to that of the pecuniary potential of the market makers therein. I guess that makes me puritan in regard to use of the words 'truly', 'creative', and 'conceived benefit'.

So, Mr. Buttonwood and J.Kemp, thank you for this opportunity to demonstrate the linguisticly puritan mind and its penchant for facilitating accuracy in creative messaging. I invite you to share my post with to TE's Johnson, and later with TE's Financial Editor.



And this should be made known to all HR departments! :-)

Luke Kelly

Whilst several pints may not be conducive to an effective afternoon, banning a glass of wine with lunch serves only to make life less pleasurable.

iThinker in reply to Luke Kelly

As a wise man once said, "There cannot be good living where there is no good drinking."

I think we've all gotten too uptight, thanks to the rise of the granola class. These days it's all about the "black food" rage, vitamins and supplements, organic food, yoga, mountain climbing...all the research published and daytime health shows like Dr. Oz continue to blame any and every type of cancer on alcohol, just to take all the fun away, making everyone all uptight, out-of-sight. No wonder violence and mass killings are on the rise. I say we go back to 3 martini lunches then everyone will be a little less uptight and nicer to be around.

patrick veale in reply to iThinker

All this "healthy living" stuff has created a bigger business opportunity than the bar business. It can also sell online. It pays to advertise, and all the magazines make "healthy living" cool. The "Hole in the Wall" jazz pub in the west village has been closed down as well as The Lions Head, the No Name Bar and keep on going. The only "old fashioned" "dirty living" can be found in the billion dollar porn industry.


It is quite amusing to see TE was implying drinking can improve workers' productivity -- a more reasonable guess is that no one in his right mind would trust the professional judgement of a guy sitting cross the table whose breath is full of alcohol -- you'd rather die than be operated by such a surgeon.

TBeseda in reply to Galaxy_Jump

"operated on"*
The article didn't imply anything; it expressly states that drinking will improve *some* workers' ability to their job, specifically in a creative capacity.
Fortunately most vocations do not require the tactile expertise of a surgeon and can benefit greatly from a bit of ol' fashioned American creativity. A point I think the author was trying to express.


Why not do your work sober and party later? Is the Economist really sad the majority of the American workforce no longer has a couple of stiff drinks everyday? Regardless of what time of the day people drink, constant boozing is going to catch up with your health.

Also, please don't try and justify drinking on the job with Mad Men references. I'm sure plenty of ad agency execs were able to get blasted while they made their crappy jingles, but do you really want to rely on a drunk doctor/lawyer/accountant/tax adviser/engineer?! Even for less technical positions, companies can find people that are creative without booze.

Wiggers42 in reply to seize_the_diem

One drink does not make a drunk. The reduction of inhibitions due to reasonable consumption of alcohol can make for a better atmosphere in the office as well as the social ('team') bonding of spending time with workmates in a bar at lunchtime. Such motivation is sorely lacking in the oppressive, puritanical environments found in many workplaces. Like most indulgences, an excess is inadvisable and is not what the article is advocating.


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