Culinary Dos And Don’ts For The Modern Office
A list in list form
DO
snack on bananas and other quiet fruits and vegetables.
DON’T
eat apples, for the love of god.
DO
make and refrigerate your lunch ahead of time. This saves money and demonstrates your stoicism as you eat a sad desk salad or dull, two-ingredient sandwich.
DON’T
put fish in the microwave. Never put fish in the communal microwave.
DO
sip on tea throughout the day.
DON’T
lecture people how you feel so much better since you ditched coffee.
DO
invite people to join you for coffee.
DON’T
make them feel bad for suggesting the not-as-good coffee shop and then guilt them into trying the good one. All coffee kind of sucks. It’s a functional beverage. Get over it.
DO
pop out for a cheeky sitdown lunch on a Friday.
DON’T
wait in line at the food cart when it’s not between 65 and 80 degrees and not raining outside.
DO
walk the extra few blocks for the good halal cart.
DON’T
ever eat halal cart if you have anything remotely important to do after lunch.
DO
surreptitiously bite your nails.
DON’T
chew on the nail bits after biting them off.
DO
drink unsweetened iced tea
DON’T
make your own iced tea if it means making a mess as you transfer liquids from one cup to another in the kitchen/break room.
DO
eat the free yoghurt.
DON’T
eat more than one free yoghurt.
DO
eat the leftovers.
DON’T
eat the leftovers after they’ve been out for more than 17 minutes.
DO
buy smoothies from the juice guy.
DON’T
pay more than $5 for a smoothie, even if it has ginseng in it.
DO
get some small, barely noticeable noodle stains on your shirt. This tells the world you have joie de vivre.
DON’T
get coffee or ketchup stains on your shirt. This tells the world you had coffee or ketchup.
DO
wash your hands often.
DON’T
sneak past people at the sink like they don’t notice you’re not washing your hands.
DO
use hand sanitzer all the damn time. People are not washing their hands.
DON’T
steal my hand sanitizer without asking. I’ll let you have some. But there are rules.
DO
make note of which delis put more meat, cheese, and condiments on their subs.
DON’T
eat the hot deli buffet.
DO
inquire about what people ordered for lunch.
DON’T
hover over, point at, or make lengthy conversation about someone’s food. People are hungry and want to eat. They’ve got eight minutes until they need to jump on a call and you’re holding them up from the only nourishment they’ll get until they resignedly buy some Sun Chips from the vending machine at 4:38.
DO
grab lunch with your colleagues that have kids. This may be the most fun part of their weekday.
DON’T
get into your plans tonight. They don’t really care about Korean barbecue in Gowanus. Truth be told, neither do you, since you’re just going to cancel, order in from the closest burrito delivery, and half-heartedly watch some Amazon Prime.
DO
drink a Diet Coke — or even Diet Dr. Pepper if they have it.
DON’T
drink alcohol during lunch, even if they do it on TV and people talk about the good old days when dudes downed three martinis at lunch. 1) They probably never actually did that. 2) If they did, it’s because they could find a nice corner to sleep in at the office. 3) If they actually managed to function in the afternoon, remember that being buzzed at the office actually really, really sucks.
DO
order something other than a build-your-own salad once in a while.
DON’T
tell yourself you’ll make up for having three slices of pizza by having salad tonight. You won’t. More realistically, you’ll have more pizza.
DO
eat.
DON’T
forget to eat.
Dane A. Wisher is based in Brooklyn.
