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Nearly half of the United States workers give up lunch at least once a week, according to the results of a survey recently published by ezCater, a food technology platform. Workers say they worry they won’t have time to do all their work or simply have too many meetings.

Of the 5,000 workers surveyed, only 38% said they take a break from their desk each day.

The survey jumped out at me because, in today’s era of remote and hybrid work, I wondered: what happened to the lunch break? Is he dead?

As I mentioned before, I have worked remotely for four years, and I have only been in an office once during this period. So, it’s true that I’m a bit disconnected from the daily norms of office life, aside from what I learn from interviewing workers and talking with friends and family.

My lunch routine at home is very similar to my office life. I make lunch almost every day and order in from time to time, as a treat or when I’m really overwhelmed. At the office, I packed up most days, and when I was still working in downtown Cleveland, I would periodically go out to lunch with co-workers or pick up something to bring back. But in general, I almost always ate at my desk while writing. (Let’s be real, I eat at my desk all day unless I’m interviewing someone. I’m a 100% grazer.)

I reached out to social media to hear the opening lines: What’s going on with lunch? Are we all glued to our desks?

A federal employee said via LinkedIn that he he slips at lunch when he gets the chance. Juggling 50 to 70 meetings a week, he eats lunch when something is postponed or during training. Otherwise, it’s “not uncommon to not eat between 8 and 6 a.m.,” he admitted.

A human resources consultant has been eating at what he calls the “Keyboard Café” for years. When he was still in the office, he rarely wanted to sacrifice time during the day for a restaurant lunch that might prevent him from seeing his wife and children for dinner in the evening. So he would pack his lunch and eat while working, a habit that continued when he started his own consulting firm and spent most of his lunch hours at home.

Now his kids are no longer home and he and his wife are working remotely, so there’s less rush and he can eat up his desk.

“But before you celebrate my improvement, know this: I often eat lunch in the kitchen where I fill or empty the dishwasher, put things together for dinner (gathering ingredients, spices, pots and utensils) while staying productive. I guess old habits die hard,” he said on LinkedIn.

One marketing and communications professional said he uses lunch not as a break but as a break from meetings and a way to recover from the morning’s coffee.

“In a world of Dashers roaming buildings and parking lots looking for hungry souls, I dutifully prepare my ham and Swiss and pack lunch for the days I’m in the office (usually two to three times a week )”, Bob Batchelor, vice president of global marketing and communications at Workplace Options, said via email.

“Sitting at my desk, lunch gives me time to catch my breath and collect my thoughts after a morning of context switching. Lunch – early in my career and now – is a necessity, for food and moments of semi-quiet contemplation.

Others say they haven’t had time for a real lunch break since college, and some just snack on whatever’s around, which happens to be leftover candy from Halloween for now, depending an answer on. Some try to take advantage of the time when the team is in the office and take lunches on foot or have a meal together. Others even schedule a lunch break in their diary just so they don’t forget.

But one brand manager said the COVID-19 pandemic has changed her view of lunch breaks.

“Before the pandemic, I almost always ate at my desk because taking the time to take a break seemed unproductive; everyone ate at their desk,” she said via LinkedIn. “Fast forward to now, and 9 times out of 10, I take at least 30-45 minutes to chew up my computer. I have learned over the years that “multitasking” means that nothing gets 100% done anyway! »

As someone who has to say out loud several times a day, “Focus, Ginger, focus,” I can maybe see where she’s coming from. Maybe if we all took the lunch break again, we could focus better during the day and not have to waste our lunch break to get our work done.

Until then, I’ll see you at the Keyboard Café.