Someone once said: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” I disagree.
For the past four+ years I’ve been working at a small law firm. It’s a great job with great people and, in that time span of 48+ weeks, I think we’ve had a “free” lunch maybe four times. But when I was at Heller? It was a veritable weekly feast.
There are benefits of working at large law firms. Benefit one is that there are lots of people to get to know, meet, flirt with, joke with, etc. Multiple floors also mean multiple hiding places. Having a bad day? Go “inventory” that 38th floor file room. But one of the huge benefits of a large law firm are the lunches. Seemingly every week someone, some department, is having a catered lunch. Usually sandwiches, but sometimes it was trays of fettuccine, garlic bread, sub sandwiches, cookies, snacky foods, drinks. It makes me hungry just thinking about it.
Being a manager (until I wasn’t a manager after the out-sourcing), I was even invited to an occasional lunch to chat about records systems, or listen to how the firm was doing.
Also, being cheap, I’m always up for a free sandwich or cookie or pop or chips. If it’s there, and the meeting is over, I’m going to take advantage of the left-over food. And, being the great manager that I am/was, I would make sure that my team was involved and knew what was going on.
If I somehow got word early in the day that, say, the Litigation Department was going to have a lunch – I would inform my team: “Heads up, possible food today, be on the look-out.” And then we had our spies. Secretaries who often did the ordering of the food would give us a notification of food-stuff. “Hey, Matt, this is Susan. I’ve ordered Gourmondo sandwiches for the attorneys today.” Excellent.
But...then...it started to become a problem. Well, it wasn’t so much that IT started to become a problem but WE started to become a problem. For some reason we were told we COULD NOT PARTAKE OF LEFTOVER FOOD (until it got down to the main kitchen). Now, I assure you, this is reasonable. And I told my team: “Wait until the food gets down to the kitchen.” We all agreed and the decision was made. No going into a conference room to get food. Rumor had gone around that we, MY department, was seen running back and forth between conference rooms with plates piled with food. I can assure you, we did no running back and forth and we knew the rules were clear: NO FOOD UNTIL IT GETS TO THE KITCHEN!
Except...we would see other people in the conference room getting food. Why does the Mail Room guy, and the Secretary, and Miss Paralegal get to go in and grab a tasty sandwich while we, the Records Department, have to wait until the food gets down to the kitchen? What made US the bad guy? WHO made us the bad guy?
Duncan would walk by my office: “Heads up, meeting is over, and there’s food, but so-and-so and such-and-such are in there eating – what should we do?” Well, this is important stuff. “Go on in and get some food if others are eating.” “Will do.”
Now if I was running Office Services, here’s what I would do: Once the meeting is over, I would go in with a cart to remove all remaining food. I would put up a sign on the table saying: “Attention: Please refrain from eating the left-over food until we remove it and place it in the kitchen on the 59th floor. Thank you.” Simple, to the point, and I even mentioned this to the head of Office Services who balked at the idea. Again, I felt, that we – my department – was being singled out for our free food habits. That finally became clear.
After having restraint for many a lunch, seeing multiple people enjoying the “good” sandwiches and leaving the “lox” sandwiches (not that tasty, but I would still eat them, since they were free), we got caught again not waiting until the food got down to the kitchen.
Miss Office Services found out that we had a secretary in on our plan of free lunch and she actually confronted the secretary and told her to not tell us when lunches were being served. She also hassled my team to the point where I started feeling harassed. Free lunch harassment since, again, no one else seemed to be abiding by these rules.
Finally Miss Office Services and I had it out and she stormed into my office to confront me about my team’s ability to get (or not get) a free lunch and she said:
“What is your problem, Matt, did you grow up poor or something?”
And, you know, no one had ever really asked me that question before and it wasn’t one upon which I put a lot of thought. I just assumed my free lunch OCD was due to my being cheaper than Ebenezer Scrooge but I hadn’t thought about that.
After she left I sat in my office thinking about that. Had I grown up poor? I didn’t FEEL poor. When I was a kid, before my mother re-married, we had a roof over our head. But I know my mom sold fig jam to help make ends meet. I know my deadbeat father didn’t send her any money and being a single mom raising two boys you know, we probably WERE poor. Was I a poor child? Did I want for anything? I don’t remember. In our house we had love, we had pets, we had MacDonald Sundays (where one Sunday a month we’d go to MacDonalds). Maybe we were poor. Maybe that would explain my desire to always get a deal, whether it’s a DVD on sale or a free plate of lukewarm fettuccine.
Suddenly I was appreciating my mother more, my childhood a little more, and maybe things became a little clearer as to how I am today.
All because of a free lunch.
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