¨°º©[ Fink ]©º°¨: Packed lunch from the canteen

So I decided 2 weeks ago that I would try out the sandwich ordering service in our office canteen...I've not actually eaten in there for rather a long time (for several reasons) -

I love good food, and I think it is fair to say that most of the dishes they serve are very similar and quite bland (for my palette, anyway)
The chefs obviously love to use generous quantities of both oil and salt in their cooking
I don't know where the meat is sourced from
Eating there was visibly contributing to my waistband (and it doesn't need any assistance at all, thank you)...

Now, I said I decided 2 weeks ago I was going to do this, but I made the decision on a Thursday afternoon and started (properly) looking into it on a Friday morning (that was a "bad thing")...

I quickly discovered, upon finding the little form you have to fill in -

- that not only do you have to fill in a different one for each and every day of the week (providing on each your name, department, the day of the week the sandwich is required for, the date of the particular day of the week that the sandwich is required for, and the sandwich selection you have made - so that's five fields to be filled in, on five forms - per week, per person) but you also have to submit them by 2pm on the Thursday prior to the week that you want to actually eat them. Meaning I now had to wait until the next Thursday before I could submit my orders for the week after that (being the week starting today)...

That's not all though, looking at other people's forms, I noted that many of them were making similar selections and being quite specific about what they wanted - it occurred to me that there might be a list they were picking from...but could I find one?

Nothing was visible anywhere obvious in the canteen and I checked the notice board just outside, nothing...Reception didn't know about it and thought I was referring to sandwiches and snacks for a lunchtime meeting, the ladies in the canteen (when they arrived to start prep for lunch) confirmed that there was a list (so my hunch was right), but they had no idea what was on it, nor where I could find it - simply that it was "emailed round everyone", well, no-one I spoke to had ever seen it, if it existed...My colleagues helped out at this stage, PW recalling that she had seen it once in the public folders on the Exchange server, but despite both of us scouring the public folders quite carefully we couldn't find anything regarding sandwiches. I searched our intranet (Darwin) and found lots of mentions of sandwiches, and even a copy of the form (so I could print my own), but no list, or indication as to where I should be hunting for it. In desperation, I finally thought I might go and try the people that do the refunds on the vending machines (this being kind-of office-related), tucked away in their little room - and they looked confused for a minute (I had almost left the room in disappointment) then said "Oh yeah, it's in the public folders"...Eureka!! But when they tried to show me where it was, it wasn't there! "Someones deleted it", apparently, so I left them hunting around for the original copy of the list so they could re-post it...

I filled out all my little forms (once the list finally did materialise) thought I would do a batch, all in one go, just to get it out of the way - so I did 2 weeks worth - carefully filling out all the fields, double checking my dates and then took my little stack of papers to the box in the canteen where you have to leave them, ready for collection by the caterers, and then sat back to wait the 11 days required for my first sandwich to arrive, confident that I would have earned my dinner (when it was finally delivered)...

So today, as you can imagine I was giddy with anticipation, clock-watching lunchtime to see the results. And here they are! Arriving in a little white paper bag (with my form stuck on the front, the admin required starting to make some sense) -

- and inside, TWO rounds of roast lamb (wow!) and mint sauce on wholemeal bread (looks like some sweetcorn managed to sneak in there too though...), a bag of salt and vinegar Walkers and a breakaway bar (takes me back!) - I added the apple myself...

So, all in all, I'm very impressed! Despite the hurdles, a proper packed lunch has appeared!