Tea break

When I came out to work back in 1999, (wow, its almost 10 years now, so fast... anyway, will discuss this topic some other time) I was with a metal fabrication company. As I had never worked in any factories before this, I was surprise to see that there is a tea time break officially allocated for the team of work force. At 10.30am and at 3.30pm, the siren will sound for a 15 minutes tea break. Then, 15 minutes later, the siren will again sound to tell them tea break is over and back to work!

During this time, you will see a group of men / women storming towards the wooden shed to get their hands on their favourite drinks and snacks. In some mass production factories, you will see a bee line forming infront of the vending machines or canteen. The people seems so discipline to adhere to the tea break.

This is not the practice in the office. When I left this factory and came to work in an office environment company, there is no official siren for tea breaks. The beverages are served anytime of the day with bottles of powders and hot water left there up to the office staffs to enjoy anytime they desire.

However, ironically, there is an unspoken rule of tea time in the office. The office staffs will gather around at a specific time for break in the pantry without any siren telling them its tea break time. One by one will come into the pantry at a specific time and start a mini-gathering around the pantry. Sometimes, all you need only 2 people in the pantry and they will become like the "honey" to the bees, everyone will start to gather around.

Since 2 different working environment, one in production factory, another is the office environment, the tea break practised and the management will actually allowed this during the working hours. At times you see even the bosses are the in the pantry chit-chatting around.

Then, I came to realise the logic behind tea breaks. Tea break is the mid point between breakfast and lunch and if you put the time into prespective, if an office starts work at 0900, then at 1030, it will be 1.5 hours since they started working and we need to lay our eyes off the computer and work as concentration will decrease over time.

Just by walking to the pantry, you will touch base with some of the colleagues and just to say hi and take your mind off the computer screen, when you get back to your workstation after the tea break, you will find yourself spotting the mistake you did not see earlier or solving problem you are not able to solve before 1030.

It is not the magical cuppa coffee or tea that you had drank during the tea break, it is just the simple fact that you loose your concentration over the 1.5 hours and when you take a short tea break, you mind is refreshed and start to function better as you become more alert.

So, enjoy you tea breaks... and happy working!!!