t we are there to conduct business. However, we are interacting with other human beings, who unfortunately, tend to intrigue us. When we are doing business with someone, we want to know who we are working with, right? We want to know how they spend their weekends, whether they are maA girlfriend and I were feigning lament over being unemployed one afternoon. One of us (I’m not confessing who) mentioned wanting a kick-back job that paid well. The kind of job where you work no more than eight hours and had some free time to catch up with coworkers. The kind of job where you knew you could leave at 4:00 every day so you can catch the last half of The Ellen Show.

Don’t get me wrong. We are both hard working people. We aren’t saying that we don’t want to put much effort into our jobs. When we are at work, we work hard and we work smart. We just want to have a life outside of work. We want to be treated like human beings, not machines.

I don’t think it’s natural for human beings to operate like clockwork (i.e., arrive at 8:00 on the dot every day, take only a 60 minute lunch). Life happens. Sometimes we have a rough night sleeping and need an extra 30 minutes in bed. Sometimes you hit traffic and sometimes your cat throws up on the bed as you are about to walk out the door.

I don’t think it is reasonable to expect people to not socialize or interact much while working. I understand that we are there to conduct business. However, we are interacting with other human beings, who unfortunately, tend to intrigue us. When we are doing business with someone, we want to know who we are working with, right? We want to know how they spend their weekends, whether they are mar

where you knew you could leave at 4:00 every day so you can catch the last half of The Ellen Show.

Don’t get me wrong. We are both hard working people. We aren’t saying that we don’t want to put much effort into our jobs. When we are at work, we work hard and we work smart. We just want to have a life outside of work. We want to be treated like human beings, not machines.

I don’t think it’s natural for human beings to operate like clockwork (i.e., arrive at 8:00 on the dot every day, take only a 60 minute lunch). Life happens. Sometimes we have a rough night sleeping and need an extra 30 minutes in bed. Sometimes you hit traffic and sometimes your cat throws up on the bed as you are about to walk out the door.

I don’t think it is reasonable to expect people to not socialize or interact much while working. I understand that we are there to conduct business. However, we are interacting with other human beings, who unfortunately, tend to intrigue us. When we are doing business with someone, we want to know who we are working with, right? We want to know how they spend their weekends, whether they are ma

just want to have a life outside of work. We want to be treated like human beings, not machines.

I don’t think it’s natural for human beings to operate like clockwork (i.e., arrive at 8:00 on the dot every day, take only a 60 minute lunch). Life happens. Sometimes we have a rough night sleeping and need an extra 30 minutes in bed. Sometimes you hit traffic and sometimes your cat throws up on the bed as you are about to walk out the door.

I don’t think it is reasonable to expect people to not socialize or interact much while working. I understand that we are there to conduct business. However, we are interacting with other human beings, who unfortunately, tend to intrigue us. When we are doing business with someone, we want to know who we are working with, right? We want to know how they spend their weekends, whether they are ma

ugh night sleeping and need an extra 30 minutes in bed. Sometimes you hit traffic and sometimes your cat throws up on the bed as you are about to walk out the door.

I don’t think it is reasonable to expect people to not socialize or interact much while working. I understand that we are there to conduct business. However, we are interacting with other human beings, who unfortunately, tend to intrigue us. When we are doing business with someone, we want to know who we are working with, right? We want to know how they spend their weekends, whether they are ma

t we are there to conduct business. However, we are interacting with other human beings, who unfortunately, tend to intrigue us. When we are doing business with someone, we want to know who we are working with, right? We want to know how they spend their weekends, whether they are married and have kids, where they bought those cute shoes. Meetings should have a 30 minute buffer where people just chat and get to know each other.

Instead, we have a lunch hour. We’re supposed to cram all of our “catching up” and socializing in a 60 minute period. But, the lunch hour is an illusion. There are lunch meetings where you actually discuss business. Somehow, people manage to schedule meetings (no lunch included) to run right over your expected arrival time at Baja Fresh. If they don’t manage to schedule them over your usual lunch time, they book you up all morning and all afternoon so you end up captive at your desk doing the action items from your morning meetings and preparing for your afternoon meetings. And you don’t even have 15 minutes to gripe to a coworker, phone your spouse to say “I love you” or call the plumber to fix the kitchen sink. Oh, right. We’re supposed to do that over lunch.

Geez. I don’t even have a job right now but I’m getting woozy just thinking about it. I better go eat lunch now while I still can.

Anyway, it’s 1:00 now so you head off to three hours of poisoning by