Lunch at your desk

It’s pretty much like this: the more elegant your lunch is, the better job you have.

If you have the three-martini lunch you are pretty much at the top of your game, and the top of your company.  In fact, you are probably not even sure what your company does anymore.  It may be your company, and the concept behind it is/was yours to start with, but if you’ve got time to take three martinis, and hell, if you’ve even got time to HAVE lunch, you are probably so far detached from the day-to-day operations that you could not even explain what are the day-to-day operations.

If you are having a three-beer lunch, then you are most likely middle or upper management.  This would allow you to go out and have a beer while you wait for your order, another beer with your order, and then turn around to the waitress and say, oh what the hell, sure, I’ll have another, if she’s asks whether you want to finish off one more.  At that point, it would be a shame to ruin the buzz.

But if you’re like the rest of us, lunch — if you even take the time — usually consists of scarfing something down hunched over your desk, bottled in your cubicle.

If you are lucky, you’ve been able to go outdoors, get something, and bring it back to your desk for consumption.  But if you’re like MOST of us, me included, you have to eat through yet another day of the L word — no, not the glamorous L word of Showtime — but the L word of Leftovers.

Ahhh.  Leftovers:  The common man’s daily reminder that he is just so common and just such a pee-on in The Company that the 30 or Federally required 60 minutes that’s given him to replenish his eye-strained, back-strained, carpal-tunneled wrists for a bit of sustenance so that he can go back as soon as possible to the mindless typing, analyzing, data mining for all intents and purposeless purposes so that the higher-ups can glance at those hours soaked reports, and just speak off the cuff anyway during the big meeting in the glass walled conference room is not enough time to really replenish him, he would need hours.

Yes, no. Yes, my friends.  Leftovers.  The common man’s reminder that there is only so much that can be reheated in a microwave that doesn’t taste like s%$#.  Yes, my friends.  It may taste good, and it may have tasted better at last night’s dinner, but the fact that you are tasting it from a plastic dish, standing up by the microwave, and continue eating it in your cubicle and not in the comfort of your dwelling singes all sense of taste and renders it all to fat.  Gristle.

The reminder that there are only so many dishes that cannot be brought into work for reheation IN that microwave (fish for example, saucy items, soups and such) and that the fact that you did bring leftovers doesn’t mean that you should then hunker down in your cubicle, hunched over your keyboard, slouched through your chair and eating in fifteen minutes and then getting back to work–just because it really doesn’t take one hour to eat, it only takes about seven minutes–but that doesn’t mean that you still shouldn’t take the 60 minutes for sanity’s sake.

Leftovers are leftovers.  But there’s still worse than that.  There’s the extreme end of bringing in your lunch.  Let’s start there and work backwards.

The extreme case: eating tuna out of a can.  I consider myself a resident expert on this topic/dish.  This topical dish.

Look.  Tuna is good.  F#$% the dolphins.  I like dolphins.  They’re intelligent and such and make cool sounds, and, by the way, they are really f#%@^& heavy.  One of them just nudged me at one of those aquatic things on vacation and I about fell over into the water and almost became one of their bouncey toys for the rest of the show.  So don’t knock these creatures, they’ll knock you silly.  Also, they may or may not be some form of what existed back in prehistoric times, so their design, their species, they’re doing just fine.

Tuna is good.  Sushi’zed tuna is excellent.  Red.  Hearty. Protein.  Boost of lunch time energy [author's note: if you can afford a good sushi lunch, you've got it made, brother.  You are eating well, you are taking time, you are watching the chef prepare by hand.  It doesn't count if you are eating the $6.95 sushi box from Ukrop’s market, or Fresh Market or INSERT MARKET name.  That doesn't count.  Because you'll probably still take that little box back to your desk and eat.  No sir.

Tuna is still good.  For three paragraphs here, tuna is good.  Sushi, spoken highly of above.  And singed sushi at one of those appetizer places?  A wedding or just an appetizer?  Singed,-- no SEARED -- yes.  That is good too.  As long as Chef Gustavo doesn't over do it.  We need two tones of color on that -- ash on the outside [ash, not ass] and red/pink on the inside.

Meanwhile, tuna in a can.  What the f$%#?  Ok.  I like the idea: tuna in a can, healthy, ok, somewhat, convenient, ok, but as far as taste and as far as ease of use/eat?  Who the hell thought of this?  And to try and sell us on the marketing of it by using a tuna (or is he a dolphin) that wears glasses?  Come on people.  Let’s be more aware of the marketing ploy here.

Tuna in a can–not good.

Yes, it’s cheap.   Some places you can get it for less than a dollar a can.  If you can get the tuna in oil, it’s at least palpable.  But the tuna in water, in a can?  Good Lord.  Bland, metal tasting, smushy nastiness.

I’m assuming that you are not making tuna fish salad.  That is the prerequisite assumption here.  The item above did not say, eating tuna out of a can, adding mayonnaise, celery, dill, onions, etc.  No, no.  I’m talking die-hard-temp-working-budgetary-constraints-actor-writer-lover-aficionado-extraordinaire-I’m-buying-five-cans-of-tuna-for-79-cents each-and-I’m-having-lunch-all-week tuna.

