The real meal deal
What does your choice of lunch say about your HR style?As a subject, lunches are hot. People are always asking: is there such a thing as a free one? They talk about aggressive people eating other people’s. They vigorously debate the various qualities of lunches working, packed and liquid. Yes, we all love lunches. So we decided to investigate what your choice of lunch says about you as an HR professional. You’ll probably find the results surprising – even you, burrito fans.
The brought-from-home
Every morning you carefully cut your sandwich and place it in a Tupperware box – just so, nestling nicely against a single cherry tomato and a solitary lettuce leaf. You place the box safely upright at the very bottom of your calico bag. When you get to work, you put the box in the fridge. The same shelf as always, of course, because everyone knows that’s where your lunch goes.
This ritual reveals much. Firstly, that you like routine. You probably groan whenever someone implements a change of policy, asks you to attend a ‘brainstorm’ or suggests you move desks. HR for you isn’t about creativity or organisational development, but about adherence to solid, sensible practice.
When you retire from the company, the HRD will condescendingly refer to you as ‘the backbone of the department’. As people wave you and your Tupperware goodbye, they’ll wonder precisely how you remained sane for all those long, unexciting years.
The supermarket sarnie
Why waste money? A three quid meal deal from Tesco is good enough, right? Ah, you see: you’re a tightwad. If you had your way everyone would be on minimum wage, your careers site would be copy only and the flex-ben cafeteria would be limited to luncheon vouchers, dental floss and 2% off at the British Legion bar.
The stinky soup
You hate your job, don’t you? And you hate all the pesky people you work with. Shame you don’t have the guts to actually resign. Instead, you passive-aggress your way through a distancing process, alienating colleagues by making them gag over the stench of your microwaved Covent Garden chowder.
You probably work in recruitment, and your unhappiness is down to you always hiring people into jobs which are infinitely better paid and more glamorous than yours.
The something from Pret
Wow, you are way too busy to make any decisions about anything, aren’t you? So you go to Pret. After all, Pret’s the reasonable choice, isn’t it? Reasonably healthy, reasonably close, and only reasonably overpriced. And like M&S, PizzaExpress and Fat Face, it’s so middle-of-the-road that no-one will ever judge you negatively for going there.
Blimey, have you ever thought about how risk-averse you are? It’s always the middle way with you, isn’t it? This is why your career topped out as an HRBP in a non-core department somewhere in Reading.
The jacket potato
A very old-fashioned choice, which you probably buy from a slightly rusty trolley outside Debenhams. With cheese and beans. But then you are extremely old-fashioned. You read a print edition of a newspaper over lunch, drive a Ford Cortina and much preferred HR when it was Personnel. When you recruit, you secretly give preference to CVs that come in the post, not the ones that come via that confusing ATS thingy.
The pub lunch
Well, it’s nice to get out of the office at lunchtime, isn’t it? And that local wine bar is really very sophisticated, not at all common. The fact that they include a tiny glass of Pinot with their BLT doesn’t hurt either. And just one glass more, while you’re there – what’s the harm? It’s not like HR’s brain surgery.
You’re a fun, bright person who’s going places. (The toilet, mostly.) But you won’t make it to the very top. Not now everyone knows your fondness for a ‘quick one’ after work often leads to you waking up on the floor of Wetherspoons/in a skip/with that toothy rep from the assessment company.
The burrito
If you eat burritos for lunch, you work for a small tech company in Shoreditch. FACT. No one else eats burritos for lunch, anywhere, ever. You are thus a generalist HRM who spends most of their time looking after idiot hipsters with huge beards who like to ride to the office on Penny Farthings.
The healthy snack
Nuts? Check. Salad? Check. Kale? Why, certainly. Eating is a seriously miserable business for you. You only ever sniff chocolate from a safe distance, and you haven’t seen a calorie since Daniel Radcliffe was in short trousers. Your colleagues respect you but they don’t like you – the fact your bottom is half the size of theirs really rankles.
You probably work in a branch of HR that requires real determination to succeed, such as industrial relations, job design or talking law firms into hiring people who didn’t go to public school.
The sushi platter
You are so sophisticated. You actually know what the green paste is called, how many bites you should take to eat a slab (one) and what that oily stuff in the little plastic fish is made of. You are also quite rich, given the average price of a small sushi platter is now nearly three thousand pounds.
Rich and sophisticated? Then you’re probably working in Reward, and are so in demand you can practically write your own pay cheque. Enjoy it while you can, though. All the salt in the Miso soup is sending your blood pressure through the roof, so you’ll probably have your first heart attack at 45.
The posh restaurant
You’ve made it lunch-wise, haven’t you? You’ve got The Ivy’s secret number on speed dial and you can’t remember the last time you had a bottle of wine that wasn’t brought to you in a silver bucket. Most lunchtimes you’re dining out, and you never pay. In fact, like the Queen, you don’t even carry cash anymore.
But you’re not a HRD – of course not. They don’t go out at lunchtime, being too busy locking themselves in stock cupboards and banging their heads against the wall. No, you’re the person in charge of the recruitment and employment marketing budgets. There isn’t an agency in town that isn’t queuing up to pay for the Beef Wellington you like to wolf down your gullet every weekday at about 1.15pm.
Gosh, what a great job you have – just remember those of us hanging out by the fridge in Boots, and bring back a doggy bag once in a while, eh?
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