The "Quick Chat"

From my supervisor. I'd been at my desk for exactly seven minutes.

I knew what it was before I opened it.

I'm 51. I've done payroll and accounts payable for the same regional distribution company for 14 years. I'm the person people come to when their check is wrong. I know where every file is. I used to be the first car in the lot.

Somewhere in the last two years, that stopped being me.

It wasn't one thing. My mornings just got heavier. The 5:45 alarm started feeling like a personal insult. I'd hit snooze, then snooze again, and lie there doing math about how fast I could shower. My husband leaves before six. Our youngest is 17 and gets herself to school. Nobody needed me out the door, which honestly made it easier to drag.

I'd get in at 8:05. 8:10. Once, 8:20. Our start time is 8.

And even on the days I was on time, I wasn't really there. Our team huddle is at 8:30, and I'd sit in it with my coffee, nodding, and walk out with no idea what was said. I'd read the same invoice three times. One morning I put a decimal in the wrong place on a vendor payment, caught it at 10:30 when my brain finally showed up, and fixed it with my heart pounding.

By 11, I was fine. Sharp, even. But the first two hours of my day belonged to somebody else. Somebody slow and checked out.

Our start time is 8.

So, the "quick chat."

My supervisor is 34. She's a decent person. She closed the door and said, "I've noticed a few late arrivals, and you've seemed a little distracted in the mornings. I'm not writing anything up yet. I just wanted to check in."

Yet.

That word sat in my stomach for a week.

Because here's what she didn't have to say. Two months earlier, the company had announced a "restructuring." Eleven people were let go in one afternoon, including a man in shipping who'd been there 22 years. They walked him out with a box. Everyone watched.

I'm 51. I'm not naive about how a list gets made when somebody has to cut costs. The older employee who "seems distracted" and has three late arrivals in her file is an easy name to write down.

I went home that night and sat in my own driveway for twenty minutes with the engine off. My daughter knocked on the window to ask if I was okay. I told her I was just tired.

I was. I was tired, and I was scared, and I was ashamed. I've worked since I was 15. I have never been the problem employee. And now I was lying awake at 2 a.m. worrying about being late, which, of course, made me late.

That was my bottom.

Everything I Tried First

So I tried everything. You probably have too.

I moved my alarm across the room so I'd have to get up. I got up, turned it off, and got back in bed. I bought a coffee maker with a timer so it'd be ready when I woke up. I drank the whole pot by 8:30 and felt like my hands were humming while my head was still in a cloud. I tried an energy drink before work, once, and spent the huddle with my heart racing and my stomach in knots. Those little shots from the checkout line tasted terrible. I tried going to bed at 9:30. Some nights that helped. Some nights I just lay there. I tried protein for breakfast, a morning walk, a sunrise alarm clock my sister swore by.

The whole pot, gone by 8:30.

$3.45

A COFFEE

• ✕Portable
• ✕No drink needed
• ✓0 g sugar
• ✓Caffeine per serving
• ✕Under $1 a serving
• ✓Flavored

$2.64

A CAN

• ✓Portable
• ✕No drink needed
• ✕0 g sugar
• ✓Caffeine per serving
• ✕Under $1 a serving
• ✓Flavored

Bottom line?

If you're reading this and recognizing yourself, please hear me: it's not because you're lazy, and it's not because you don't care about your job. You care so much it keeps you up at night. You're doing full days on a body that's been doing full days for 30 years, and most of what we reach for in the morning is either too slow, too much, or both.

I found what helped me in the break room, of all places.

What Carla Knew

There's a woman on our team, Carla, who's 56 and somehow always looks awake at 8 a.m. One morning I was standing at the coffee machine waiting for it to heat up, and she walked in, peeled something off a little card, and put it on her tongue.

I asked if it was a breath strip. She laughed and said, "Sort of. It's my coffee."

Here's how she explained it, and why it clicked for me.

Coffee is slow, at least the way most of us do it. You make it, wait on it, carry it, sip it. And you never really know how much caffeine is in the cup. Some are a lot more than you'd think. Energy drinks hit you with a big dose all at once, usually with sugar. That was the jolt-and-drop I kept feeling.

The strip is different. It's a measured amount: 50mg of caffeine, roughly half a small cup of coffee, paired with 50mg of L-theanine, the compound that's naturally in green tea and that people use to keep things smooth instead of jittery. Zero sugar. Nothing to brew, nothing to drink. You put it on your tongue and it melts in under a minute.

So instead of waiting on a pot and then guzzling it, you just take one when you're getting ready, or right before you walk in. Small, known, and fast.

Carla, 56, at the break room coffee machine.

The ones Carla used were called 5TRIP. Cool Mint. She handed me two.

I'll be honest with you, because I can't stand ads that promise a whole new you.

It's not magic. It doesn't replace sleep. On nights I sleep badly, I still feel it the next day.

The FirstMorning

7:15, finishing my hair.

The first morning, I took one at 7:15 while I was finishing my hair. It tasted like a mint. No rush, no buzz. But at the 8:30 huddle, I realized I was actually following along. I asked a question. A good one. My supervisor wrote it down.

The 8:30 huddle. I asked a question.

By the end of the first week, I'd stopped making the full pot. One cup, because I like the taste, and the strip.

By week three, I'd been on time every single day. Not because of a strip alone. But mornings stopped feeling like climbing out of a hole, and when they stop feeling like that, you stop dreading them, and when you stop dreading them, you stop lying awake about them. That's how it went for me, anyway. Everybody's different, and you know your own body.

PEEL. PLACE. MELT.

1. PEELOpen one strip

2. PLACEOn your tongue

3. MELTGone in seconds

• Instant energy that dissolves in seconds
• 50mg caffeine + 50mg L-theanine
• Cool Mint, instant fresh breath
• 0g sugar, no water, no mixing
• Fits in a desk drawer or purse

What Other Customers Are Saying

Over 10,000+ Americans have taken their first strip. [confirm]

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Start YourMornings Today

It's been about four months now. Zero late arrivals. At my last check-in, my supervisor said, "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it." I didn't tell her it tastes like a mint.

And here's the part I didn't expect. I'm the first car in the lot again. Some days I'm parked at 7:45, sitting with the radio on for ten minutes before I go in, just because I want to be early.

Parked at 7:45, radio on.

Carla and I are now known as "the strip ladies" in accounting. Three other people on our floor have asked about them. Two of them keep the little case in their desk drawer.

'The strip ladies' in accounting.

If you want to try it, 5TRIP is giving away a free 4-pack right now. You just pay $3.99 shipping. That's four mornings to see how it feels for you.

The link is below.

I'm not telling you it'll save your job. I'm telling you I almost let a foggy 8 a.m. write the last chapter of a 14-year career, and I didn't.

My name's still on the payroll. I'd know. I run it.

Denise W., 51