If you are in that demographic, then we can have a conversation about lunch at your desk.

So here is the extreme case: lunch at your desk consists of white tuna, in water, out of a can.  Now you have to worry about having a can opener at work.  Try claiming that one if someone swipes your can opener.  How degrading is that to have to admit that the can opener is yours, that you brought it from home –

Why?

Because I bring my lunch.

(Aside: How lame!) What do you bring, Chef Boyardi?

Good lord, no.  I bring tuna.

Oh that’s good.  That’s healthy.  Do you put dill in yours?

No, no.  I don’t make tuna fish.  I just eat the tuna.

On its own?

Yes.  On its own.

Out of the can?

Yes.

Oh.  I see.  Well I’m going to go get some coffee now.

But the machine’s right here.

No, no.  I’m going to get a mocha-bocha-macciano-baggiano-whipped-stripped-cream-latté-batté with an extra shot of caramel.

Great.  Enjoy.  Try not to bust your wallet on that one.

Thanks!  Enjoy your tuna!

And watch how fast that office humor spreads.  Faster than the fish smell you’ve just unleashed by opening your can of tuna and draining it in the sink.  The only thing worse than that smell at work is/would be the smell of kimchi at work.  And that’s just horrid.  Although I love kimchi, and I love pickled foods, and I love garlic, I do not like pickled foods or garlic in the workplace.  And neither should you.

Complex yet elegant chart

The extreme case, tuna out of a can.  Maybe you’ve brought bread, maybe not.  But you have pretty much hit rock bottom of the leftovers, and in bringing your lunch to work.  Buddy, you are not even on the bottom rung of the company ladder at that point.  You are down there with the screws into the supports in the flooring.  So let’s move up one rung.

There’s just the overall leftover in a plastic ware (tupper, glad, mad) storage.  This generally promotes bad eating at your desk habits.  Crumbs in your keyboard, sauce on your desk, in lap.  (Crumbs in your keyboard was made popular by the band, Krumbs ‘n ur Kbd in 1987, soon after the invent of the computer.  It was more popular in Germany under the title Das Komputer ein Krumbs ‘n Ur Kbd, a limited release.)

Then there’s your leftovers but planned leftovers.   This is a bit higher up on the company ladder.  This is the type of setup where you bring cold cuts, deli meats, and you leave a stash in the fridge along with your bread, and cheese and such.  It’s not a bad idea.  You have to have an office small enough that no one will eat your stash, and if they did eat it, you could track down the culprit.  [Note: check bearded men’s beards first.  Then check for crumbs in keyboard.]  Cost effective, but still highly promotes the eating-at-your-desk syndrome.

I suppose the real problem is the eating-at-your-desk syndrome.  I just don’t understand why we don’t walk outside for 59 of the 60 minutes allotted to us, even if it is just a ham and cheese sandwich that we plopped together a few minutes before.  Why not just take the sa’mich outside and enjoy the time off?  Walk around.  Look at a tree.  Look at a flock of sparrows.  Throw the sparrows some crumbs.  Be One with Nature.

What about driving to get food?  Driving back with the food, then eating?  Where does that place us on the company ladder?

This is a bit complicated.  You are not upper level management, you are not necessarily low-level employees.  You have the time to drive away, you have the funds (the gas money, the lunch money, probably the money for cigarettes).  Hopefully you have some people to go to lunch with which would make the break a real break.  You get out with people, have a conversation, make fun of the boss.  Team Building/Employee Motivation activities like that.

So we’ve got your worst case of tuna in a can at your desk up to a sandwich you made at your office, now to a group outing to grab a bite to take back, or the top scenario of the three martinis.

The ideal case is this mentioned above–going out with people from work, getting a bite to eat and eating at the place of food preparation where there is waiter service. As an added bonus, if you can get your boss’ company card to pay for your lunch, you’re golden.  You don’t want the boss there, of course, because how will you then talk about him?

But this should be the ideal lunch setting.  You are away from your cubicle, you are taking the time to eat, to order, to appetize, to have a drink (non or alcoholic, but just one if its alcoholic, let’s keep it clean, no naps back at the office) ordering something new.

Because that’s really the point.  Eating leftovers at the office really just reminds you how boring and repetitive your job is.

Eating leftovers at the office really just reminds you how boring and repetitive your job is.

You physically have it represented there.  You are eating the same thing you ate last night while you are doing the same work you did yesterday.  What a terrible, ongoing, circular, cyclical, cynical, whirlwind existence.

At least if you can have a lunch that brightens your day, you don’t feel like a miserable f$%^.  You feel human.  You feel worthwhile.  You feel recharged.  I work, I work hard. I am now eating a decent meal and taking time away from my work because this is the point of me working.  I can make money to provide for nice things, and at times I will provide myself some of these nice things.  Because I am somebody. [cue music] And I am somebody who deserves a damn good lunch every once in a while.  I deserve a steak and a potato in the middle of the week for no reason except that it is Wednesday.

And then I can take the leftovers back and have it for dinner that night or for lunch on Thursday.