Coffee break

There's a sudden loud, low rumbling outside which you could blame on a bike gang entering the parking lot, but really it's the sound of the ground beneath us breaking from its bonds and floating up into the sky. They'll stick a huge glass dome overtop of us and then we can all breathe and rebreathe the same stale air, just like in Waydowntown.

Some days I really do turn into Sadly-it's-Bradley. All I need is a bottle of marbles. I look around for inspirational epigrams on cardstock so that I can staple them to my chest, but in my office all they've got are warning posters.

Over the coffee machine: Do you know where your guests are?
By the water cooler: Curiosity killed the cat.
By the photocopier: Don't leave anything unattended.

Loose lips sink ships. We all have folding tent cards for our desks telling people that we're away and not to leave confidential information while we're gone. Keys and locking drawers, filing cabinets, shredders, safes. Everything's safe. I don't need to be told not to share people's personal information, because I have absoluetly no right or reason to, but evidently some people need to be reminded.

There's one thing, though, something that I can not begin to understand, and that is a peculiar office ritual, enshrined in legislation: the coffee break. Some people observe it religiously, to the point of being absolutely ridiculous.

One time last year a guy was showing me how to use one of the database programs on the computer, when all of a sudden, the little clock in the bottom corner of the monitor changed to 10:30 and he immediately jumped up mid-sentence, said "coffee break" and ran out. Nothing's wrong with that, really. He was entitled to that break, but it seemed so weird that he would get up and leave right in the middle of something he was explaining to me.

So it's come to the attention of the people that I work with that I do not take coffee breaks and they're horrified, thinking that perhaps I am young and not familiar with labour laws or something. I get reminded by up to four people per day that I am entitled to take breaks during work. But to tell the truth, I don't like interrupting my work to do 15 minutes of something completely unconstructive. I never have and probably never will. What exactly can be accomplished in 15 minutes away from your desk?

If I could, I'd probably skip taking a lunch break too. I don't mind eating at my desk while I'm working. But alas, the world is not perfect, and if I sit at my desk all day, my inner thighs start rubbing against each other and my pants get tight, so I have to be content with wolfing down my lunch at my desk and then putting in a good 6-8 km of walking at lunchtime.

But I shouldn't complain. I work with a lot of really nice people who do their best to watch out for me. It could be far worse.