i always look forward to fridays. apart from the obvious reasons, it’s the day you’d see a phalanx of SHOs and SpRs from my department marching down to the cafeteria for breakfastat about 9 am. when i first started working in this place, it was just a handful of trainees together with two of the consultants, one of whom would bring his own bottle of heinz’s tomato ketchup (rightly so, as it costs 11p a sachet!). the lab staff would know that the club members would not be available for the next 45 minute to start the surgical cut-up (that’s the methodical chopping up of surgically-removed tissue/organ fixed in formalin, small enough for processing to make it into glass slides). over the years, i’ve seen the members of the breakfast club (not exactly exclusive) come and go, moving on to new posts and promoted to the upper echelons of consultantdom. on some fridays, the club member numbers would go down to just the two, seen happily munching away on a typical british fry up while catching up with the latest departmental goss or have a big whinge, as we all do. my usual would be either scrambled eggs or fried eggs (runny as hell), two hash browns, a dollop of beans and two toasts. lately, i’ve opted for the less deadly fried egg-hash brown combo in a breadcake (a poor man’s McEgg). nowadays, with most of the members of the original club gone, fridays aren’t the same as it used to be.

do you have a makan routine with your workmates?