Time Out For Lunch

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I made the mistake of taking lunch at 1 p.m. and returned to work late at 2:30. The server was late with the bill, and traffic didn't go my way, so I returned late at 2:30. No one needed me all morning. No one needed anything from me at 11 or 12, or even 1. But everyone definitely noticed I was out until 2:30.

 "Sorry late from lunch," I muttered.  

"Doctors appointment?" 

"No, really just late from lunch, you know, slow service."

"Where were you? Did you hear my message?" 

"Respond to my email?" 

I'm here to warn you, if you are unfamiliar with 'proper" lunch etiquette your happy lunch hour can  make it seem like you're some kind of slacker. Feeling annoyed, I called a close friend and and she set me straight right away. 

"Oh dear. Don't you know the rule? You ALWAYS take lunch at 11 a.m" she said firmly. 

"What do you mean?" I asked. 

"The thing is," she explained, "when you take lunch at 11, and you come back at 12:30 or 1, no one notices, but if you take lunch at 11:30 or 12, the risk increases, that someone will notice. In fact your chances are nearly doubled. Therefor you should ALWAYS take lunch at 11, especially if you plan to go out. Coming back at 2:30 is like getting hit with a bad credit score."

"But...," I argued, "...I'm putting in a lot of overtime. What if I work until midnight tonight? Or begin working early tomorrow? Are you saying that doesn't matter?" 

"Doesn't matter," she replied. "You should use the 11 o' clock rule. No one notices if you are late at 12:30, but everyone notices if you are late at 2:30. You have to understand,  2:30 is much worse. It's just the way it is." 

Fighting the idea of nonsense fitting into the rules of logic somehow, my mind went into a bit of a tail-spin. 

"Huh. So... even though," I mused, "I might be late, from an 11 o'clock lunch, it will be acceptable. But if I'm late from a 1 o' clock lunch, it won't be. Well that settles it I guess, thank you. By the way, I'm leaving for lunch tomorrow at 11 — care to join me?" I smiled.

I'll end this by saying that Aristotle's laws are based in well — logic — so if a statement is true, then it must be true, but obviously this etiquette advised guideline, has absolutely nothing to do with logic, even though this technically, has to do entirely with math, numbers and minutes — 60 in fact.  Indeed, the speed of time has been broken inside corporate America - where appearance are everything, and observers see something different depending on the hour. 

I don't know that rule bending is a good thing, but just make sure to take your lunch early if possible, so you're not caught in a quantum corporate time warp. (and try not to be late)