The Business Of Lunch

So what would ruin a good lunch? I can think of a few things: If it’s Mushroom Surprise. If it’s overcooked. If it’s undercooked. If you’re charged by a rhinoceros right before you take the first bite. Or it could be a business lunch.

Up until today, I’d had the good fortune of never having to attend a business lunch. To me, that’s the mark of good career management, because it most likely means that you’re still flying under the corporate radar, doing actual work, and not getting caught up in what I call Corporate Window Dressing. (“Look, a Powerpoint presentation that really says nothing!” “Look, some statistics manipulated to make us look good!” “Look, a bill from taking somebody out to lunch!”) Unfortunately, that all changed. Along with a co-worker, I went to a restaurant representing my company and talked shop with people from another in the hopes of strengthening our current business relationship and thus bolstering the chances of future collaboration that would profit both companies. What a way to waste a perfectly good lunch.

Not that it was the fault of the people who were there. They were all perfectly nice and polite. It’s just that I feel very strongly that lunch should never be mixed with business. Lunch is a save haven for me, a brief respite halfway through the day where I can do anything but think of work. If not for this business lunch, for example, I’d have gotten to escape into a good book for thirty minutes, but instead I ate a chicken sandwich and talked about accounts and mailings and databases. Ugh.

Our conversation switched between business and light-hearted chatter several times. I laughed on a few occasions, although usually just to fit in. (“And that was our corporate stretch goal. Do you believe that? Ha ha!”) I was also the new guy, as everybody else already knew each other. That meant that I got to answer the question, “So, what’s your background?” which was basically a way for the other company’s representatives to ask, “So, are you at all qualified to do what you claim you do, or are you essentially a glorified paper weight that’s going to make us regret ever coming to you guys in the first place?” Combine that with trying to eat in a dignified manner so I didn’t remind anybody of a hungry caveman, and it was a real hootenanny.

But luckily, it’s all over now. In retrospect, I didn’t handle it well. I should have spilled my lunch on one of the clients, or flirted shamelessly with the waitress in an unprofessional manner. Then maybe I’d never be asked back. There’s more than one way to fall beneath the corporate radar.