No One Should Have Mustard on Their Desk; or Requiem for A Lunchroom

I ate at my desk today.

And I ate at my desk yesterday.

And heaven help me, I’ll be eating lunch at my desk tomorrow. 

I can hear you now.  ‘Why?’ you say in that endearing way you have, ‘Why would a woman who, by many accounts, passes as normal, be eating at her desk?’

That’s a good question.

The answer is because the lunchroom has been under attack.

The lunchroom, a large room filled with tables, magazines, and the odd afternoon quiz, has been demolished to make room for the 90+ people that will leave their current business site and join us, downtown, in less than a month.

In place of aforesaid lunchroom, we now have five stools and a bar.

And not the good kind of “bar”, either. 

The lunchroom is no more, my friends.  What we have is a large expanse of fresh drywall and carpet, an area soon to be sliced, cube-style, and served up to the “new people”.

New People:  People who will become colleagues, who may become friends, and who will definitely become blog posts.

Until they arrive, however, I mourn the passing of the lunchroom.

Here, take my hand.

Shhh.

We gather today, here in the dark stillness of The Cave, to mourn the loss of the lunchroom.  It was a nice room, a reasonable room, filled with the things that made one’s lunch hour comfortable.  There were laughing, talking people.  There were tables and chairs.  There were windows that led to the Real World.  There were four microwaves, three of which functioned and one that wore the sign “This Does Not Work” for the last 10 months.  There were refrigerators that had reputations and a dishwasher that, to judge by the actions of some, was believed to have mysterious powers that allowed it to load itself.

We shall miss that place.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a toaster oven to install at my desk.