Are there benefits to sipping on a martini while at work? Some employees think that drinking at work on a daily basis makes them happier and more creative.

In New York, J. Walter Thompson has in its offices a 50-foot-long bar with pedestal stools. Their spokesman says the bar is accessed frequently by employees both on and off the clock and believes it “incentivizes and enthuses” employees.

The bar area looks like a swanky nightclub.

Victoria Pynchon responded to a Forbes article that inquired whether drinking at work was an office perk or employee right by saying:

“Well do I recall the days of alcohol in the office. This was the 1980s through the mid-90s when work hard-play hard meant drink hard and party hard with your colleagues. It WAS, actually, Mad Men with all the dalliances and mischief that the office as adult playground implies. I have this to say about that – we had A LOT more fun then than we later did when so many got down to the business of being sober, when work-life meant that you were primarily working alone in your office slaving before a computer screen and an ambivalent Gen-X was entering the work force trained in PC-propriety and sober as judges. It would be great if we could re-create the spirit of fun and joint purpose of those days without adding the troublesome mix of alcohol and illicit romance.”

Do you think more companies should bring back the work-hard and party-hard atmosphere?

We reported earlier that a new study published by the University of Illinois at Chicago on the effects of intoxication and problem solving reveals that consuming moderate amounts of beer can stimulate enhanced problem-solving abilities.

Perhaps more companies that thrive on creativity, like design firms and marketing agencies, should start building custom bars in their offices. Maybe that would make desk jobs more tolerable in the long-run.