Thursday, June 08, 2006

Work....and lunch... and non-smoking breaks!!

I started working in the city where I live now in July 2005. For the first few months, I was stuck in the office and didn't know my colleagues well enough to go out with them for lunch. So, I either took home-cooked food or ate out. But then, once I started traveling extensively with them, I got to know them better. So, after September 2005, we all ate out together most of the days when we were in the office.

Then, my colleague C's wife became pregnant. Things changed. C talked about saving for the kid, etc. So, we all decided that we would go out for lunch on Tuesdays and Fridays and bring food from home and eat in the office itself the rest of the days. This charter was added in Jan 2006 and things have been going good since. I mean, all of us travel and when we come to office we know beforehand if we are going out...if not, we make our own arrangements... and it also restricts our eating-out and spending habits. [although the charter holds good only when there is nothing 'happening' in the office like layoffs, new hires, boss out of town, etc.... the charter is automatically voided under such circumstances...nothing beats office gossip..right??]

Now, apart from all this, my colleagues take smoking breaks every few hours. Nothing stops them from this break. Even when we are in the middle of a conference call, they will let me handle it by myself and go out for a smoke. Almost like that episode in Friends in Rachel's new job where her two colleagues make decisions on smoke breaks. In my case, no decision making is involved with smoke breaks. But just miss out on the discussions that are project-related.

Alright, my colleagues are back from smoke break. Guess, we have to get back to work!!

No comments: