What do you do on your lunch break?

[geoff]

I used to be a long luncher. Even though I am hourly, I would drive with my boss as far as 10+ miles from the office, sit, order, wait, eat, wait, pay, and drive the whole way back.

Since I started the diet, I tend to either bring in the dreaded tupperware and heat, or Jen meets me for a picnic. I rarely go over thirty minutes, and get more done (+pay) in the process.

What do you do, and how do you do it? I hate sitting at my desk, eating over whatever plans or study I was just working on. I think I might start eating outside, if it ever stops raining.

[jen]

well now, when I remember to eat, I eat as fast as I can before Rowan wakes back up!

But before Rowan...
I started with an hour long lunch because I wanted the break. I'd go to a pool hall that served lunch and played pool and ate...

Then I realized that if I switched to 1/2 hour lunch I could leave earlier!! So I would usually go somewhere fast and come home.

When I was pregnant, I'd try to bring my lunch as often as possible though.

And back to now, I just scour the fridge for something fast and easy

[Silva]

I like to get out of the building. I used to get an hour for lunch. Now that my work day varies from 6 to 10 hours on the shorter days I only get half an hour.

These days, with the dieting also, I usually just bring a salad from home and eat it at my desk or in the employee lounge. Now, I say lounge as some employers do, but it really is a more accurate description of this room. There are 2 TVs with XBox 360s hooked up, two pool tables, a ping pong table, a LCD TV with some type of satellite hook up, and 4 state of the art PCs (think public library about 5 years ago). I usually just walk around outside the building or inside if the weather isn't so good. Either way I am usually listening to something.

I miss the days of going to a fast food restaurant, eating unhealthy and listening to something unhealthy.



Wait...

[Silva]

But... umm... why is this in The DC AM section?

[geoff]

But... umm... why is this in The DC AM section?

Because it was a topic on their show.

-10 points for not listening to every podcast on the internet.

[Silva]

Because it was a topic on their show.

-10 points for not listening to every podcast on the internet.

Ah, I have listened, but I guess just not this episode yet. After my computer crashing (think of that in the literal sense) a couple weeks ago I have not set up my new podcasts on the old hard drive yet.

Negative here I come!!!

[mickey]

I usually bring lunch meat and a pack of cheese. I usually hold off on eating, because it seems eating is a curse at my job. As soon as I take a bite, the phone rings, someone steps into my office, a fire breaks out, or the building collapse.

This also occurs anytime I set ass cheek to turlet seat.

When I do eat, it is at my desk. My company does not charge us for lunch, so we agree to eat on the fly. It works. It gives us an extra 2 to 4 hours a week, and gives the company the assuance that we are at the ready.

Every now and then, if a second tech is on site, I will meet someone for lunch. If a vendor is in town, and he is paying, and we are talking business, I will take a lenghty lunch. But the manager is usually with me and we are talking about shit we'5 be talking about back at the facility.

[FooFa]

I have thought for a long time that 45 minutes is the ideal time. I can't stand to be rushed, especially when eating. I tend to have a quick elimination process, so figuring that in...a smoke before eating, smoke after eating etc...45 minutes would have been the perfect time.

I can't stand it when you're  forced to take an hour. What's even worse is that I've been in work environments before where you're not allowed to leave the premises at lunch, on third shift.

[Alien]

I'm scheduled to take an hour at noon, though I have taken as little as 10 minutes or up to an hour and half (usually when meeting Silva for lunch).

I prefer to leave the office if I can and usually spend the first half hour searching, gathering, hunting down food, and the other half consuming it while catching up on KoL, Syrnia, Nyxre, etc - whichever game I'm currently caught up in - or writing.  Sometimes I have errands to run for the company, in which I do not clock out at all.

[mickey]

I never understood the "I need to get away from the office" type people when it came to lunchtime.

It's not your fault, I don't judge you all.  It has to do with my career up bringing.


In The Navy, I had a co-worker that was also a very good friend.  When ever we were working on something, it became a battle of wills.  The first person to throw in the towel and call for a lunch break or smoke break was silently scorned with looks of disdain.  While the person looking down was silently relieved.  There was one time we were repairing a valve in the reactor compartment.  We had full radiation suits.  It took about a 'alf-an-hour to get suited up and just as long to unsuit.

So a quick lunch (15 minutes eating) would have taken forever... 1/2 unsuiting, hour in the chow line, 15 minutes eating, 10 minutes in the scullery line, 10 minutes in the smoke line, 10 minutes smoking, then 1/2 hour to suit back up...

So we said "fuck it" and kept going.  (Smoking in a High radiation area is just dumb... but we were dumb anyway).  About 30 hours into the project, we finally finished. 

At work now, I generally do (on a short day) 10 to (on a wicked long day) 18 hours at work. 

I tried an 8 hour day once... It drove me insane. 

[jen]

I never understood the "I need to get away from the office" type people when it came to lunchtime.

It's not your fault, I don't judge you all.  It has to do with my career up bringing.

I know at my work the leaving the office thing was two-fold...
One, if I was in the office I was tempted to work. Not that I minded that too much but answering the phone with pbj in the mouth is not professional
Two, we were told we had to. At first they tried to say we had to shut off our computers and leave our office (so that people weren't working on their lunch break and therefore later sue the govt). After much protest they said we could be in our office if we went away from the computer.

After further protest (i.e. we can only go on the internet during lunch but we can't be on our computers at lunch??) they allowed us to be in there but said we had to shut down our programs that were work related.

I just chose to leave when I could...

[Alien]

I never understood the "I need to get away from the office" type people when it came to lunchtime.

It's not your fault, I don't judge you all.  It has to do with my career up bringing.

Sadly, I'm stuck at a desk the 8 hours or more that I'm in the office so that I may be cursed at in many foreign languages, and when the opportunity arises that I can peel my ass out of my chair, I take it.  I have no windows and sometimes forget what the outside world is like. 

[Silva]

I never understood the "I need to get away from the office" type people when it came to lunchtime.

It's not your fault, I don't judge you all.  It has to do with my career up bringing.

I hate my job, my work place, and my coworkers.

Gotta GTF out.

[Sunshinelvr73]

My lunch is an hour a day and I either heat up a freezy meal (today was Lean Cuisine Sweet & Sour Chicken which friggin' rocks) or I run to Wendy's for the Southwest Taco Salad.  I eat in our lunchroom (or at the table outside depending on the weather) and read while doing so.

In my last job, with the biddies, I made it a point to leave the premises every day because really, 8 hours around those bitches was enough.

[ELROSS]

I have been at lunch since early 2002.