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Do you enjoy eating lunch? Me too. I’m a big fan of eating food. It just gets me through the workday. Sometimes it gets me through the workday. Actually, it rarely gets me through the workday, because roughly 75 percent of the time, lunch blows.
I never eat the quintessential breakfast. I’m a greek yogurt, banana, and CLIF bar kind of guy. I can throw that back in less than 5 minutes, and I’m yuppie trash. Perfect. Guess what, though? I’m not full. From roughly 9:30 a.m. onward, I think about lunch. I think about the four or five options I have to choose from, each one sounding more spare than the next. It would be six or seven options, but now that school is back in session, traffic is a nightmare. God forbid I take a 1 hour and 3 minute lunch. The world would surely stop rotating.
I enjoy eating lunch with my friends. I work with a few friends, so naturally, we eat lunch together. You’d think that eating lunch with people you’re well acquainted with would be ideal. It’s not ideal. Every day, I get a Gchat from Coworker A asking if I have lunch plans. He knows the answer to this question, but he still sends the message anyway. I respond with something snarky, because I’m a prick, and he retorts. It happens every day. Other than the fact that we are going to eat lunch together, nothing is settled from this Gchat conversation.
After this conversation establishing that we will, in fact, be enjoying lunch together, we will both reach out to other coworkers to join us. It’s very important that we do this, because nobody wants to enjoy lunch with just one other person. It’s too personal. We don’t want personal. When it’s go time, we all gather in one person’s office and begin to think. “What sounds good today?” I hate that question.
It’s a necessary question, but I still hate it. Nothing sounds good. If I eat barbecue, I will be drowsy and do nothing the rest of the day. If I eat a burger, I will feel disgusting for hours and do nothing the rest of the day. If I eat Tex-Mex, I will wait for the inevitable gut bomb to detonate and do nothing for the rest of the day. Naturally, everyone else hates this question, too. This makes the entire process so much easier. Kidding. It makes it awful. Now everyone is in a negative mood. Great.
For the next 7 minutes, we will stand there until one person says, “Let’s just do Chipotle.” Okay. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it. Now comes the real fun: Who will drive? Who doesn’t have a baby seat taking up half of the back seat? Whose vehicle isn’t on E? Whose vehicle doesn’t smell like gym clothes? Fuck it. I’ll drive. 17 minutes later, we’ll be off to lunch.
I love music, but I hate listening to music in front of coworkers. Someone will question my jams, and I hate it when people question my jams. That’s why I put it on Top 40. It’s safe. Every day, we’ll discuss Taylor Swift, Rihanna, or The Weeknd. “Did you know The Weeknd is just one guy? And he’s Canadian.” We talked about that last week, so yes, I did.
When we arrive, there will be a long line. Someone will say, “Look at the line” as if they expected Chipotle to be empty at 12:05 p.m. “Wanna go somewhere else?” Valid question. But there is nowhere else. We’ll toss around a few options, but none will be viable. When you burn a fifth of your break pondering lunch, you marry yourself to the original plan. As such, you go stand in line and look down at your phone for the next 11 minutes.
Then you order. You drink water because you’re watching your sugar intake, and you’re on a budget. You find a table that has water rings and rice all over it, but it will have to do. You eat quickly, because time is of the essence. You talk about work for a few minutes, and then you load up into the car. One of your coworkers will call shotgun, because he’s an asshole.
The ride home is silent. The song playing is Selena Gomez. It’s annoying and weird for a car full of dudes to listen to. You arrive back at the office with 2 minutes to spare. Everyone looks miserable. Everyone is miserable. You will do the same thing tomorrow. .
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Dave
Lawyer. Writer. Dude doing business. I'm the meatloaf guy from tv.
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I pack my lunch because I’m on a diet. PGP.
I pack my lunch too, but then eat it when I’m hungry, which like D-man is at like 10. Then I usually go buy second lunch.
I try to eat eggs for breakfast, that and drinking a shit ton of water help.
I pack my lunch because I’m on a financial diet. PGP.
There isn’t a Chipotle or Qdoba in the town I work. PGP.
I only do Qdoba on the occasion they send me a coupon, despite it being closest to work and closer than Moe’s or Chipotle. Adding guacamole at Chipotle makes it maybe 20 cents more than a Qdoba burrito where it’s “free.”
(Doing the math on whether Qdoba is worth it for free extras. PGP.
…but still going to Chipotle and not adding guacamole because I should probably save the $2. PGP.)
Other than on my college campus, every Qdoba I have eaten at is gross. At school, it was very crowded (like Chipotle) and everything was always fresh. I went to another location at 12:30 on a Sunday and was the only person in the joint. I am 100% positive that I was the first person to even be in there today. They can keep their free guac and queso.
“Everyone looks miserable. Everyone is miserable. You will do the same thing tomorrow.”
All the PGPs boiled down to 3 sentences.
There’s also the wildcard day, when a member of the lunch crew is out. On that day, you will go to the place that person hates but everyone else actually would want to go to every now and then.
Download Netflix on your phone and go eat somewhere alone. It’s much better most days.
I thought you were meeting HappyandHomeless for lunch #PGPRomance
Every damn day. Also try and find places you can walk to, and go early because everyone knows you’re already hungry at 10:30.
If only Chipotle had some way to fax your order in or order online…
Although good for avoiding the line, they take advantage of the fact that you’re not watching and skimp on pretty much everything.
Scarily accurate, even down to the asshole shotgun guy.
Going out to lunch is looked down upon in my office. PGP
Thanks, you just made me realize that I hate lunch. I now hate the full 8.5 hours here.
Started doing lunch on Fridays with a small group of us that work in that one upstairs office nobody really notices. After a few weeks, the annoyance of picking a place, picking the food (there’s that one indecisive person stuck between 3 things), calling it in/placing it online, splitting up payment, and finally finding out something’s screwed up (mine usually)…we were not enjoying lunch. Even though we all agreed it was a hassle, it took one of us quitting to really end the cycle.
I prefer to slip out for lunch unannounced and at random anyway.