We All Do It

Don't we all eat at our desks? The Washington Post has a hard-hitting article today. Best paragraph:

Disease-causing germs are another problem. The typical desk has 100 times as much bacteria as the typical kitchen table, according to a study by University of Arizona researchers. Keyboards and telephones tend to be even dirtier than desks. "You have to clean these surfaces regularly," says Taub-Dix. "You wouldn't eat lunch at a restaurant that didn't wash its tablecloths, would you?"

That really makes me think. I know that my desk blotter is filthy. (Of course, I'd never eat directly off the blotter.) But I liked this, too:

Blame it on the difficulty of juggling work and family, the speeded-up business cycle, the unintended consequence of technology or pervasive economic anxiety. Whatever the reason, lunch routinely eaten with colleagues or friends outside the office has gone the way of defined benefit pensions and other workplace dinosaurs. Few have the time. In America, says University of Pennsylvania psychologist Paul Rozin, lunch is not a meal. "It's a fueling."

Lunch outside the office. How Jurrasic.