Eating at Work

It's always soooo much more frigid the closer you get to the Embarcadero. I work in the area, so I have to brave this five days a week. Ok, so it's not the midwest in the winter, but it's still notably cold enough to warrant complaint. There's a seemingly constant and steady breeze which have been slimming down the few smoke breaks I take during the day. This shouldn't be a problem when I finally decide to return to the realm of the non-smoker and gym-visitor (already well past due).
Still the last few days have been somewhat mundane and I'd rather write about nothing than not update at all.

I'm stilling kind of gathering the bits of what I should actively be doing while I'm at work. This is proving to be a slow process as I'm not getting much direction. Mostly I follow along on the emails that I'm CC'd on and try to pick up enough so that eventually I'll be able to respond myself rather than wait for someone else to take care of it. It makes for somewhat of an awkward day, as I don't want to appear like I'm not doing anything as people pass by my desk and probably most often see me reading miscellaneous blogs and news sites with an occasional facebook slipped in there for good measure. Eventually I hope to be able to transition into one of the lucky few who work from (because there's really no reason why I couldn't), but for the meantime will try to fit in.
The office is surprisingly quiet and none of my co-workers really ever approach me to shoot the proverbial shit although they seem to know each other quite well. I've always had somewhat of an issue getting to know people around me if it's not taken care of quite quickly. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but I'll chalk up to my penchant for finding comfort in routine. So if I set my routine as sitting quietly at my desk and not socializing with others, when the time comes and people feel comfortable enough making small talk with me I'll be on the other end feeling intruded upon but still wanting to make a good impression.

I also have a weird paranoia about people being able to hear me eating at my desk. This is something that I've attempted twice, but became so uncomfortable with the idead that I might be audible that I cut my lunch short both times. It's just so unbelievably quiet in here that I'm worried it will bother the woman who sits in the cube across from me or the layout/design folks at the table directly behind me. I know it's completely neurotic and stupid, yet I can't get past it. So today I took my packed lunch down to the cafeteria in the lobby of the building and ate seated on the steps amongst the people who purchased their food at one of the vendors. Oh yeah, one more thing to note, is that it seems like no one else in the office is ever eating or taking a break to eat. I can't be the only one, can I? Weird. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually. Either that or I'll begin "working from home" before I have to get used to it.