There Is Such a Thing as Free Lunch!

I’m pretty sure if you ask my co-workers what my main role is here at Lawline, only our newest employees would state, “Marketing Director.” Everyone else who has been at the company for a few months knows my true role at the office is leftover food disposal, or more formally, Director of Leftover Food Disposal. A garbage can in our office never sees food before it passes through my desk first. With that said, there is probably no one more qualified at Lawline to speak on the topic of our newly re-instituted Thursday Lunches.

About a year ago, the weekly company lunches we had on Thursdays were cancelled. It suffices to say that the entire company was in a major transition period. This meant all things--even our beloved Thursday Lunches were up for reconsideration. Instead of leading to an all out protest, which would have been more appropriate, the repeal of Thursday Lunches resulted in muffled disappointment. One of those what-are-ya-gonna-do? situations.

As Lawline is now entering into a period of reinvigorated energy and growth, there has been much discussion about how to jumpstart the company culture that seemed to stagnate over the past year. It should come as no surprise that my suggestion was to rally the troops: bring back the Thursday Lunches.

You may ask, “Why lunch?” Does one free meal a week really affect culture? I don’t know. But, what I do know is that where there is food there are people. And when people congregate around food, there tends to be conversation. I don’t mean your water cooler or Keurig conversation of pleasantries either. This is more face-stuffing, guttural conversations that create a cohesion among all those involved. And honestly, anything that gets a developer, an attorney and a marketer around the same table is worth it’s weight in gold. The cohesiveness that is cultivated as the group breaks bread seeps innocuously into the daily grind of interdepartmental communication. It gets just that much easier to address an issue with a colleague or make a suggestion that may otherwise have been unwelcome.

Thursday lunches have now been back for a couple of months and the energy in the office has risen along with its return. And it’s not just the lunch. Lunches were the first few flakes of a snowball rolling down hill. With a recent team building event at Escape the Room and an upcoming outing to a Mets baseball game, lunch has provided the necessary spark for a culture boost. And as Lawline continues to grow, it will need the all the mental nutrition that Thursday Lunches provide.