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Besides the fact that it's more consecutive sitting time, which is not healthy, eating lunch at your desk tends to make your desk a gross place to be; crumbs in

Besides the fact that it's more consecutive sitting time, which is not healthy, eating lunch at your desk tends to make your desk a gross place to be; crumbs in your keyboard, bits of food and food smells around, basically a germ farm. It's also a good way to give yourself indigestion if you're doing something stressful and don't give yourself the mental break of getting up and leaving.

collyw 13y ago
My problem is I don't get a chance to code for more than an hour or two at a time without being interrupted to fix some minor bug (usually someone has not filled in an Excel properly). If you lunch at desk, you can stay focused on a problem for longer, without the implicit context switching that lunch involves. (Though sometimes it is nice to get away).
- mpeg 13y ago
  But then people might come interrupt you during your desk lunch; if the issue is interruptions you can always grab a meeting room for yourself and go work in there for an hour or two. Break areas work fine for that too if your office has them. If your boss asks just say you wanted to grab some quiet coding time. I've never had any problems doing this, I think we're lucky that programmers are mostly judged on the output of their work and their ability to solve stuff; yet few people exploit this.
  - collyw 13y ago
    Sure, but lunch away from the desk is a guaranteed break away for around an hour. A small interuption might take 5 minutes to fix, which is easier to get back to the flow of what you were doing.
johnward 13y ago
I've eaten lunch at my desk for years and have none of the problems you mention as far as cleanliness. I also clean my desk a few times a week though and am not a complete dirtball. The mental fatigue thing is true though. However most of the time I just screw around on the internet during that time. I usually get up around 5-6am and have breakfast so I'm ready for lunch around 11. Everyone else seems to eat lunch closer to 1 which is just too long to wait for me.

collyw 13y ago

My problem is I don't get a chance to code for more than an hour or two at a time without being interrupted to fix some minor bug (usually someone has not filled in an Excel properly). If you lunch at desk, you can stay focused on a problem for longer, without the implicit context switching that lunch involves. (Though sometimes it is nice to get away).

mpeg 13y ago
But then people might come interrupt you during your desk lunch; if the issue is interruptions you can always grab a meeting room for yourself and go work in there for an hour or two. Break areas work fine for that too if your office has them. If your boss asks just say you wanted to grab some quiet coding time. I've never had any problems doing this, I think we're lucky that programmers are mostly judged on the output of their work and their ability to solve stuff; yet few people exploit this.
- collyw 13y ago
  Sure, but lunch away from the desk is a guaranteed break away for around an hour. A small interuption might take 5 minutes to fix, which is easier to get back to the flow of what you were doing.

johnward 13y ago

I've eaten lunch at my desk for years and have none of the problems you mention as far as cleanliness. I also clean my desk a few times a week though and am not a complete dirtball. The mental fatigue thing is true though. However most of the time I just screw around on the internet during that time. I usually get up around 5-6am and have breakfast so I'm ready for lunch around 11. Everyone else seems to eat lunch closer to 1 which is just too long to wait for me.