"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
When I were a lad, drinking in the Met. Office was far from unknown. This included on duty ....... as recently as the 1970s I had colleagues, forecasters, bring a six-pack on night duty, and prepare TAFs and route forecasts and do 1000 bomber raid station briefs as a matter of course. The larger, mostly civil, offices with long Day shifts had liquid lunches. In retrospect, totally reprehensible.
Fortunately, my holy high moral stance was driven by medical problems, so I had a 24 hour rule until I hung up sea weed and fir -cone in favour of admin.
The big crack-down became possible when smoking in the office was banned: management had an opportunity to be hard-arsed and attempt to solve both problems at the same time. Needless to say, winning a popularity contest was unlikely.
Before anyone else makes the point, I am not at all sure that the forecasts by the sober out-performed those by the rat-arsed.
Last edited by langleybaston; 31st Aug 2020 at 19:50.