{"id":42077,"date":"2016-01-08T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T16:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42077"},"modified":"2020-07-18T12:41:57","modified_gmt":"2020-07-18T16:41:57","slug":"the-lunch-break-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42077","title":{"rendered":"The lunch break conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I have been put into a sour mood.\u00a0 Twenty minutes into the official start of business, my manager calls me into his office.\u00a0 I got chewed out, because I had left at 4:55 p.m.; a spineless, high-maintenance teammate\u00a0needed<\/span>*<\/strong>\u00a0wanted to get in contact with me, and when he couldn\u2019t get ahold of me on my office line, instead of calling my work cell phone, which he has done so in the past, he instead called my manager to inform him that I had apparently left\u00a0unreasonably<\/em>\u00a0early.<\/span><\/p>\n

*“need\u201d would imply it was something important and essential, but rest assured this particular matter was not<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I used the phrase \u201cofficial start of business\u201d in the preceding paragraph to emphasize the fact that despite more or less starting my workday getting chewed out, I had actually been in the office closer to forty minutes.\u00a0 This is often times the case, that I arrive to the office earlier than 8:00 a.m., because I\u2019m generally of the work ethic that \u201cearly is on time and on time is late<\/em>,\u201d and for whatever reasons, the county schools down here aren\u2019t on any sort of schedule, so I like to leave early to compensate for the various times in which I might get stuck behind a school bus, so that I am not actually late.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Aside from arriving to work early on a regular basis, something else that I do regularly is that I eat lunch at my desk.\u00a0 Part of this is due to the fact that my office does not actually have any seating in the break room, which I\u2019m now pondering if it such is something of a labor violation in some capacity in itself.\u00a0 But while at my desk, it\u2019s not like I\u2019m going to close all my meticulously positioned windows and applications, and frivolously surf the internet on a Big Brother-monitored connection; if emails come in, I\u2019m going to engage them, and if I\u2019m in the midst of a good working flow, I\u2019m going to continue working, to maximize my productivity.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a perfect world, I would prefer arriving early and leaving at a correspondingly earlier time.\u00a0 I would rather not be so nickel-and-dimed about lunch breaks, and let me work through a burst of productivity, or allow me to have a longer lunch if it\u2019s necessary.\u00a0 But we all know what\u2019s said about perfect worlds.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I\u2019ve established the fact that on any given day, I\u2019m typically giving more than the traditionally-expected eight-hour work day, towards a 40-hour work week.\u00a0 If I were to actually exert the effort to nickel-and-dime my time, or if I worked hourly, where every fraction of a minute counted, then it\u2019s safe to assume that I probably put in closer to nearly 44-46 working hours on a consistent basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

But leaving five minutes early?\u00a0 That\u2019s a reprimand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, if I weren\u2019t salty about getting chewed out, I wouldn\u2019t be brogging about it in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basically, I\u2019m already generally displeased with my job, but this recent episode raises the temperature just a little bit more.\u00a0 No longer, do I wish to work for free, and give my office any more time\u00a0por gratis<\/em>\u00a0than I am required to provide.\u00a0 As much as I would love to find the magic equation to leaving my house to get to work at precisely 8:00 a.m., my erratic sleep habits and the unpredictable school bus schedule aren\u2019t really going to make me alter my commuting schedule, so the solution appears to be in the lunch break. Even though I think lunch breaks have the potential to be counterproductive, when they interrupt a solid flow of productive work, I\u2019d rather not forfeit my time for free any more than I already have.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is, finding a happy medium manner in which to consistently have a lunch break, where I can feel like I\u2019m successfully getting away from the office, yet not wasting too much of it, appears to be like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I simply don\u2019t know what to do with my forced lunch break.\u00a0 Regardless of what suggestions\u00a0exist on the internet<\/a>\u00a0on how to take good lunch breaks, not everyone\u2019s circumstances are conducive to being able to do the same things as a New York blogger\/office slave is capable of doing.\u00a0 Not to mention that I\u2019m a creature of habit that prefers some consistency and routine, so the more activities are reliant on variable factors, the less appealing they are to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

In some cases, an hour is too much time, because it\u2019s encroaching on my productivity, and then an hour is too little time, to relax or run errands, on top of actually eating lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n

