As an option, especially for folks who are on a diet or who have some personal chores or tasks to complete, I
love the idea of being able to grab a quick bite at my desk and then finish up writing a letter or sending personal email.
For manufacturing work stations (assembly lines, production machines, overhead cranes, inspection labs, etc.), I think it is primarily a hygiene and housekeeping issue.
As a regular, five-day-a-week thing, I think it's a
terrible idea. My personal opinion is that folks NEED a psychological break from the task. The psychological break can also include social interaction, either in a company break room, lunchroom, or cafeteria that serves food and beverage, or in an outside cafe or restaurant.
Semi-
When I was a young investment banker, two or three days a week were three-hour "working lunches" or evening dinners where I was wooing a client looking for money or a client looking to invest money. Usually these meals were at a private club. In season, they might stretch to 9 or 18 holes of golf at our club or the client's.
Somehow, that all changed in the mid-eighties, and we switched to 45-minute "power breakfasts" with clients at 6 or 7 am (sometimes two breakfasts in the same day), almost every day, leaving a full work day with a 30 or 45 minute "partner's lunch" catered in to the boardroom where we discussed the status of pending deals with any partners not out of town on a deal.
We no longer did evening entertainment during the week unless it was some sort of charity function where we could network with friendly competitors about potential joint ventures between our clients.
In over forty years of working, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I ate alone at my desk, but dozens or even hundreds of times where I skipped lunch and worked on through to finish a pressing project.
