Opinion: Don't Have Time to Meet Friends at the Cafe Before Work? That's a You Problem
Get a Rocketboy Tom in your life.
People with jobs often ask me, “How do you, a successful lawyer of a nondescript variety in a sitcom, have time to meet your five closest friends at the cafe and just chat for hours on end before work?”
I say, “If you don’t make time for your nearest and dearest, that seems like a YOU problem.”
Sure, my other friends, who definitely exist—the ones I don’t meet at the cafe for cappuccinos, mimosas, and my favorite six-ingredient garden omelet every morning, Monday through Friday—have often floated the idea of happy hour or dinner after work. They’ve said that since the cafe opens at 8:30 and most work hours begin then, including mine, it makes more sense to go to work on time instead of three hours later, when I’m full of Chef Rodney’s six-ingredient omelet and a little tipsy from the bottomless mimosa (with fresh-squeezed OJ!). (Shoutout to Chef Rodney! Love you, my man! I owe you some tips for the last nine years for sure.)
My response? “Do you even know love like the friendship I have with Rocketboy Tom, who, incidentally, has been living off of his trust fund since 2011 because his job is to be a good friend?”
Without Rocketboy Tom, I would be NOTHING.
Rocketboy Tom helped me get through law school.
Rocketboy Tom helped me land this job.
And Rocketboy Tom will be there for me when I lose this job because I show up late and kind of drunk every day.
Goddammit, Rocketboy Tom is my rock (or “Rocket,” lol), and if drinking mimosas and showing up late every day are fireable offenses, go ahead and fire me. If you don’t have a Rocketboy Tom to meet at the cafe on a business day after a five-mile run in the park and a leisurely shower, while your wife is giving birth (she’s not main cast, so it happens off-screen), then maybe you should get your priorities straight.
Also, Cindy, Zippo, Squirrely Joe, and Hallie are cool, too. I would lose my job for these guys.
And I probably will, because HR gave me a final warning that if I roll in at noon smelling like alcohol one more time, I’ll be dismissed with cause and without severance pay. I wonder if Chef Rodney can forge me a doctor’s note?
