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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Diary of a DAAP kid: co-op (part 3)

Wouldn't it be great if the people you bought supplies from at work came to your work and fed you delicious food and gave you things in exchange for you listening to them talk about their supplies for a half hour?

Maybe you should think about working at an architecture firm.

These strange and wonderful lunchtime occurances are called "Lunch and Learns." Representatives from companies that sell building supplies and interior finishes (fabric, carpet, furniture, flooring, windows, brick, etc) do circuits of firms around town to show off their new products and make friends with the designers that will (hopefully) specify their product in whatever building they happen to be designing at the moment.

So the sign up sheet goes around, and sometimes you get to pick which Panera boxed lunch you'll receive that day. Or maybe they'll bring in a gigundous Servatii's pretzel sandwich (which is awesome!!)


panera = lunch and learn

For me, it means free lunch, and sometimes little goodies. The firms will hand out pens, sticky notes.. heck, I've gotten everything from cloth lunch bags to little tins of organic wheat grass to grow at my desk. They're cheap, plastered with logos, and a little slice of awesome for an intern like me.

At the last place I worked they had two Lunch and Learns a week (one for architectural products, one for interiors) lined up almost the entire time I was there - it was a new place with lots of work, and the reps really wanted to get their business!


Maybe this is a very common thing that everyone has heard of, but I just wanted to profess my undying love of the Lunch and Learn.

2 comments:

  1. Ah, the Lunch and Learn... in the medical world, it is the pharmaceutical reps who host these events. When it costs approximately one billion dollars to produce a new drug, and you only have the rights to the formula for a certain number of years... the Lunch and Learn is one of the best ways to get doctors to sit still long enough to check out the latest pill, cream, or injection. At the same time, something about combining blood and lunch just doesn't make sense... your version sounds more user friendly

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  2. I've gotten all kinds of goodies as well, mints, post-its, pens, soap, lip balm. The wheat grass is a new one for me though.

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