There was a time when I wore a tie to work every day. I worked for a bank. I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my career, but I could not have been more wrong. My lunches normally consisted of me eating with one or more colleagues, eating quickly because we had to get back to the office. We would talk about work stuff. Or maybe other things, but we didn’t venture far from work either physically or mentally.
After my banking career ended, I was part of a fast growing start-up business. For a few years I didn’t have any kids and my wife worked a long way from our house. I ate lunch by myself most days. Normally at my desk. While putting together a PowerPoint presentation. Then we hired more people. And for the most part they were people I liked both personally and professionally. One if them is one of my best friends to this day. I normally ate lunch with one or more of them. Those lunches were cool. I felt lucky.
But nothing compares to this kind of lunch. Mid-June. Hot as Hades outside. I’m hanging out in my kitchen in a t-shirt and exercise shorts and I haven’t shaved in a couple of weeks. I had been working on an article for Restaurant Hospitality most of the morning and my son had been drawing and playing with matchbox cars on the floor beside me. I switched my laptop over to some good music, whipped up his lunch and mine, and sat at our bar next to him. I wouldn’t trade this kind of lunch for anything…
Wil