Are work lunches productive?
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July 14th, 2017
I like playing word games online that are timed. I noticed that I can come up with a bunch of words before time is up. But if I try doing it while I eat, or even a few minutes afterward, I have zero score. My brain just goes on vacation while I eat and digest.
So it had me wondering. How productive are people when they have work lunch?
Is it the quantity you eat that makes a difference. Or a boring meal vs. a good meal? Or starches vs. salads? Is it merely a distraction, or is because your body is pumping less blood to your brain and more towards digestion? The last one is my guess since I tend to get sleepy after eating. But especially starches makes me sleepy.
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6 Answers
In my experience, work lunches consist of people concentrating intently on sopping up every last bit of their food and never saying a word.
Work lunches are too social to be productive. Everyone is focusing on food, up getting a soda, getting some coffee, grabbing a cookie. And two people are discussing last night’s game, and someone from out of town says both those teams suck.
They can be “team building” but they aren’t productive for work.
It’s generally counter-productive when work encroaches on personal time. Instead of forcing people to attend a “working” lunch, just let them have a break (their right under every state’s laws), enjoy their meals as they choose, and hold a real meeting after.
Well, a “working lunch” means the employer pays for it.
Ya, I worked for a manager that would call me on Saturday morning (about 11:00) at work to order the number of pizza we would need for lunch from a pizza place. There were 10 of us working 60 to 65 hours a week with only 16 hours of paid overtime (all salaried employees).
We would break from work an all go to lunch at the pizza place. He would buy the pizzas and we would buy the pitchers of beer. Company policy would not let him pay for alcoholic beverages on the company card. He usually put in a fiver in cash for beer.
Who cares? Give me a free chow down, I’ll listen to a little hot air for a spell. Sit there, drink my sweet tea, nod my head knowingly, and pretend I give a shit.
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