Food in the Break Room

My workplace has lots of corporate meetings. We’ve got some really nice meeting rooms and we’re on the same floor as the World Trade Center of Chicago which also hosts a number of meetings on a regular basis.

The best thing about these meetings is that they’re often catered with fancy Continental breakfasts or various types of lunches, some of which can be pretty elaborate. When the meetings are over, this email goes out:

THERE’S FOOD IN THE BREAK ROOM!

It doesn’t take long for it to disappear. We’re like pigeons on a city sidewalk when someone tosses out popcorn or cereal. We swoop down and busily feed until every last molecule of food is gone.

So many company-wide emails get ignored or placed on task-lists to be attended to at a later date. Even fire drills get a ho-hum response. But nothing gets quite the reaction as:

THERE’S FOOD IN THE BREAK ROOM!

My boss is on vacation next week and has left me in charge. If I want to have a meeting with the staff, I’m just going to send out the food notice and wait in the break room.

Oh, and I'm eating a pumpernickel bagel and a fruit kebab while writing this.