Lunch breaks.

I don't think I have mentioned that I used to work at 1(800)Contacts ... I used to work at 1(800) Contacts. And they really are a great company to work for. The pay is decent (by decent I mean above minimum wage and they do have lots of "incentives" to up your earnings), they have an onsight gym with trainers available, they have an AMAZING cafeteria - it's actually more like a restaurant, really. You look at the menu for that day at your desk, email over your order and what time you will take your lunch break, and then they have it ready when you need it, at a fraction of the price it would be if you weren't an employee. (And great food prepared by the staff chef too - things like: steak, pasta, soups, salads, burgers, mexican dishes, seafood, chinese ...)

On Saturdays and Sundays they bring in boxes and boxes of Einstein's bagels and Krispy Kreme Donuts, free for the taking. And everyday the drinks are free. An endless soda fountain? That is quite a perk if you ask me.

One day I was sitting at my desk and my supervisor sent out an email that said the next three people who upsell (upsell? Is that right?) a bottle of contact solution will get a ticket to the movies. I sold a bottle of solution to my next caller and got a ticket to the movies!

My boss said, "Okay, see what time it starts and get outta here."

Wait. "You mean we get to leave work right now and go to the movies?"

"Yup. You three just go, now." And then he handed us gift cards to go to a matinee and get treats too.

Sweet! A paid, really long lunch break, that's cool.

We saw Napoleon Dynamite because we had all heard it was hilarious. I was confused. How is the stupidity of this movie and it's characters funny? (I did come around a little bit later and watched it again. I get that the humor is in the fact that it is so stupid - it just took me a little longer to get.)

I worked at 1(800)Contacts for about 7 months. That is as long as I could stand it. Because as great as all those perks were, I had been out of the work force for about 15 years, and I couldn't stand being chained to my desk! But that is just the way it is - the nature of the call center beast. When they say you need to be in at 7:00 am, they mean it. Not 7:02 am, or even 7:00.49 am. They mean 7:00 am on the dot because that is when they want to start sending calls to your desk.

The final straw for me was when I got a warning for having accumulated 3 minutes of tardiness in a month. In a MONTH???? I started to look for another job.

So today, when I left work around 10:15 am to give a friend a ride to work, I dropped him off, stopped to get gas and then made a U-Turn because I decided that even though it was only 10:30 in the morning, I was in the mood for a Costco hotdog.

And the best part of this story is that I could. I parked, pulled 7 quarters out of my ashtray (isn't it funny that we had to explain to our kids what that was initially intended for), and I walked into Costco for a hotdog and a drink.

I tell you, one of the best perks of adulthood is the fact that we can eat what we want, when we want. Am I right?