Now I’m back at work after the non-discriminative Winter-festival break, back arrives the question of what to do for lunch. Ever since I started my first proper job I’ve encountered this problem (I imagine it to be as old as time itself). You spend at least 8 toiling hours a day, grafting. Discounting the astronomical amount of tea breaks you excuse yourself from any proper work for, you only get the one hour of break. One hour of relaxation before heading back to the foggy mirth of full time employment. Best then, to waste as little of the hour as possible actually ‘preparing’ food. So what are your options?

Supermarket

Most offices and places of work in general are within walking distance of at least a TESCO Express® if not a full blown ASDA Superstore (GEORGE™ included), so you can head over there, but by the time you get up, get your coat on, walk over to and call the lift, wait, blah blah blah, and half an hour later get out of the building, it’s twenty minutes before you get back, even if you only stumped for a scrawny, curling Egg Mayonnaise Meal Deal. That gives you perhaps 10 minutes to eat it at your desk and only 30 left for relaxation. After obligatory checks of Facebook and emails, and the daily angry conversation with your best client because they’re interrupting your well-earned Veg-Pot, you’ve got maybe 5 minutes. How relaxed are you going to get in 5 minutes? You’re not – If anything you’ll be more stressed because you know you’ve wasted another hour on bugger all.

It’s possible to save time by doing a weekly work shop of lunch-making ingredients yes, but should you be lucky enough to work near (and be allowed into) an office kitchen, and wish to appear (we both know you’re downing doughnut and gravy baconshakes as soon as you get home) healthy by cooking your own high-piled veg meals, a mound of organic ingredients the size of a baby elephant at your side, then great. The cooking time however cuts out any time saving you made, and because you’re not getting the exercise walking to the shop and back, what’s the point in eating healthy? Have a double bacon cheeseburger, as long as you run to McDonalds to get it, where’s the beef? Not in the burger.

Packed Lunch

Am I 6 years old? Do I have a Transformers lunchbox? Because until it’s socially acceptable to come to work with tin foil covered cheese and pickle, protected by Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots… I’ll leave it thank you.

Local Café/Delí

In this section we can also include any kind of fast – medium food outlet. Anywhere you walk to, order, pay, collect, and walk back in under 5 minutes. These places are ten to the dozen, so it’ll generally be a shorter journey than the supermarket, plus there’s no preparation time. If you want to brave the indigestion you can even shave a couple of minutes by greedily unwrapping it on the way back. Just try to hide your shame from the security guard as he shit-eyes you stabbing a fat greasy paw on the lift button, leaving behind a burger sauce stain on the wall as noticeable as a Geometry Professor at Mardi Gras. 

Ok so by the time you’ve eaten the thing it’s about 15 minutes, leaving you 45 to battle the onslaught of stomach pains. Small price for 45 minutes of belly gurgling relaxation you might agree. Again, when it’s studied in closer detail, what are you winning? At the lowest end of the market there’s McDonalds, from here through to Fish and Chips, stopping by at KFC, Chicken Cottage, and perhaps even a Kebabish. Even these down stream eateries will set you back a fair £15-£20 a week. But at least you can save cash on tube fair, after 5 days you’ll be swimming home on a river of grease. Another week of that and Gillian McSkeletor will poke her head round the nut section of Waitrose and show you some poo whilst you stare at a table of burgers looking like it’s waiting for a Red Cross plane to Haiti.

At the higher end of the market you’ve got (in no particular order) your Subways, your Prets, EATs, Leons, and any number of Portuguese, Polish, and Peruvian cafés.  A much healthier option, plus you’ll definitely get credit from the weirdly sexy girl with the dreadlocks in HR as you waltz past with your bio-degradable ‘earth’ box and recycled paper bag (she doesn’t know it’s for your Full Fat Coke). These places are almost perfect. And I will freely admit, that I lived off them for 3 years solid. But it’s a miracle to come away with change from a £20 by the end of the week. £20 a week! £85 a month! That’s one week’s rent!

For a lucky few, there is hope. There is light at the end of both the hungry, and the greasy tunnels. There’s an idyllic bridge forming over them both. A bridge you hadn’t even noticed before, and the sun’s just coming out too.

Sandwich Man

The sandwich man is… and I should be very careful not to overstate this and end up pissing anyone off… Jesus! He is a godlike man. Can the fact he too sports long hair and olive-tanned skin be called a coincidence? Probably. He arrives at 13:30 every day without fail. Through wind, rain, and proving himself more worthy of our eternal respect than ever over the past couple of weeks, snow, he walks through our office door, placing his tray of fresh sandwiches on a table.

Suddenly a crowd forms. It’s like Patrick ‘frikking’ Stewart at a nerd convention! Like a gang of wasps sensing a freshly opened can of Fanta, the office crowd flocks to get the best stuff. Not just sandwiches, but salads, juice, and fruit as well. Baps, rolls, ciabattas, baguettes, wraps, triangle cuts, little oat covered bread ones, it’s all there.

Pick up the one you want, and ready your knees for the shock, as you hand over a pound, one pound for your sandwich! To be fair, there’re only 4 or 5 that I even like (others are a bit soggy). But I can eat (and eat well) every day for £5 a week. The entire process from stopping work, to finishing the meal, is no more than 5 minutes, which leaves me a full 55 minutes to kick everyone’s ass on the table tennis table.

As lunch time options go, it’s absolutely the best place to be. Here’s to you Sandwich Man, when I leave, you’ll be sorely missed.

The Earl of Sandwich - Brought to you by James Wormald -