Survey says most PR pros eat lunch at their desks

Throughout most of her career, Leslie Gates, a communications manager in the Washington State Department of Health’s Office of Drinking Water, worked right through lunch.

Because of a health scare two years ago, she has since afforded herself downtime at noon. She stakes out a spot by the lunchroom window and reads, knits, or even plays a banjo with a Tuesday jam group.

“Too many professionals don’t take lunch,” Gates says.

Statistics prove her right. Sixty-nine percent of PR professionals eat lunch at their desk rather than joining that chatty klatch heading out to a nearby deli, according to the PR Daily Salary and Job Satisfaction Survey.

Ten percent eat “out with colleagues.” Yet it’s clear that the days of schmoozing over a three-martini lunch are long gone (if they ever existed): Only 1.4 percent spend their lunches “out with clients.”

Another 7 percent clicked our answer, “What’s ‘lunch’?” hinting that they don’t even have time to scarf down a sandwich with one hand while operating the computer mouse with the other.