The break room

As I approach my last year of meaningful work, it is tempting to start thinking about what I will miss the most. For me, it will be the coffee break. The first time I ever heard about the coffee break was when I was visiting my father's office and saw men lounging about and smoking in this room that looked like a 1930's kitchen.

"Gee Dad, do people really get paid for sitting in this room?"
"Yes, sadly, for most of them the coffee break is the most important time of the day".

The coffee break has its rules. Rules that a new employee has to digest. For example, if you want to avoid the long lines at the cafeteria you sneak down ten minutes early, ideally when your supervisor has stepped away. If you take the break too late you will have to make coffee in the break room or face the prospect of an empty pot.

Sadly, smoking is no longer permitted at the table like it used to be. The smokers have to sit outside of the building. Ah, the break room. Different types of habitués are found there.

There are the break room slobs who leave pieces of food in the sink when they are finished. There are the people who never take their lunch home. They come to work with the goal of saving their budgets and waistlines with a healthy sandwich and salad they made at home. They are coerced into going out for lunch with the gang. Months later, their sandwich is still right where they left it in the refrigerator, now starting to smell. Someone else will have to chuck the sandwich when it becomes their turn to clean out the refrigerator. Cleaning out the refrigerator is a task that is normally assigned to staff on a rotating basis. There is a special place in Heaven for refrigerator committees. Which brings us to those loveable things, the break room signs.  :

                                            A scientists' break room:

 Poor Deborah. Being called out by name in the break room.

 The pleasure of cleaning out the refrigerator is one of the things I will miss the most about work.

It could really happen

Marijuana may become legal in New Jersey. It's hard to believe but it was a pivotal point in Phil Murphy's platform and now he is the governor elect. For an aging baby boomer, it is hard to believe.

Whenever people asked Phil Murphy how he is going to pay for all those pensions, pre kindergarten, and balance the state budget, he said he would legalize marijuana. Even for conservatives who never liked the idea it made sense. Dollars have an evil attraction to the human soul.

Marijuana could be the next casino gambling. When Atlantic City was the only place that had it on the Eastern seaboard the state made out like bandits. Then other states discovered it and Atlantic City became just another tired city with  slot machines and a boardwalk. The same thing could happen now. Two years from now, Red Bank, Montclair, Asbury Park, and Hoboken will be the hip places on the East coast. Greta Gerwig will even make a movie in the state.

Eventually, though,  New York will legalize it and things will be back to where things were.  All the hip people will be back in Brooklyn and L.A. and New Jersey will become just another tired east coast state with Polish ice.

Addenda:
Mother son interactions before and after legalization.
Mother: What did you do at Johnny's house last night?
(Before) Son: Oh we just listened to the Buffalo Springfield and ate apple pie.
(After) Son: Oh we just listened to the Buffalo Springfield and got stoned on Colombian and ate apple pie.

Girls weekends

As I have aged and have inevitably found myself with other people in the over 50 set, I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon, that of  "girls weekends". In this scenario, while the men are patching up the grout in the bathroom or trying out their  deck wash, the women are having "girls weekends". On these excursions the women get together and go to casinos, bars, garden shows, museums and antique shops while the men are left at home.

Yes men may go to the occasional car show or convention, but it seems that women are having more fun than we are. Why aren't men invited to "girls weekends"?   Is it because men of a certain age are bossy, lazy, stay at home curmudgeons? 

Perhaps, alas,  it is because men of a certain age have become bossy, lazy, stay at home curmudgeons, Yes it is true that some of us haven't aged well. Well, off to Lowes. I need to buy some deck wash.