The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
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The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
EP. 1292 "Lunchtime Transformed: Your Workplace Just Changed Midday Meals Forever!"
Ever wondered how your lunch habits compare to those of your coworkers? Get ready for a mouth-watering journey through the diverse and ever-evolving lunchtime culture at Novak. From home-cooked Italian and Vietnamese delights to the convenience of Uber Eats, our office is a smorgasbord of flavors and traditions. We promise you'll be entertained by our amusing anecdotes and may even pick up a few tips on navigating the often tricky office etiquette around food odors.
Join us as we share stories of creative bento boxes, extravagant meals, and the communal spirit that makes our lunchtime truly special. We'll dive into how modern conveniences are reshaping lunchtime routines and the variety of choices our colleagues make—from health-conscious options to desk-side dining. And don't miss our humorous take on the importance of breakfast to fend off those mid-morning hunger pangs. This episode is packed with laughter, variety, and a few lessons on making the most of your lunchtime at work.
The lunch has definitely transformed and changed. We're going to talk about what it looks like at Novak, maybe different to what you think.
Speaker 2:Stay tuned. I'm the ringleader, so I'm gonna, good morning, I beat you Good morning.
Speaker 1:How are you how?
Speaker 2:are you Cleo? Yeah, good, I'm very good, thank you, how about yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, tops, tops, we'll just. This is your topic this morning. You want to wrap and talk about? Um, there's a bit, there's a bit of. It's quite funny how different people offer, offer up or do lunch differently in different industries. In our office it's changed it.
Speaker 2:It certainly has and I think what's come about. I mean, I, I'm one of those people in the office that always thinks about lunch. At around 10, 30, 11 o'clock I'm always hungry. I've skipped breakfast and then it's like you're almost an event. What am I gonna have to lunch? You know very rarely pack my lunch and you know my assistant, just normal. Uh, you came back from Italy and I look at his lunch and his mum makes him these amazing lunches.
Speaker 2:You know, pasta from scratch, and it's not just one course, it's like two courses and I I just look over, and I think yeah, yeah, like how different everyone's concept of lunch and you know how diverse our lunches are at Nova because you know we've got so many different nationalities in the office. It's great.
Speaker 1:It's a movement.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:It doesn't change from kindy.
Speaker 1:No that's it, comparing your lunchbox. You're still looking over like, oh, you want some, you want some. Oh, I'll try that, it's it's. It's really, really funny. And uber eats has changed our, has changed our um our habits in in the work world where you know people are getting stuff delivered, um, there's a lot more pre-packed like. There's some unbelievable like used to slice up. One of the um ladies in the office at the moment has a tray with eight cubes and she puts in a different thing in every cube and I'm like oh nice, variety nice. But I'm like, oh nice, variety Nice.
Speaker 2:A bento like a bento box. I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you got Tina in our office Vietnamese. So her parents, 30, 40 years ran a phenomenal Vietnamese restaurant and she was taught the habits of incredible fresh food. Whenever Tina eats, I'm like oh.
Speaker 2:Except the fish sauce, except the fish sauce, except the fish sauce. And this is like office etiquette. There's certain lunches you can and can't bring as well. Like you know, if you've got that big curried egg sandwich, I mean curried egg, you don't smell it as much, but there's certain foods and Tina always goes Cleo, like the day that she brought something with fish sauce. I'm so sorry. She'll say I brought, I've got feet, I go.
Speaker 1:That's okay, I'm gonna go out and get something else, because I can't smell it um well people probably don't know, from our old office to our new office, I stole the microwave out of the kitchen, um and I, and I threw the microwave into the main lobby of the office and I threw the microwave into the main lobby of the office. So I would rather stink out the main lobby of the office where the cafe is downstairs. I would rather stink that area out than the closed office area where the kitchen is. It was a success.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we still have the microwave downstairs and we're always like we've got a kitchen upstairs. We're like why can't we have the microwave downstairs? And we're always like we've got a kitchen upstairs and we're like why can't we have the market microwave upstairs? It still wafts up though, mark, it's still.
