Video Conference Meeting with Lunch

One of the downsides to not attending meetings in the office is not being able to do lunch meetings. My personal belief is that lunch meetings are not very productive, however, they do reward the participants for attending a long meeting. They also have a benefit of allowing meeting attendees to spend a little personal time together and find out more about each other.

Today I had a several-hour long meeting that included lunch at the end. As I am in Utah and most of my coworkers are in the Bay Area, it is tough to eat lunch together during COVID-19. As a reward for sitting through the whole meeting, one of the department admins sent out gift certificates for Doordash. This is the first time I have used Doordash and so I needed to set up an account. Next I went in and added the coupon code from my office and saw that I had a $25 credit. You can kill yourself with $25 in fast food and so I thought I would see what other healthy choices exist.

I have to confess that I spent all free time during the lengthy meeting going through various menus of local restaurants. There are a number close by that I have never visited and so I had fun filling my cart with items and then erasing my order. Ultimately I decided on a local mid-priced restaurant that I know prepares excellent food. 30 minutes before the meeting ended, I clicked the purchase button. I had some of the $25 credit left over and added it to the recommended tip and submitted the order.

A map appeared on my computer and I could see the progress of my order. I saw when the order was completed at the restaurant and when it started driving towards my home. I thought it great to see the order come straight to my house. I guess that is what happens when you include a larger-than-recommended tip. 15 minutes later, the order was at my door and still very warm. My wife answered the door but the website also showed a picture of the order sitting on my front doorstep. I still had 15 minutes to go in my meeting. I didn't care, I just brought my laptop upstairs with my camera turned off.

I have to be very careful with how much and what food I eat. I ordered enough food for two people even though it was a single order for lunch. I split the meal in half and shared it with my wife. She loved sharing lunch with me and I appreciated involving her in my work meeting without anyone else in the meeting knowing she attended. We didn't discuss anything confidential and it was only for a few minutes but has to go down as one of my best lunch meetings ever.

If you are working from home but miss those lunch meetings where food is brought in for everyone, I highly recommend Doordash, Uber Eats, or some other form of delivered food. I will definitely remember this for future meetings. After the meeting finished, I made sure to send the department admin a heart-felt thank you.