The office worker's guide to pissing away your lunch break

THE lunchbreak is an oasis of free time in a dull, unrewarding working day. Waste that precious break like a pro: 

Go for a little walk

Your desk is a grim reminder of your shit job, so stretch your legs and experience the world outside your office. If you plan your route wisely, you’ll be able to visit all the shops you’re bored of walking past and listen to a busker make Ed Sheehan worse. The health benefits of the walk will be negated by inhaling traffic fumes.

Buy a crap meal

Will today be a Boots meal deal, an overpriced chicken wrap or something hot you’ll struggle to finish in time? Either way it beats anything you could bring from home on price, while tasting roughly the same and leaving you bloated and sleepy.

Browse the shops

Why not wander into a largely disused shop – HMV or Waterstones are good – to listlessly pick up items you’re not interested in while minutes you’ll never get back pass forever from your grasp? Why shouldn’t your lunch be as fatiguingly capitalist as the rest of your day?

Eat at your desk

All the benches in town are filled with dead-eyed office workers eating lunch, so head back to your desk. A bubbly colleague will say you’re eating ‘al desco’ and you will make a laughing sound completely devoid of joy. Slip on headphones and hear your own mastication in stereo.

Chat to colleagues

If you’re desperate for distraction, chatting to colleagues could be the answer. They won’t have anything interesting to say but you might uncover a flaw in their character to exploit at a later date. Or run down the clock by scrolling through social media. It’ll soon be over.

Start working because it’s more fun

Even though you’ve got 20 minutes left, call it a day and knuckle down to work again. Staring at a spreadsheet is easier than pretending to enjoy your freedom, plus your boss might admire your dedication. Or at least they would if they weren’t down the pub having a two-hour lunch with wine.

How to bulk-buy like a dad, by a dad

DAD here. If you’re running out of light bulbs and bin-liners it’s because you didn’t stock up. Here’s how I’ll get through the post-Brexit years with tinned sweetcorn to spare: 

Quantity over quality

Get your priorities straight: quantity is key. Yes the shower gel makes your pubes itch, the washing-up liquid is kumquat-scented and the liquid soap is unpleasantly spunky in appearance. But that only means you’ll use less of them so they’ll last longer.

Sell-by dates are advisory

They’re just covering themselves against lawsuits with those things. Yes, some of the items further back in the garage technically went off when Blair was prime minister, but a baked bean is a baked bean no matter which side of the millenium it was canned.

Compromise

If you want the best discounts you’re going to have to settle for products you wouldn’t normally buy or actively dislike. You may hate fish, but if it’s frozen seafood mix that’s on offer, it’s frozen seafood mix you’re stacking in your trolley. Anyone can develop a taste for questionably sourced crustaceans if they try.

Never take a day off

Finding bargains means never relaxing your guard: not at the weekend, not on holiday, never. Remember when I found that incredible discount store in Whitby and we all drove home with crates of batteries on our knees? Brilliant day out. And we’re still using those batteries.

Go pro

If you want to take it to the next level, bluff your way into a cash and carry. The joy of purchasing twenty four-litre bottles of Daz will offset the vertebrae you fuse hoisting them into the car boot. And with those savings you can treat yourself to an inflatable hot-tub you’ll never use.