Break up the day with breaks

I feel like a hobbit. If you've seen the first Lord of the Rings, then you'll know what I mean.

I never believed in the myth "you eat when you're bored" until I began working. Shortly after my first day at my first job, I realized the beauty of afternoon popcorn or a quick pop into the break room for bad coffee. It's now occurred to me that the three or four times that the average worker stops for a snack is probably a good hour of wasted time (you'd better take a long time on that special K bar, my friend).

For example, I have just taken midmorning feast in my hobbit hole of a cubicle. This consists of a breakfast bar and some coffee. This job has a good coffee maker. Bad coffee makers should be banned from the universe. But I digress.

I used to take a short lunch break because while it's helpful to get paid to eat lunch in a meeting...we don't get paid to eat lunch other times. Only full timers. (But they don't get paid to sit through a lunch meeting, so it evens out, I think). I figure, at the rate of 6.67 an hour (that's minimum, correct?) what is the benefit to an extra less than ten dollars versus lunch? That's right, there isn't.

I take my hour...and it take it out of this place as frequent as possible. I meet my friend who has a far more interesting job working at a doctor's office. She talks to people all day. I talk to...my computer, the printer, the binder, whatever it is that does not function correctly. I speak in four letter, monosyllabic words.

Back to food. So around 10 I have midmorning feast, which makes up for my commuter's slimfast cappaccino shake (tolerable, give it a shot). Later, around one, it's time for recess, nap time, whatever you call it. A little later, around 3, I take second lunch, better known as a popcorn and diet soda break. That's the nice one because it takes some time to prepare and lasts forever at my desk. I also get off knowing I'm making people want popcorn. The smell cannot be contained.

All of this food talk reminds me of break rooms. The best break room I've ever seen was at a law office where I wanted to shoot myself. There's only so much one can ask for. Between moving files from point A to point B then back to point A, I enjoyed free soda (coke, not pepsi), coffee (decently made), a variety of teas and other random things that coworkers brought in. My guess is that the ever present food was tokens of "when I said 'I f'ing hate you,' what I meant to say was 'I'm just stressed.'" Sometimes, the paralegals ordered out and billed a client for it. Similar to getting fed and paid to sit through a meeting, but this time, the client was paying for $20/roll sushi. Clever, no?

The break room where I am now is decent. Nothing like the law office. There is a good coffee machine that makes about any coffee drink imaginable, but there's a hefty 65 cent charge for a can of soda and the snack machine usually requires two go rounds before it drops the snack.

The only thing to be said for the last place I worked was the subsidized sodas for a quarter.

My point here is that the only thing I will remember about half of these internships is whether I liked it or not and if there was a good break room.

My dad says that I should gather information about the places I work so that when I'm a grossly over-paid CEO, I will have efficient, loyal, and happy workers. So, when I run the world, I will remember these things:
- agitate the stress-cookers just enough so they bring in left overs
- subsidize sodas or make them free
- good coffee machine
- small break room (hey, stop in, but don't stay. when i'm the boss, my peons will be working.)

Looking forward to lunch,

- The Intern