We all do it, but nobody really likes it.
It’s 12:35 p.m. and I’m at my desk. It’s print deadline day, and I don’t have time to leave. But the rumble in my stomach is so loud it’s threatening to DJ an office dance party. So, I make the short walk next door to Falstaff’s Local and grab a salad. Then it’s back to my desk.
This same scenario plays out at least once a week, more if the week is a particular kind of crazy. Sometimes its Jimmy John’s delivery, sometimes its just coffee, but it’s always at the same desk.
It’s happening to me and I’d wager it’s happening to you, too. I can smell raw red onions on the sub sandwich two cubicles over and someone downstairs is microwaving something that resembles leftover pot roast. It seems eating lunch at your desk has become America’s new pastime.
According to a recent Gallup Poll, 67 percent of American office workers eat at their desks more than once a week. Frankly, I’m surprised that number isn’t higher. In this go-go, fast-paced world of ours, taking a lunch has become a sign of weakness. Eating at your desk means you’re working hard, that you’re important and it you’ve earned your paycheck that day. The modern professional world often casts lunch as a workplace inefficiency instead of a needed break.
Two decades ago, this wasn’t the case. In fact, it was nearly the exact opposite. Before smartphones and email and a world of instant gratification, people enjoyed lunch. According to Gallup, in 1990 more than half of American office workers took at least 30 minutes for lunch away from their desk.
Lunch isn’t the only casualty; breakfast is under the guillotine too. Nestled between my coffee and my highlighter sits a banana. Yesterday, it was a granola bar.
According to my OMG Facts daily desk calendar, your desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet seat. Sounds about right. When was the last time you wiped down your desk? Now, think about that piece of fruit you dropped by the keyboard, picked up and ate.
Aside from the hygiene factor, there is the general movement factor. According to Science Daily, office workers sit roughly 5 hours and 41 minutes.
Last October, I spoke with O’Reilly Automotive Inc.’s wellness expert Chris Baker about office ergonomics and he cautioned readers on the effects of sitting too long.
“With sitting, everything starts to shorten up. The hamstring muscles in the back legs shorten, the muscles in the hips shorten and that pulls on your lower back. Your gluteal muscles don’t have to function, so they spread out,” he said. “That’s not even the potential heart risks; that’s just the physical structure.”
It’s easy to rationalize staying at your desk for lunch when you’re staring down the barrel of a deadline, but when you start to think about the reasons not to, they add up quickly.
Another factor: Though you may look like the superstar team player, you’re probably not doing your best work.
In a 2012 Time magazine article, Kimberly Elsbach, a management professor at the University of California-Davis who studies the psychology of the workplace, said getting away from your desk can provide a boost in creativity.
“Never taking a break from very careful thought work actually reduces your ability to be creative,” she told Time. “It sort of exhausts your cognitive capacity and you’re not able to make the creative connections. You’re probably not doing yourself any favors.”
My final point in the battle for outside-the-office lunch was going to be a simple: It’s your right. However, it turns out I was wrong.
For my entire working career, I’ve operated under the assumption workers were guaranteed a minimum 30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks. That’s not the case.
According to the Missouri Department of Labor, “Missouri law does not require employers to provide employees a break of any kind, including a lunch hour. These provisions are either left up to the discretion of the employer, can be agreed upon by the employer and employee or may be addressed by company policy or contract.”
I was shocked to read that. Let me pick my jaw up off the floor for a second to say thanks to Springfield Business Journal Publisher Jennifer Jackson for graciously allowing us a full hour for lunch.
Work is hectic and life is busy, but that’s never going to change – if anything, it will only get worse.
If you’re lucky enough to get a lunch break, use it. That report will still be waiting for you when you get back.
Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Emily Letterman can be reached at eletterman@sbj.net.
