And I thought it was bad in Belgium...
My Belgian boss used to order beers while we looked at the menu, and then a bottle of wine between two over dinner - when we used to go for lunchtime meetings at the resataurant opposite the office. Having come from working in the UK to Brussels, I wasn't quite expecting that much drinking. In his previous job he'd kept a bottle of whisky in his desk drawer, for the regular Friday afternoon 2 hour lunch followed by sitting around drinking the afternoon away in the office sessions.
Whereas I thought an "office bottle" was something Phillip Marlowe had, because he had a drink problem.
Admittedly I did once have a lunch involving 3 bottles of wine between two of us (plus coffee and brandies), but that was a customer thanking me for something I'd already agreed to sort out, so there was a minimal amount of meeting, and an awful lot of drinking and eating.
I suppose we did once sponsor a trade association Christmas breakfast. We paid for a glass of bubbly and a fried brekkie. I allowed myself half a glass, as I had plenty of time before my first meeting. But one guy got there at 6:30, hit the Guinness hard, and by the time things broke up at 8:30, he'd necked a glass of bubbles and 5 pints of the black stuff. He then went on to work, designing drinking water systems. I did wonder how many deaths we were responsible for that day, as a few of the others went to work on several Guinnesses. Whereas I ended up 12 stories up on a rooftop, with an only knee-high parapet, in a 20 knot December wind - glad that I was sober, but also wishing I had a few drinks inside me.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
