Lunch: a Thursday evening ramble

Does your loyalty lie with Sheetz or Wawa? Bonus: the article has a ven diagram reference.

I prefer Sheetz; where I used to work, it was the best lunch in town. Their soft pretzel eggwich melt was out of this world. It was also a team bonding ritual, the field trip to Sheetz was.

Coincidentally, I was thinking today, before I saw the article, how cool it was to be going out to lunch. This is the first job in as long as I can remember where I can actually meet people for lunch. In Boston, I worked on an island, so meeting friends in town was out; as a grad student in DC, I was broke and too busy, although occasionally I'd go out for lunch with the other research assistants at the think tank at which I worked part time. I think we actually finagled a happy hour once, too, at which I fell in love with Garrett's fries, not to mention their gin and tonic. But I digress. After that, I worked in the middle of nowhere for a few years, so Sheetz it was. And like I said, Sheetz was awesome. Sheetz will always have a place in my heart. But in that era, I couldn't meet random friends for lunch.

So it hit me, as I was heading out meet a friend--restaurant week, as well as the well-timed absence of my friend's overbearing boss, prompted the outing--that I'd always wanted to be able to do this. Just to have the possibility. I was living the dream that had been up to a year and a half ago inaccessible to me by virtue of an ocean or a series of highways. And now, without a second thought, look at me! I'm heading out to meet a friend for lunch.

Apart from the exotic aspect of the whole thing, it was really nice to actually get *out of the building* for lunch. It was nice, as I walked out, to run into and be greeted by several people on their way back from lunch. It hit me that I had friends and acquaintances in the office--that I was settled in enough to have friends and acquaintances in the office--to the degree that I can randomly run into some of them as I leave the building. Mind you, I usually hit the gym for lunch (and then eat at my desk), and I definitely have gym/locker room friends and acquaintances. That hit me the other day, too. I even have a go-to gym buddy for "could you help me zip up my dress" and perhaps vice versa.

So in addition to the symbolism of being able to go out to lunch, and the epiphanies that come on the way to lunch, it was fun to be out to lunch with a friend.

***
Back at the office, I met with a couple of my teammates. Somehow, we got to discussing liquid lunches and workplace drunk-dialing etiquette. For example, when is it appropriate to drunk dial a colleague's cell versus his or her work number? I said I was a big fan of workplace drunk-dialing and tended to call work numbers, because that way, when you're in your hotel room in Hawaii, and you've had a few, and you're watching CNN and something infuriates you, but it's the middle of the night on the East Coast, you can still unload your fury on someone's voice mail.