Saturday, April 28, 2012

New Job and Need Lunch Ideas

The new job is great, mostly. I hate sitting in a classroom for hours on end but when I got out on the floor and started talking to patients, I loved it. Next week I have on the job training for 3 days at my home location where I'll be working the majority of the time (6 miles from my house), and then the following week I'm back in the corporate office for more classroom time. One more week of on the job training the following week, and then I start for real. 4 week training to be basically a receptionist - crazy, but there is SO much to learn. Insurance regulations, what to do with a person having chest pains, workers comp, etc. Everyone is super nice and everyone seems to love their jobs, and not in a Disney, "Oh god I'd better smile because I'm going to get fired if I don't," but in a real, honest, friendly way. People were making plans together for the weekend and bringing each other lunch and teasing each other in a fun way. I don't know if my home office will be the same way, but I sure hope so and I'll find out Monday.

It is SO FREAKIN' WEIRD to work with almost ALL women. Most of the receptionists and medical assistants and billing people are women, including management, and about half the doctors too...very strange for me since I've been in tech for so long that is more evenly divided, but mostly men.

I need some advice on lunch ideas. The break schedule is a 30 minute lunch break, with shorter breaks throughout the day. My usual (leftovers from dinner or Amy's Organic frozen meals) aren't working great for me. There's usually a line for the microwave and by the time I get my food heated up and sit down, I might only have 15 minutes to eat. I can eat pretty much anything if I take my time, but I feel rushed and was getting stuck most days. The food needs to sustain me for hours so I'm thinking soup won't work because it doesn't stick with me. So I'm looking for ideas of things that are either easy to eat without being sliders OR things that don't need to be heated up so I can start my lunch break right away without waiting for the microwave. So far I've come up with...

Chicken or tuna salad with Triscuits and a piece of fruit or a small yogurt.
Ground turkey & white bean chili with a few baked chips (needs to be heated but easy enough to eat and will keep me satisfied for awhile).
Tossed salad topped with protein and a small yogurt.

Any other ideas?

Oh...I don't like to use protein shakes or bars for my meals, so those are out. 

5 comments:

Mar's kids said...

Not sure if this will work, but Shelley (eggface) has a whole google search page on all of the bento box lunches she's made - they look awesome:

Eggface's Bento Box Lunches

mdlapband said...

Congrats on the new job!! Sounds wonderful!

Check out the tuna fish section of the grocery store there are a million different varieties of tuna lunch kits and chicken salad lunch kits. Some are pre-made, some have everything you need to mix. I always add a few pickles. Add a yogurt to that like you said and you have tons of protein to sustain you.

Can you eat apples? I also love lunch meat, cheese cubes, and crackers with apples or a veggie.

Also once or twice a month I try to make a large meat dish for dinner. That night I portion it out and freeze it. That way you can always have a variety for lunches. Right now I have mini meatloaves, pulled pork, and smoked chicken in my freezer so we can take what sounds good instead of just taking exactly what we had the night before.

jenfromtheburgh said...

Egg salad is always good too.

Beth Ann said...

Ham (or other lunchmeat) & cheese roll ups? I like to slide a little avocado in there too.

Steph said...

For lunch today I had 4 oz. of rotisserie chicken diced up and then I had 1/2 an avocado diced with fresh onions, garlic and lemon juice (like a sorta guac) and then mixed it with the chicken. VERY yummy and moo0coo protein!