Remember When?

A friend of mine started his very first office job this week and he is a little dazed and confused by the new office culture. We went for lunch yesterday and he spent most of the hour telling me all about the new world he is in; no one takes a regulated morning or afternoon break, the office supplies aren’t locked up, no one told him the exact time to be in … and so on and so forth. Then as we were finishing our lunch he looked at his watch and looked nervously at me and said “We need to get going. I left the office at 12:03 and if I don’t leave now I will be late getting back from lunch.”

After I stopped laughing I assured him that no one knew what time he left and no one would actually care what time he got back to the office. Now I am not encouraging taking 2 hour martini lunches every day but taking an hour and ten minutes for lunch every once in a while is not going to get you fired. After he got back to his office he emailed me to let me know that in fact, no one noticed at all.

The encounter got me to thinking back on my first office job and really I was no different. I think I showed up to work 5 minutes early every morning, rarely took breaks and ate my lunch quickly and got back to my desk to get back to work. So I guess we all go through it when we start in the working world. These days I roll in anywhere between 8am and 9:20 and I take lunch when I can and breaks if I feel the need for caffeine, but I don’t think I have ever – in the last five or six years sweated an extra five minutes for lunch.

Oh and he emailed me this morning to tell me he came in one minute late for work. I think he is settling into the office life just fine.

The Single Girl

*This post was written at my desk at work.

**Are you reading this at your desk … I thought so