Feb 17, 2005
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, ցտեսություն
I moved jobs recently, relocating to an office about half a mile down the road. It wasn’t hard: the new office is (half a mile) closer to home, and therefore an easier commute, plus handier for lunchtime shopping and eating options.
The toughest bit, however, was not waving goodbye to my familiar view, my old desk or my lovely perfectly-adjusted-for-my-bum aeron chair… it was breaking the news to the staff of the Armenian delli-from-helli across the road from the old office, where I had been getting lunch (and sometimes breakfast, and sometimes dinner) most days for the last five and a half years.
They did not make it easy.
Breaking up is hard to do, and nothing makes it harder than when the person (or in this case, sandwich shop) you’re breaking up with refuses to accept that it’s really over.
“No no,” they said, “you can still come here for lunch.”
Well no, I explained, it’ll be a bit out of my way.
“Not at all!” they insisted, “The walk will do you good!”
I conceded that while that may be true, it was still out of my way, and time might be an issue.
“Well then,” said Bad Cop – the matriarch of the enterprise who barks at employees for getting customers’ orders wrong, and customers for ordering the wrong things, “I will write down our telephone number, and you can ring us ahead and we will have your lunch ready when you arrive, so you don’t have to queue.”
Most enterprising.
I didn’t mention the myriads of other – dare I say it, better, more reliable – sandwich emporiums (emporia?) near my new office; the restaurants and cafes; the supermarkets; the office lunch delivery services; the specialist delis and organic establishments which beckon within reach of my new desk and (yay!) aeron chair. I didn’t mention that the flaky service and surprising order fulfillment I’d become accustomed to over the previous half decade with them had been something to overlook because they were so convenient for the office.
Instead, I did what most people do when breaking up a longstanding relationship. I smiled, and lied, and pretended that we could, of course, remain friends, but with the guilty, hidden knowledge that I’d likely never taste their floury baps again, nor experience the odd but strangley familiar (after a few times, anyway) sensation of biting into what you thought was mozarella, avocado and tomato on ciabatta (no butter) only to discover that you’d actually been given Mexican tuna and taboulleh on ciabatta (with butter).
Breaking up is hard to do. Now every time I pop into a different sandwich shop for lunch, near my new office, I find myself scanning the passing crowds on the street beyond the plate windows, in case one of the Deli-from-Helli employees is out and about, making a delivery, and catches me cheating on them – or rather, cheating on their memory. The guilt. The shame.
Perhaps I should have told them I was giving up food, instead of moving away. Would that have been easier to stomach?
