I had finished a qualifying test. I'm usually one of the first people to finish, so what I usually do is excuse myself and either go the bathroom or look through the reading material in the break room or get something to eat at the snack table or sit at my work station and read the newspapers it's taken me six years to finally read. This time the director said that the entire room will take about 20 or 25 minutes to finish this test. It took me less than five.
So what to do? Well, for the past week or so Mother has prepared lunch for me. Aw. She never did this for me when I was in elementary school, but that was because 1) she was busy working and 2) I probably wouldn't have wanted yucky home food anyway; I preferred the five-star lunch at the cafeteria!!! But this probably is her way of saying she loves me, so even though I never eat lunch at work because I'm rarely hungry at noontime, I just take it. It is good, by the way -- rice, noodles, sometimes she cuts up slices of pork or chicken from the grocery store. Tasty, just unnecessary with all the coffee, water and snacks I usually scorf down to get through the day.
We have a regimented lunch break at 12. It's only half an hour, very little time for me to eat and relax, in my humble opinion. When we get lunch I crawl into my car, listen to "The Common Man Progrum" on KFAN and pass out. (I do the same thing for both my morning and afternoon breaks, both also done at the same time.) I usually don't get as much sleep as I should the night before, but an eight-hour day is a long one, and I need a nap to get through the day. (The European notion of a siesta seemed to get a toehold in the American workplace several years ago, but The Great Recession probably erased any belief that sleeping during the day makes you a more productive worker, which is bullshit.) I've been able to pass out most of the breaks and lunches, so I am rarely dragging through my day at work. I think I'm doing the professional thing, and I therefore will continue to do that.
So I'm at a crossroads. I'm not going to eat lunch at my lunch break, I'm going to try and take a nap. And yet I can't just not eat the lunch Mother makes for me because she'll be all, "Why didn't you want to eat it? You don't love me?? Well then, fuck you!!!" and she'll order My Father to throw me out of the house. I can't tell her the truth, that I need to use my lunch break to go to sleep, because then both Mother and My Father will go, "Well why don't you go to sleep earlier in the night?! You're not normal, son!!" and I will either take it like a submissive bitch or lash out and say, "You don't fucking understand me, goddammit!!!" -- at which point both of my parents will throw me out of the house.
So you see the box I'm in, yeah? So what I have done is eat Mother's food later in the afternoon. I don't want to eat early in the day because I'm just not hungry, and the afternoon is the latest time to eat this before I have to go home. At the other center I felt alright to bring this steaming plastic tray of lunch to my computer to eat while scoring. This one, uh, not so much. I like the place -- love the leaders, really love the close proximity to my home, and I really, really love the pay -- but there is a certain, uh, regimentation that dissuades me from thinking I can just eat at my desk.
So for the past two days I've been at this place, I've stolen away to the break room to heat up the lunch and eat it as fast as possible. We are in training anyway, so there is no reason to hurry back if I'm fast and the others are taking their time; I hate scarfing down food and coming back to the room to see that people are still taking the test. On top of that for today, the director said that she'd give everybody till 3:40 or 3:45 to finish this test. Since I got done at 3:20, I thought I had plenty of time to eat. So I took my time. I actually read a magazine while eating, not too slow but not too fast either.
I got done a little before 3:40, and when I came in everybody was sitting down and listening to the director. Not only that, she was almost done. Whatever happened to waiting? I know everybody wanted to live since it was close to the end of the day, but you said 3:40, maybe even 3:45!! Everybody must have been thinking, "Geez, that arrogant fucker thinks he can go and come whenever he wants because he gets everything right and he's fast!" Which is true, but that doesn't get me jack shit because now everybody thinks I'm an asshole.
Neither the director nor the leader said anything after we broke for the day. Maybe they'll think this is an aberration. Maybe. But I obviously cannot do this again. But I have to eat Mother's fucking food! Goddamn, what am I supposed to do???
I think that, unless Mother gets tired of preparing lunch for me, I'll just have to bring it in with me to my desk and eat it there. And if that's not allowed ... uh, I'm fucked.
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