The Walker Evans Effect

Last Week, the Urbanophile featured a great post titled “Want Talent? Drink at Lunch!” where author Aaron Renn proposed one small idea that he hopes could change corporate culture in the midwest and help to attract young talent to regional companies. Some additional commentary followed HERE on Columbus Underground, and I emailed some of this information to a few colleagues at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce and at City Hall where we continued to discuss this concept.

After mulling it over for awhile, I still think Aaron’s initial drinking angle makes for a sharp contrast to what is typically acceptable for lunch-time behavior in a corporate environment. So it does a great job at bringing to light the overall strict boundaries associated with business lunch hours, even if the encouragement of drinking at noon doesn’t sounds like a very feasible program to try to implement.

Having spent nearly 10 years in various white-collar work environments, I’m all too familiar with the 3,600 seconds allotted to each employee for spending during designated lunch periods, and the reprimands that can follow if the rules get stretched too far. Of course, some managers can be a little bit lax on the rules, but in many environments, being chronically late coming back form lunch is grounds for some form of work-place punishment.

Things completely changed for me once I started working for myself. Earlier this week, I had a leisurely lunch with a friend to chat about a new arts initiative I’m conceptualizing for 2010 (more on that later). There was no beer involved at our lunch, but the fact that we both work in environments where we can take a 90 minute lunch break meant that our time spent collaborating on a creative idea wasn’t bound by a time limit.

Of course, not all lunch breaks are spent working on ideas to help make the world a better place, but the end result can be the same after something more casual. After my particular extended lunch, I found myself energized, excited, and feeling even more productive once returning to my desk. It was invigorating to not be bound by the strict regulations I’ve faced elsewhere, but it’s also frustrating to know that I’m probably in the minority. I’m willing to bet that younger folks who are able to take a relaxed lunch make up less than 1% of the professional workforce. If you’ve ever attended a Columbus Metropolitan Club luncheon, you’ve probably noticed how few of those coveted “young professionals” are able to take that 90 minute lunch break. It’s only the upper-management who give themselves that leniency. I find it disheartening that even when it comes to something as specific as engaging in a civic forum and becoming more involved in community affairs, flexible scheduling is something that most workers have to officially request in advance, if they’re even allowed to take the time at all.