Drunk at work?

According to a survey out today, one third of employees admit to having been hungover at work while one in 10 claim to have been drunk while at their desk.

One thousand people and 250 businesses were interviewed for the survey for Norwich Union Healthcare and 85% of those who were drunk or hungover said it had affected their mood and performance.

Journalists are well renowned for their drinking ability so here we share with you our top five hangover stories from the office.

In fifth place

The worst hangover of my life was following a work awards ceremony where we had been drinking quite a lot of the day and night. I called my partner to say I’d be home at 7 30 and rocked up around 1am apparently wreaking of booze. The next morning I felt so ill I couldn’t stand and so slithered like a snake across the carpet to the phone to try and book the morning off as emergency holiday. No one answered and as I hadn’t worked there long I set off on the horrendous journey to work trying to concentrate and focus on not being ill. Once at work I was told I would be representing the team for the Y2K project in case the millennium bug affected our equipment and the first meeting was in 5 minutes. I don’t know how but I managed to get through it and at lunch time it was our Christmas party. One look at the plateful of turkey and brussell sprouts and the amount of booze flowing made me call it a day so while my colleagues were partying into the night, I was wrapped up in bed!

In fourth place

I was temping in the print department of a posh city lawyers firm. The night before I had been locked out of my flat so my neighbours put me up and plied me with wine, a very nice Basque drink made out of sloes (bit like sloe gin) and a load of whisky. About midday the next day, I went to the toilets where a load of suited lawyers were having an informal meeting. I went into a cubicle and puked long, hard and loud. Then walked out pretending nothing happened. Felt a lot better afterwards.

In third place

I was so hungover once that I fell asleep while sitting at my desk. I was rudely awoken by my editor who fortunately saw the funny side. I later passed out in a toilet cubicle but felt much rejuvenated when I awoke.

In second place

I went out for a drink with my boss and another colleague and ended up trashed at 3am in my flat with them making pasta. My colleague went at the cheese with a kitchen knife which was quite scary, while my boss (at least four sizes bigger than me) spilled red wine down his shirt and had to wear one of my t-shirts that barely covered his midriff while I attempted to wash his wine stained shirt. Then my boss started playing with some silly felt finger puppets (in the shape of sea creatures) and reading poetry out loud – Emily Dickinson as far as I remember. We all passed out at some point after drinking rum, but my boss got up like a zombie and staggered to work the next morning, in his stained and crumpled shirt….my hangover was so bad I could not get out of bed for hours.

In first place

My worse hangover at work involved just about managing to get through a meeting, due to my friend secretly passing me mints under the table, when the editor asked me stay behind to have a chat about a feature I was writing. This proved too much and I started to be sick while another colleague lifted the bin up to my face while shouting ‘bin, bin’. I ran out of the room, having managed to hold on for about a minute only to be sick in the corridor outside followed by the disabled toilet. The jumper I was wearing was a write off and I then had to call facilities to get them to clear up the mess in the corridor telling them, much to my colleagues amusement, that somebody had spilt some food!

Have you had to go to work on a hangover? Share your experiences at CareSpace