Speaker 1:The smells still come upstairs I can tell you, in the last office, when someone, when someone busted out a microwave fish reheat in an office and I'm sure it happens in offices all around Australia and it's like are you serious? And not only that it wasn't an accident, because it's the second, third, tenth, fiftieth time they've done it. It's like you know this stinks. How can you do this to all of us in the office? There's 50 people going, oh.
Speaker 2:It's like nutrition comes first. It's like my diet, my health regime. I remember one of the guys in commercial. He'd get those muscle meals and heat them up at like 9 o'clock in the morning. He's probably he's woken up at like 4 or 5 and gone to the gym and I remember one of the ladies going oh, now I'm hungry, like I wasn't going to have lunch till 12 now because that was heated up around nine or 10. It's changed. You know people start to think about lunch and it can be a distraction as well. I can see that. You know as a boss. You know the lunchtime distraction as well, and there's many people that eat at their desk. They don't even take time for a lunch break. You know the a la desk, you know restaurant and there's stuff in the keyboard. They're eating a sandwich while they're typing an email.
Speaker 1:I never really see Branka having lunch.
Speaker 2:No, she's not a big lunch person. Since Tiffany started like she'll take some breaks to go for lunch with you know, with her daughter, which is beautiful, but since then, no, it's always either been a snack of fruit or chocolate or just, you know, a bit of a graze at the desk. She doesn't usually sit down. You know with the crew, she hasn't got time. There's no time for sit down. You know with the crew, she hasn't got time. No, there's no time for it, you know um.
Speaker 1:So there's also the the health people. Health kick people changing their diets and it's like you don't normally eat that, so we've had um. Do you remember when guys used to bring a kilo of mince in and put it in the microwave?
Speaker 2:disgusting.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it was like no sauce, it was just like mints. That's what are you doing? I'm, I'm. What do they call it? Packing? Prepping the meal protein or packing protein or something, oh, okay yeah yeah, yeah, they're bulking up and they're ready just straight. No sauce, just nothing.
Speaker 2:As it is, it's like oh and you can tell with the mums in the office as well, because there's always leftover meals in the fridge from the dinner the night before.
Speaker 2:So you know if you're a young guy, like one of the guys in the office, and you've forgotten your lunch. There's always some mum that's got a bit of a roast chicken and salad from the night before and you know the dinners that are wrapped. You know the dinners that are wrapped. You know from the parents. You know that have small children and they've got leftovers in the fridge and they're not going to go and buy a $30 Uber Eats. You know Mad Max delivery. They always bring stuff from home.
Speaker 1:You know and that's another funny office lunch, office lunch trade that I I pay attention to all the time yeah, and it's expensive, like if you're uber eats in five, six days a week, um, or particularly going out we haven't even spoken about that. But if you're uber eating, that's, that's a shit ton of money. That's a shit ton of money. I just see a lot of people smashing those foods. What was I going to say about one of the habits that I laugh at? Oh, the snack pack. Do you remember? Oh my God, there was a stage. So, for anyone who doesn't know, if you go to a kebab shop, you'll get a thing called a snack pack. So the kebab shop shears off that kebab meat. So first they put and I'm going to be correct on this chips. It's chips, it's a massive packet of chips, massive. Then they put down the meat, then they do cheese over the top, melted cheese, then they do gravy. Is that all that's in a sack pack? Yeah, that's a heart attack.
Speaker 2:There's not one vegetable in there, it's just meat chips and gravy and just heart-clogging goodness it's big.
Speaker 1:There'd be 400 grams of meat, just almost half a kilo of meat sitting in there, shaved meat, which I don't think's good meat. Um, and hot chips with you know, or you know, yeah, fried gravy, oh gross milosh and jack used to, and jack used to work in our office.
Speaker 2:He's his wife would make all these beautiful chinese meals and he, you know he'd leave them in the fridge and get a snack pack twice a week with meal wash and he'd pretend. Well, I'm sure he never took the container home. He probably either threw it out or stored it in the office because you know he had to eat from home. And then they would sneakily eat this snack pack and I'd be like oh my God, it's like school.
