Lunchroom

A black-and-white film photograph of the lunchroom/break room at a former workplace.

The photo above depicts the lunchroom/break-room/kitchen at the offices where I worked in Sweden. I must have taken it on one of the occasions I was obliged to work on a weekend, hence the crowd. As these places go it was rather salubrious, an appealingly bright and airy space leading out on to a large deck overlooking an inlet of the Baltic Sea. The cooking facilities were limited to a few microwaves, however, and there was a row of vending machines along the wall behind the camera, to which I had recourse regrettably too often: the contents were usually mediocre at best.

The kitchen facilities at my current offfice are even more limited – there are no vending machines, nor is there any kind of view. We can however, make use of the canteen which is run by another of the building’s tenants, which offers more choice, though not full hot meals. At other erstwhile places of employment the facilities ranged from the completely non-existent (a van selling sandwiches might stop by during the morning) to fully-equipped canteens. One office was connected to a logistics depot with a canteen serving hearty, subsidized meals to the drivers and warehouse staff; while the place I worked in Italy had a very good canteen providing free lunches and, even better, a proper coffee bar complete with a barista, in the person of the lugubrious Lucio.

I took the picture above on Fuji Neopan 1600 film, loaded in my Nikon FM3a. I developed the film myself in XTOL.