This comic strip reminded me of the days when I was easily entertained by the antics of my co-workers. Many of our office discussions revolved around food. Conference calls and meetings revolved around lunch. Nothing came between us and the lunch hour.

We were food whores.

I have such good memories of our impromptu office lunches. About 15 of us would gather daily in the conference room, and it was always a very social affair. Talking, Laughing, Eating. If we closed a big deal, we’d celebrate with a huge catered spread. If we hosted a seminar earlier in the day, you can bet we’d finish the leftovers before the caterers came back for cleanup.

I had a co-worker, Kevin, who was obsessed with food. He would travel into the city to get us THE BEST lunch items… everything from Thai to soul food. He never minded getting in his car to drive for food, so you can imagine he became the “office food biotch”.
“you buy, I’ll fly” was his mantra.
God bless you Kevin, you kept my tummy full for many years.

I think I spent a good portion of my salary back then on food. Back when I just got out of college I was a sales assistant, making a paltry salary compared to my co-workers. It wasn’t a big deal to the people I worked with… most of them were software sales reps, and salaries were HUGE back then in the dawn of the tech age. My district manager covered my lunch more times than I could count, and for that I am always grateful.

But there were the “interesting” personalities. By interesting, I mean the co-workers that never joined us for lunch. The techno-geeks that sat in their cube all day running code like they were building a program to cure cancer (wouldn’t that be nice?)

They were the co-workers that would sneak into the kitchen while we were laughing hysterically in the conference room… and nuke their day old tuna casserole in the microwave.

Or, whatever food that had the potential to reek for days in the office.

aaaah, the stories I remember.

Like when Marsha (name protected for her own good) had a habit of putting fish tacos in the micro on Fridays, and forgetting about them. Freakin’ fish tacos would congeal in the micro over the whole weekend. Then after proper fumigation, we would put a sign on the micro alerting said offender.

Followed up by an office huddle at the receptionist’s desk with my friends and cackling like witches about how Marsha’s house must smell like dead, rotting fish.

Twice we threw out the microwave because of her.

aaaaaah, memories.

Misty water colored memories.

Now that I work from home, an office lunch is something that needs to be planned ahead, no longer “off the cuff” and trying to get people together is like trying to plan a wedding.

And the only person stinkin’ up the micro is me when I make my Lean Cuisine.

So all you people who still have lunch buddies, I envy you.

I even wistfully miss the smell of spoiled fish tacos.