Always look on the bright side of life!
Tags: Plastic Tray, Restaurant, Love, Company Culture

The unexpected kindness and understanding of my colleagues amazed me, especially in this year full of surprises. The ‘light will return’ spirit is very much alive: we might be physically apart but we are still very much connected.

The end of a year symbolize a time of mercy, charity and kindness. We reflect on the truly singular year that lies behind us and we quietly hope for better days ahead. While we count our blessings, we also think of the less fortunate people around us, who struggle with hardships and who need a hand up and a hug. Some call it the Christmas spirit, but I believe this feeling transcends traditional religious meaning. It is the kindness and basic goodness that exists in each and every one of us.

These last few months have been extremely busy professionally, working hard to cope with the challenges of the pandemic for our customers. During all of this I was heartened by my colleagues at Schuberg Philis, who once again demonstrated that we are a community. Let me explain.

The restaurant in our office has been special to us ever since we started. When the three founders established Schuberg Philis they were adamant that every team member should have access to healthy food, no matter the time of day. But more importantly, they wanted the restaurant to be the central meeting place in the office. It had to be our town square, where the many different teams would share tables (and food!). Eating together fosters cooperation and community. Founder Pim Berger only had one condition: he didn’t want people using those awful plastic trays to shuttle their food to and from their table. He feels those trays are the quickest way to ruin the intimate-eating-and-discussing-at-the-kitchen-table-setting he wanted to create. He vowed to quit if he ever saw those trays. 😊*

Ever since the restaurant opened its doors it has been the biggest benefit of working at Schuberg Philis. Next to our team-based approach for solving every imaginable problem, we refer to it as our best sales and hiring tool: just come for lunch, meet your team, and you’ll be convinced.

A team of chefs dreams up the most delicious food, at all hours of the day. For a long time, the restaurant was the domain of Bert, a former chef who had confronted his diagnosis of Parkinsons disease head on by taking on the role of the maître d’.

In pre-covid times, I often likened the large room with its long tables full of people to the Dutch polder, known for its fertile lands interconnected by tiny waterways.

True to our nature we have optimized everything in the restaurant. We hate waste, so we made sure that our leftover produce goes to a Dutch food bank, so that people who struggle financially can have good food as well. Years ago one of the vans of the food bank broke down and we provided them with the means to get a new one. If our Sales team get Christmas hampers from our customers, we donate them to the food bank.

The restaurant would normally bring the cheer during the holiday season. In the weeks leading up to Christmas the chefs would start to prepare their traditional Christmas menu, for weeks everyone got to taste the most delicious food. Once the chefs were happy with their courses, they would ensure everyone at Schuberg Philis could get the recipe and the necessary ingredients, so that they could provide a great Christmas dinner for their families.

Obviously, while the pandemic is wrecking office life for now, the restaurant is not as vibrant as it used to be. There are less people and the long tables have been separated. We can’t sit together in groups, we can’t share food or even talk and laugh. It’s a bit sad to see, especially for an extrovert such as myself. To Pim Berger’s horror we have even started to use the plastic trays he hates so much — although, it did give me the perfect opportunity to start teasing him about his threat to quit.

Through all this I have realized the spirit of the restaurant is still very much alive. We haven’t laid off any of the kitchen or cleaning staff because we feel the responsibility for their livelihoods. We call them our ‘Central Team’ for a reason.

To make sure we have delicious food all day every day, we all chip in for the restaurant. Everyone at Schuberg Philis contributes with a small fee that is deducted from their salary. Freelancers contribute as well, with half of their donations going towards charity. All this covers only about ten percent of the costs of the restaurant, but we feel it’s important. We believe that something that is free is often perceived as worthless. It pays to pay.**

Now to the reason I was so pleasantly surprised by my colleagues. When it turned out the pandemic was here to stay I was slightly worried that I would soon get questions about the restaurant fee, now that people couldn’t visit the restaurant as often as before. After all, the Dutch have quite a reputation for being stingy. Plus, a lot of new people have joined us, who have not yet had the opportunity to see the restaurant in full flight. I was preparing myself for the inevitable. Surely they would wonder what that monthly deduction was for?

But nothing happened. No one came forward to discuss it or to suspend their payments. It makes me very happy because even after all these years everyone apparently instinctively feels the value of the restaurant and what it means for Schuberg Philis. It’s heartwarming. I take it as a sign that we still feel that strong connection to our team and the people around us, even though we can’t join tables and share food as often as we’d like.

This year has given us many surprises already and in the final few weeks of the year my colleagues at Schuberg Philis surprised me with their kindness and understanding. Call it the Solstice spirit. Or call it the belief that light will return, it shows why it serves to always look on the bright side of life!

* Unless the trays are only a COVID-19 measure. And they all go away. We know that for sure!

** We once calculated that we charge 10% of the actual costs.

Lotta Croiset van Uchelen