My current circumstances are that I work in an office building that is kind of out in the sticks, relatively speaking.\u00a0 There are a few amenities nearby that accommodate the ability to acquire food, but there\u2019s not much in terms of convenience in finding means to kill time.\u00a0 As much as tons of people wish they could be better about bringing their own lunches to the job, that doesn\u2019t always happen, resulting in the necessity to go out and acquire food from the nearby grocery stores or the small variety of restaurants I deem worth grab-and-going to.\u00a0 However, in the nickel-and-dime game of time, these are all valuable minutes which are ticking away from the overall lunch break, where we could be decompressing and relaxing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not to mention, I\u2019m not particularly hurting terribly over money, but I\u2019m fairly conservative with my daily expenses, and although it seems like a good idea, I don\u2019t really want the unpredictability in time and money consumption trying out every single restaurant in my surrounding area.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s absolutely nothing remotely nearby worth investing the game of minutes necessary to kill some time with.\u00a0 No parks, lakes or walking trails where I could anxiously explore while counting minutes until I have to get back to my unpleasant working conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Going on walks is an often suggested idea, but it\u2019s dependent on the weather.\u00a0 In the winter, it might be too cold, which doesn\u2019t bother me frankly, but in the summer it\u2019s too hot, and I don\u2019t want to return to the office all gross and sweaty.\u00a0 If it rains at all, the activity is outright nixed, and then I\u2019d be downtrodden on being denied my desire to adhere to routine.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a bad idea, but the variable nature of weather conditions makes it less appealing to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Driving around is also an option, but going back to the money thing, sure it\u2019s (knock on wood) not exactly 2009 with their $4\/gallon gas prices right now, but at the same, it\u2019s still a far cry from 2001 and their sub-$1\/gallon gas prices.\u00a0 Not to mention that I try to be a little more conservative with putting unnecessary miles on my car, back from when I somehow managed to squeeze out 100,000 miles in three years.\u00a0 Additionally, the area around me is absolutely crawling with senior citizens in automobiles that like to wander out and about between the hours of 11-2, so driving around here is sometimes an arduous chore.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for my building itself, I\u2019ve stated that my office does not have a break room that can actually be sat in.\u00a0 The front lobby is not large, and is the pathway to and from the restrooms.\u00a0 I\u2019ve already stated my general line of thinking is getting away from my actual desk, so that the temptation to give free work time is outright eliminated.\u00a0 I could possibly hide in a conference room, and read a book or surf on my phone, but if any colleagues suddenly need to use them, that would be a pain.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there\u2019s also nowhere else in the building that has a lobby or waiting room where I could escape for a little bit either.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but think back to some of the cush places I\u2019d worked in, in the past where I had some truly great ways to utilize my mandated lunch breaks, and then eat at my desk while working, and feel melancholy.\u00a0 Once, I\u00a0worked in the Queen Building<\/a>, and I deliberately parked in the lowest level of the parking garage, where it was underground; and I would take hour-long naps.\u00a0 It was remained cool enough in the summer, and I literally had a blanket in my car for when I did similarly in the wintertime.\u00a0 Once, I worked in an office that had an entire wing of the building, completely abandoned in preparation for moving.\u00a0 Left behind were all sorts of executive furniture, including couches; needless to say, I managed to catch up on Z\u2019s there as well.\u00a0 And then there was my previous job, which had the gym I went to every single working day; I\u2019d probably never been in better shape than when I did that.<\/span><\/p>\n

I miss each and every one of those options, compared to the conundrum I have now of wanting to find an effective way to feel fulfilled with my required lunch breaks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seriously, lunch breaking is apparently a skill in itself.\u00a0 As much as utilizing leisure time, and spending money.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, this really amounts to just general unhappiness with my job currently, and coping with the defiant emotions of having been chewed out in the first place.\u00a0 There\u2019s no guarantee that substantial changes will actually occur, as much as I\u2019d like to state effort in wanting to do so, but I really am a creature of habit.\u00a0 The less I have to think about things like \u201cwhere should I go spend my lunch break today?\u201d and shit along that sort, the generally more content I wind up.<\/span><\/p>\n

But seriously, getting chewed out for five fucking minutes?\u00a0 Give me a god damn break.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been put into a sour mood.\u00a0 Twenty minutes into the official start of business, my manager calls me into his office.\u00a0 I got chewed out, because I had left at 4:55 p.m.; a spineless, high-maintenance teammate\u00a0needed*\u00a0wanted to get in contact with me, and when he couldn\u2019t get ahold of me on my office … Continue reading The lunch break conundrum<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,92,45,72,37,15,49],"class_list":["post-42077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-boredom","tag-fail","tag-government","tag-job","tag-og","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42079,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42077\/revisions\/42079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}