A work friend told me something rather surprising lately: (S)he avoids the break room at work because walking down the hallway is almost always a guarantee of having more work plopped onto their plate alongside last night's leftovers.
When it comes down to it, this employee would rather consume cold, left-over pasta amid the semi-quiet confines of his or her work area rather than get up, start making a beeline for the break room microwave, and...duck! Incoming!
"Oh, hi there! I'm glad I bumped into you because I was planning to email you later today. I've been thinking about next week's group presentation, and I'm wondering if you can..."
Oh, no. Your prairie-dogging co-worker just pulled you aside to add four unreturned phone calls, a testy "reply all" email thread, a random brainstorming list, and ten, last-minute PowerPoint edits to your "urgent" list of tasks. Great. And all you were trying to do was walk 50 feet to re-heat last night's half-eaten burrito to go with your soggy chips! Bummer.
Perhaps you've had this experience at work, and more than once. Good going, Ace; you were thisclose to the break room. You suspect you weren't even on this too-good-for-cubicles co-worker's radar until you walked by, too.
The wisdom that comes with working has taught you a valuable work lesson over the years: LEAVE YOUR WORK AREA AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. Stay put at your desk with nose to grindstone, and keep your workload down to a dull roar.
Your "I was going to email you" workmates will have to seek you out with their work requests, but are they willing to put in the effort to hoof it aaaaall the way down to your work area? Will they even work up the energy, or even remember, to email you about it? Probably not, and it's exactly this type of inert response you bank on every day.
In sum, consuming cold rigatone in your cubicle avoids the whole rigamarole, if you know what I mean. Out of sight, out of mind. Bask in your cloak of co-worker invisibility, my work friends. Avoiding the whole mess of movement means your prairie-dogging co-worker 50 feet away will have to hand this busy work to somebody else unfortunate enough to walk past later today.
But it won't be you, which is all that really matters.
It kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Amid today's barely-manageable workloads, no wonder nobody wants to be a stand-up guy anymore! Trekking to the break room can end up creating more work to do, not less, and you'll only have yourself to blame. (And I'm sorry if I'm totally blowing your cover with this blog post.)
Pop Quiz: How many times have you stopped a passing co-worker in a work corridor to assign some new work in lieu of having to send an email about it "later today"? And would you really have asked this co-worker to take care of said task, or was it simply the convenience factor of seeing him or her right then and there? Be honest.
Now think about how many times you've been on your way to the office break room, only to be stopped mid-route to have an "urgent" task dropped in your lap that you didn't have 30 seconds ago. See an emerging pattern here?
I don't have any solutions to this interesting, and rather impromptu, human workplace issue, other than suggesting a tasty, filling sack lunch that requires neither refrigeration nor re-heating. Stay firmly planted in your 1' x 2' patch of work space**, or find an alternate route to your break room destination if you can.***
I don't have any solutions for the moments when nature calls, either. When you have to go, you have to go, and waiting too long can become an uncomfortable distraction. Just realize that going to the office restroom could result in a new Excel spreadsheet assignment due by the end of the day. Well, don't say you haven't been warned.
** But please do take frequent opportunities to stand up and stretch your legs. It's good for you!
*** It might involve taking three lefts to make things right, or walking outside, around the building and coming back in through the other side door. You're welcome.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
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