4:00 pm is the Worst Time of the Day

Ahh, corporate life. (I say it as if I know so much about it. Ha)! I'm doing temp work for various Boston companies as a part-time summer job. Right now I'm at Catalina Marketing in Boston, by South Station. I'm lounging in a lovely high-backed white leather chair, at a smooth, 3-cornered white wraparound desk. Today I ate lunch with the rest of the office, organized some supply cabinets, and, in the true office fashion, rejoiced upon successfully tossing my crumpled aluminum foil sandwich wrapper in the trash can from a few feet away. It's been a good day.

But you know what happened? 4 o'clock happened, and I didn't like it. At 2:00, I was happily up and about, neatening and straightening the office. By 3:15, I was back at my desk. I researched fall internships (sigh, it never ends), which had me feeling productive and happy. But soon enough, my head began to droop; my eyes fluttered, and my fingers slowed on the keyboard.

See, 4:00 pm is the perfect storm. Your giant morning cup of double espresso, plus the can of soda you drank at lunch, have both worn off at last. Your sense of morning productivity has dwindled as the day goes on and you've managed not to do anything between 1:00 and 3:30.

"Damn it," you mutter to yourself. "Why do I work here again?" Then you remember that you need money so you can buy cheap beer and instant mac and cheese. Darn.

My only wish is that it was more culturally and professionally acceptable to leave work around 4:00--that way, you could squeeze in your workout, have dinner at the regular time, and be awake enough after dinner to be able to get in that last hour of work. I'm betting it'd be a more productive hour, anyways--you'd be revitalized by your workout, and the hour that would have been spent at work fighting off the urge to nap and staring at the clock every 15 seconds can now be spent, well, doing work.

Maybe someday. Until then, I'll be experimenting with 3:00 pm coffee--or maybe just doing a quick set of jumping jacks and some vigorous running-in-place in the ladies bathroom the next time I get tired!

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