[Political Junkie Too]

In many downtowns, it is simply too dangerous to exit company premises to venture off to lunch. Lots of criminal activity.

I understand that is a very real problem today. It wasn't for me before I retired.

In my last working years, I worked in downtown Houston, which was pretty safe. Houston's downtown is not residential and basically closes down after 7:00pm,so we didn't have the thuggish street crime. Downtown also has an extensive tunnel system that connects all the buildings due to the weather, and this is heavily policed to keep the homeless out.

-PJ

[Myrddin]

I've had the "out for lunch" experience in San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans. Fortunately the experiences occurred on business trips and were not an obligatory part of the daily work experience. Those places are much worse now. One of the perks of the post-COVID time frame is less travel and less budget for travel. In my first 20 years with my current employer, I would often travel every 2 weeks. My last business trip was in Sept 2017. I'm not shedding any tears over that change. By the time I took my last trip, the "travel" part of the company had figured out how to take government specified per diem and pocket the difference between actuals and authorized amounts. The traveler gets the raw end of the stick and the travel department is gloats over what they can skim off. Thankful to no longer be traveling.