Karen Casey is the Head of People and Culture at Canidae Pet Food. Karen has dedicated over 25 years to human resources leadership.
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Recently I was reminiscing amidst the loneliness many of us are feeling as a result of living in isolation and working remotely for going on one year. A couple of years back, as a milestone birthday approached, I took the time to reflect on the previous years that were nothing short of challenging, both personally and professionally. However, my hope was that the lessons learned in those years of raising a child with a life-altering medical condition, challenges of balancing home and work and the non-stop excitement and drama of raising three beautiful girls would serve me well in the next decade and beyond. One of my biggest lessons from that time — and it took some repeated reminders — was to simply “go to lunch.”
Well, simple to say; difficult to execute.
I am talking about more than the walk to the refrigerator in the world of Covid-19, or in the pre-pandemic days, of the stroll to your office’s version of some corporate café only to sit by yourself. I am talking about spending a meaningful lunch (or coffee break) with someone other than your computer or smartphone.
The reason for me putting pen to paper nearly two years ago was that a good friend and I had tried for weeks to connect for lunch, and it never happened. Calendar invites, confirmations and cancellations ensued, and we eventually gave up with the holidays upon us. A text here and there gently reminded us that lunch was still pending. Lunch never happened.
Winter was now upon us in our quiet New England town, when cold and long days are the norm and sidewalks don’t usually reappear until sometime around April. It was Easter Sunday when the sidewalks finally cleared and we saw each other on a neighborhood walk, yet again reminding us to “book that lunch.” Lunch still never happened.
Fast forward to a couple of months later when I was figuratively knocked off my feet by the news that my hopeful lunch date was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. Lunch was not going to happen anytime soon.
Guilt, sorrow, helplessness and the need to do something — among many other feelings — entered my head, but yet again life got in the way and the text exchanges continued to “go to lunch.” Her life was now chemo, recovering from chemo and prepping for the next round of chemo. My life marched on and one week went into another without really skipping a beat. Once again, lunch never happened.
At the time, I tried to come up with a reason as to why lunch never happened. The only sad excuse I could muster was work, and I was tired. Tired! My friend was tired. I was consumed with my work, my life, my priorities and it took me a big, fat pause to remember what is important. Lunch was going to happen!
Lunch finally did happen, almost one year later. It was so good to look across the table at my friend, watch her laugh and enjoy the moment and share her experiences and reminders to just live life. While I like to think the lunch lesson served me well, I admittedly fell back into the excuses about why lunch is not so important during the Covid-19 pandemic and, again, needed to pause. I needed to remind myself and my team to take a page from the lunch playbook and simply make time during the day for lunch, for something meaningful.
We all know the right thing to do; we all know to make time for what is important; we all know that nothing is guaranteed, and we all know we need to go to lunch — even virtually. It is so easy to settle into our corporate worlds that are all-consuming and provide us our “living,” but what good is that “living” if we are not truly living?
At the time this lesson was originally learned, going to lunch was in honor of our respective birthdays; lunch is now in honor of maintaining my sanity during the pandemic with an attempt to bring perspective to what is really important. My lunches are now virtual with my HR team or with some member of my family who is working or schooling from home, but lunch is happening once again, and I am beyond thankful for the gift of 30 minutes each day to break bread with those who really matter.
To keep it simple, make time for what is important. Just go to lunch.
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