Break Time!

It sounds so simple: twice a day for fifteen minutes or so, a few friendly and more or less like-minded coworkers get together to hang out and enjoy the nice weather, or else take shelter somewhere against the cold and rain. They make chitchat, they blow off a little steam about work, they keep casually up-to-date with one another's lives. No biggie, necessarily, but they're friends.

An email exchange with my friend b.r. today, and today's news that three-martini breaker emeritus Thomas has now received a job offer elsewhere that he's been anxiously awaiting, have me pondering sadly on how much more than that a simple fifteen-minute break can be. Bryan's last day is Friday, so with Thomas' departure there will be three of us regulars left. There are also two others who participate now and again, but aren't really quite as into the whole break experience as I feel they could be.

I've never worked anywhere before where I hit it off so completely and so comfortably with such a number of other people. Do you remember what it was like in school, when the people you talked to in your classes, your roommates and dorm neighbors, and other campus regulars just sort of automatically became your lifelong friends, without even trying? It's like that. Break was something magical. Even this diminished in number, you know, it still is. It frustrates me hugely when something happens - some ill-timed meeting or work project - to preclude break. I brought my parents to afternoon break when they came to Austin to visit. It's that important!

Break at its best is more fun than just about anything. Everybody there is incredibly smart, wildly funny, friendly, and good-natured. We all have great chemistry: we can easily take turns making the jokes and being the audience; one idea leads to another leads to another; we all seem to bring out the best in each other. Seriously. If you haven't been there, you don't know how much fun it can be. I'd come in from break wiping mascara from the corners of my eyes and feeling like I actually was important to a whole bunch of the coolest people I knew; and I assume, I hope, that's about the way everybody felt - minus, in some cases, the mascara.

And of course there are often lulls in the conversation; it's not like it's a non-stop laugh riot. We have off days too. But this is also okay. We're pretty comfortable just hanging out.

I want everybody to find the perfect place and be fulfilled, but I wish break never had to end.