Speaker 1:You take back the empty pack and the partner goes. How was it? You go, it was great, it was great. I find food doesn't last in our office. That's the amazing vortex suction black hole. Where did it go? Food I can bring in three kilos of smidgell. I can bring in five kilos of cooked sausages from a barbie. When we do that on the weekend, we do the bunning barbecue.
Speaker 2:Kate's leftover cakes from birthday Leftover cakes.
Speaker 1:Anything and all you do. It's like a lamb for slaughter that goes out. It goes out onto the lunch table and then disappears.
Speaker 2:It's disappeared, it's disappeared, it's disappeared. It's gone and you know, when your mum comes in and she brings food or bits of stuff from home, everyone's like, yes, millie's here, and everyone's like waiting for what's going to be unrevealed underneath the foil or whatever.
Speaker 1:Now Lisa Novak and my daughter have. I've now got a pact. They found the sangas at foodery. Out server stations are awesome oh, the pre-packed sandwiches.
Speaker 2:How good.
Speaker 1:I have to try, I've never tried, talk about flavors and their experience, when they weren't, you know, often lately, because they're bailing in and getting them Now. Do you realise that I just go out and have fat boozy lunch as much? No, not at all.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the last time I sat down and had a lunch. Sometimes we, maybe once or twice a year, we book a team meeting breakfast down at the beach or lunch, but having an hour or two and just going out with the crew and sitting down with a wine and lunch, it never happens. I don't know that. The conception is maybe that it does and that sales agents sell a to three million dollar property and then celebrate over a big, long lunch. But I don't see it. I don't see, I don't see any. Any agents actually, um, in our industry do I sitting around at dy beach having long lunches? No one's got the time it's so boring.
Speaker 1:I've been watching on your recommendation and billy drury's recommendation. Mad men, how good that's Foundation Mad.
Speaker 2:Men how good, it's not that. That's another world, isn't it? Actually I started watching Scrubs again and I love Scrubs. It was that 90s office funny hospital sitcom and all their conversations and that are around the cafeteria Like that's an American thing. We don't have a cafeteria, but're you know their lunch goes, you know the train. They sit down with their colleagues and they eat before they go back to work and that concept seems, you know, quite cool. The um hospitals must have their own culture with lunch and what they you know to fuel them for their job and then you get, then you get taught.
Speaker 1:Then there's there's these, and then you get, then you get, then there's there's these. There's these amazing companies that do really cool things for lunch, like, uh, my daughter works for um Val Morgan and um Choc Top, um ice creams, chocolates, chips, whatever you want. Get as much as you want, whenever you want. And I'm like, how good is that? So Google, you know, you hear about stuff that fun stuff that they get up to. So there's some big budget companies. You were saying before we go. You were saying previously you used to get a lunch trolley going around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I worked for FII Home Security in North Sydney back in the day. Previously used to get a lunch trolley going around. Yeah, I worked for FII Home Security in North Sydney back in the day and at 12 o'clock there'd be a lady and she came with the trolley with all the sandwiches and rolls and a choice of drink for everyone. Every day you could pick a sandwich and it was across from the train station and underneath was the cafe and it was a great run cafe, which I thought was awesome because I used to go in there in the morning and they would make the sandwiches. So I used to always say you know, put a special sandwich in there for me you know, for 12 o'clock, but um yeah, no, it was part of your package.
Speaker 2:You got lunch. It was part of the package lunch every day. We had walkers, though remember he used to do the walk rolls once a week oh, we used to do the rock rolls.
Speaker 1:Yes, so well, that's the lunch revolution at uh, at work. Uh, that happens in workplaces. It's definitely changing and change with uber eats and stuff. But uh, thanks, thanks for uh sure I'm hungry now.
Speaker 2:I'm going for some breakfast before I head to work.
Speaker 1:See, you see, everyone have a great day. Bye, see you later, thanks, bye.