Lunch Time

I think everyone's favorite part of the day is lunch: (for almost everyone) it's free and it's fun to gather 'round a big table and listen/tell stories with the whole crew.  The work environment on this film is wonderful -- and it starts at the top with our director and editor.  It's my duty and my pleasure to get lunch for everyone and then hang out for an hour talking about everything from politics to bugs.  My goal is to get everybody what they ordered in a timely manner so that they can simply focus on eating and enjoying a little break.  Usually I achieve this goal... perhaps with a few hiccups of slightly incorrect food items, but nothing major.

Today was a little different.



I ordered from a very good Italian place that's a few miles from our office.  I've been there many times both personally and for my past jobs and I've never had a major problem.  Throw in the fact that they now offer a great online ordering website and I was excited that today's lunch would be as smooth as possible.  Turns out I had to wait for over 1 1/2 hours just to get the food.  

Now, this wasn't the restaurant's fault, per se.  Perhaps they should have given me a more realistic time estimate, but beyond that I could tell they were doing all they could to fulfill my order.  They were simply overwhelmed today.  

When a restaurant messes up, it puts me in a precarious situation -- I might look bad to my office even if I do my job well.  It all ended working out as the restaurant compensated me with a huge dessert platter AND a large fresh fruit trey (at no charge) but I still felt pretty stressed out as I waited (and waited) for my order to be completed.  I know how much lunch means to everyone's day -- and I feel bad if just one person's order is messed up, much less EVERYONE'S order.  But, as I said, it all worked out today.  

Our director told some funny stories

We talked about global warming 

An assistant editor told stories of giant spiders in Ecuador

Everyone pigged out on delicious cookies.  

The work environment is great and, as I said, our director is the main reason why.  Without his laid-back, take-everything-with-a-grain-of-salt approach, we could be much more stressed out.  And if that were the case, perhaps an hour late lunch would have been a big deal.