Do you Lunch Alone

Well I do, most days at work. But not today.

I was exceptionally hungry this noon and tried my luck visiting the cafeteria. With all the food counters being super busy and very limited time on my hand, I decided to ignore my hunger and get back to my meeting.

To provide some context around my preferences and privileges

• I prefer to come to office on workdays and chose not to work from home, unless I have no other choice.
• I bring my own lunch, because what can beat a home cooked meal!
• I am oblivious to Cafeteria and different food counter timings.

However today was a day of sorts when it came to my stomach, I was hungry and not equipped with additional snacks :(

So went down to the cafeteria again and this time around 2.40 pm and came to know they close the counters for their lunch break. Tried ordering a glass of buttermilk and no luck.

The only item I could order was a 'plain dosa'. So went looking for the counter and did not find anybody there, probably they were also having their lunch.

Out of nowhere, I had a cafeteria colleague come to me from the other side of the counter, and say, “maam, we will get you your dosa”. She saw me, got up from her lunch and assured me of my order.

She called out to her colleague and I got my dosa!

With Dosa in my hand, I noticed that 4 of the cafeteria colleagues including the lady who offered to get me dosa were having their lunch. I asked if I could join them, and they gave in to my pressure.

For the first time I actually had company for lunch, at work. Company over food is always a working lunch or a working snack :) you know what I mean. But not this time.

My lunch mates offered me a glass of their buttermilk, see how nature manifests to human requests! They offered me great curiosity to know about me and in return I got to ask a lot of questions about them. They told me how happy they were to have a Shell staff join them and we got some curious visitors to see what was happening at our table. We were a chatter bunch. :)

Heart and tummy full, here are my reflections, along with a picture of my lunch mates. My bad, I was too shy to ask for a weefie, so took their picture from the Shell archive.

§? Company over lunch is refreshing, when meeting new folks

§? Shell lives to its DEI mission or providing a safe and enriching work environment for the differently abled. All my lunch mates enjoyed working for Compass and in Shell. Some of them travel 3 hours a day, one way to get to the Shell office, but they told me they don’t want to trade time for another work environment. Well done #Shell and #Compass

§? We talked about media and how women get marginalized. We talked about travel safety and how they get to work etc.

§? They had big hearts and displayed immense curiosity

§? Last and not the least, DEI is best experienced and lived through small gestures such as sharing a meal with them.

I could go on but let me stop here.

This is the best lunch I have had at work and all credits to these inclusive souls, to Shell and to Compass for creating such inclusive work environments.

And yes, my lunch mates are Transwomen, employed with Compass, Shell Cafeteria vendor, in case you are curious to know who they are. Here are the happy faces.

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The views expressed in this post are my own and personal.

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#DEI#Shell#equity#kindness#Compass#Inclusion#Pride