Lunch time

I have been pretty lucky to have not work in any local office until today. Therefore, there are a lot of strange things that happened in my office, that make me feel like an alien.

In my office, everyone has to take turn to sit in during the lunch time, at the front desk to pick up phone calls, answer the door bell etc., including managers. Until one fine day, the MD made a huge noise, and he got exempt. Then the managers made noise, and they got exempt... and left the rest of us.

We only have one young lady sitting at the front desk. I understand that she too has to take her lunch, but I think it is very unfair for us to do her job. I think we should practice alternative lunch hour for her, instead of having everyone takes turn to sacrify our lunch time. Perhaps just set a pre-recorded voice message to inform the incoming caller(s) to call back after lunch. Besides, we all have our direct line, so it is very unlikely for the front desk person to re-direct the calls.

To answer door bell from delivery services is easy, not all of us eat out, we could just open the door once in a while when there are people coming. In any case, it doesn't require a person to sit there all the time.

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Besides the lunch hour duty, some of my colleagues like to take a nap in the office after lunch. Though they claimed it is normal, which I too had commited it a couple of times... I still find it very odd for people to do so.

I have never worked in an office in this country before, but my experience from UK is that, you shouldn't be sleeping while you are working. I think many of my friends who are working locally will agree with me, that taking a nap in the office is strange, or perhaps unacceptable. I have stopped joining the "afternoon nap team".

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My office also have some really calculative guys. They take their lunch hour to sort out their personal stuff, between 12pm - 1pm. They then come back at 1pm, with the lunch box take away, walk into the office, and eat in front of their computer, while everyone resumed working. These people claimed that they are entitled to have lunch... but well, their lunch hour has been more than an hour. And the rest of us have to endure the smell of food in the confined air-cond. room.

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My office, though located in a place called "commerce centre", it doesn't have any bank, any post office, any McDonald's, any convinient store, nor any stationery shop. It is filled with offices, restaurants and car parks. The building is located in the middle of no where, and surrounded by very bad traffic, with virtually-never-appeared-public-transport (I have never seen a bus stopping there or driving up the road, at any time of the day, despite seeing a bus stop).

So, while others can settle their bills and payment over the lunch hour, we can't do that, unless we drive out the area. This will then lead to another country-wide problem -- can't find a car park.

Anyway, this is just me moaning about the stupidity of the local town planning...