You Gonna Eat That?

People have different opinions about working in military staff jobs, like the ones at the Pentagon and other headquarter-type facilities. Especially for people who normally work in or around a cockpit or on the ground in foreign countries, pushing paper and attending lengthy meetings that would have been one short e-mail is met with great resistance.

I enjoy my staff jobs as well as my pilot or ground-pounding jobs. Sure, the spirit of camaraderie is more intense in an aircraft or combat zone, but there’s still a sense of support and teamwork that happens in office settings.

Like the office setting of my current forward operating location of the Pentagon. 

Far from the tropical humid vegetation of Southeast Asia or the arid landlocked mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, we are in the dangerous concrete jungles of Rosslyn, Virginia.

Whereas pilots and on-the-ground combatants have to deal with the perils of airborne engine fires or improvised explosive devices, the work setting of the urban “Pentagon overflow” environment includes crosswalks with inattentive and unyielding drivers and the high potential for paper cuts.

My predictable calendar of regular staff meetings and other standing appointments, frees me up to go to the gym at 3:30 on the nose. This gives me enough time to get to the gym and push some weights around or shock my heart rate with something more demanding than sitting. While we don’t have convenient access to the Pentagon’s world-class gym, we do have a partnership with a commercial gym down the street.

The problem with a near-the-end-of-the-day workout time is that I spend most of the day coming up with all the reasons I can’t go to the gym. I like working out, I know it’s good for me, I know I’ll feel better when I’m done and I’m fine once I get there, but getting out the office door and into the gym door is the toughest exercise of my workout.

Enter Kevin. 

Kevin is another Air Force officer. He and I are both familiar with the Air Force’s required physical fitness assessment, and the ensuing necessity of staying on top of daily physical fitness. 

Kevin is my workout buddy whose mission is just to get me TO the gym. I am more motivated by punishment-based boosts, like becoming overweight or failing my physical fitness assessment, so I order Kevin to make comments about my weight at approximately 3:20 pm on my gym days.

Compliantly and punctually, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Kevin alludes to possible weight gain. As a very kind soul, Kevin obeys my request but balances it with enough levity to let me know he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but convincingly enough to put some doubt in my mind as to whether he might believe what he’s saying, to get me out the door and gym-bound.

Kevin is good for my humility, good for my gym loyalty and indirectly, good for my waistline.

What is not good for my waistline are the cookies brought around the office this afternoon at 2:30. And they are my favorite: oatmeal-raisin.

“Take two! I made plenty!” My co-worker extends the plate of warm home-baked cookies.

“Don’t mind if I do!” These cookies are just the treat I need for the day I’ve had.

Enter Kevin.

Staring at the pair of oatmeal-raisin dumbbell substitutes in my hand, Kevin judgingly asks, “Are you really gonna eat that?”

Kevin, my compliant workout buddy is an hour early in providing the negative motivation I have requested.

“KEVIN!” Our cookie-wielding co-worker yells his name in shock at the exact same time and in the exact same tone as me.

She is aghast at Kevin’s inappropriate comment and I am aghast at Kevin’s premature timing.

“What?” Kevin innocently shrugs, “I’m just following orders! I thought you told me to make those comments to get you to the gym. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“IT IS!” I confirm, shards of oatmeal cookie flying out of my mouth plosively. “But I can’t go to the gym for another hour and now I have to sit here and feel fat and bad about myself!”

“Oh,” Kevin resigns with a sigh. 

As I eat the cookies in protest of my self-imposed forcing function, I realize I have baked an artificial ingredient of accountability into Kevin’s day. And with the best of intentions he strayed from the recipe, trying to shove the lumpy batter of my body into a workout that had not been preheated.

If I had enough discipline to get myself to the gym and enough willpower to turn down the cookies, I wouldn’t be putting Kevin in that chewy situation. 

“Seriously, are you gonna eat that?” Kevin repeats, eyeing the oatmeal cookie I have yet to lift to my mouth.

Smiling, I hand the cookie to my workout buddy.

“Thanks!” Kevin walks away, hoisting the cookie victoriously.

I may not have made it to the gym (I think I got a paper cut that needed attention), but it was a great workout anyway.

Kevin is still my gym buddy. I’ll get to there tomorrow, because today, I’m eating the cookie.