Aug 21, 2006

Thinking Outside of the Lunchbox

Just a few comments about the posting below on "Lunchbox".

First... Going out to lunch is something that everyone should be able to enjoy. Sure, there might be the occasional emergency that crops up that might make going out inconvenient. But the real inconvenience comes when you would have meetings scheduled at lunch time. Sure, you can bring your lunch (or have your "Lunchbox" order -- as long as Lunchbox arrived before the start of the meeting... otherwise you'd find it cold an hour later) but you're stuck in the building for that time.

Not a big woop, right? Well... It begins to be a drag when you look at your Outlook calendar only to find that you've got three to four (or more -- depending on Staff Call) lunch meetings scheduled not just this week but every week.

I was guilty of setting one of those up, but with the understanding that it would be lunch outside of the building and that it was far more team-building than despotic demagoguery. My mother used to yell at me, "Go outside and blow the stink off of you." She certainly knew how to paint a picture with words, didn't she?

There was a stench associated with the grunts after a while. We were in the office from dawn (literally) to dusk (or far after).

Don't forget, too, that not only is there Lunchbox but there's Dinnerbox as well. This meal of the day arrives at 7PM and it's shameful how many employees are around to "enjoy" this second meal of the day at their place of employment.

One more thing... the posts below talk quite a bit about working 70 hours a week. Trust me, that's a pretty light week as far as they go. I usually clocked in at 80 on a light week and usually averaged out more at 100. In 2005 alone, I worked 35 out of 52 weekends. That figure includes "holiday weekends" -- including Christmas and Yom Kippur. The only difference between a holiday and a "normal weekday" was the locale where you were sitting with your laptop computer. As I used to tell my wife, "I can either ignore you at home or ignore you while I'm at the office."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The last few post have not been by dizgruntled but by me - nolimits. Read the blog closer. These complaints may echo theirs but they're by a different author. As the record once said, 50 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.

I reposted dizgruntled's stuff because I felt it was too nice to have such an untimely "web death". If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. :)