An American in Ireland

This one is going to hurt.

Today is my last day in the office at Kellogg’s European Headquarters in Dublin, and if I can get through it without tears it will be a miracle.

My expectations when I first joined Kellogg’s in July 2013 were purely professional. I hoped to apply what I’d learned in my previous roles to help grow the company’s digital marketing capabilities, further develop my knowledge of European business and gain an understanding of FMCGs (that’s Fast Moving Consumer Goods for the uninitiated, which I was at the time). In a nutshell, do a good job and not make a fool out of the guy who hired me. If I made a few friends and acquaintances along the way, well, that would just be icing on the cake.

So it’s a wonderful and heartbreaking thing to say that I’ll be leaving behind some very special people today, who in a relatively short period of time have become life-long friends.

It’s no wonder when someone leaves Kellogg’s, they always talk about how much they’ll miss the people. The culture of the company is truly special, and my colleagues genuinely respect and support one another – even when under intense pressure. The emphasis on assuming positive intent, building relationships and nurturing trust has greatly influenced the way I approach work…and life.

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Breaking bread is one of the most ancient and time-honoured ways of bringing people together. When people sit down to share in the comfort of eating a meal together, very little else matters. It’s about nourishing the body and taking pleasure in some good food with those in your community.

This is the thinking behind the cafes at Crosscare, a non-for-profit organisation that provides services to the homeless and disadvantaged. Unlike soup kitchens, the Crosscare cafes are beautifully decorated and look and feel like a lovely restaurant – complete with a blackboard of specials and wait staff. They are also open to the public, which means you may have a table of office professionals next to one with an elderly widower who comes for lunch every day. The prices are cheap and the same for everyone: €3 for a three-course hot lunch and even less for a sandwich or full breakfast.

I learned about Crosscare a few months after I started working for Kellogg’s, because we donate lots of cereal to all of their facilities through our Breakfast for Better Days program. The bulk of the food is donated and there are many people who volunteer their time to keep the place running smoothly.

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Food brings people together, and there’s no better evidence of this than the daily lunchtime meal at my office. I’m very lucky to work at a company that provides its employees tasty, inexpensive and healthy food for lunch every day, prepared for us by a staff of dedicated chefs. There is a different menu every day, each featuring a hot main course (always with a vegetarian alternative) and side dishes as well as a daily salad bar with plenty of variety.

Last week the Q Café at Kellogg’s featured some very special menus, one that I had a hand in creating. It was the much-anticipated Come Dine With Me competition: a representative from each department was chosen to create a full meal menu (starter, main course, dessert) with recipes, which the canteen cooks would make for the entire staff at our Kellogg’s European headquarters. I was putting my best recipe skills forward on behalf of the Marketing department. No pressure, right?

Of course there was a kicker to the normal CDWM rules: We were each given a star ingredient that we had to feature in our main dish, and I – ever the unlucky one – drew FISH. I say unlucky because, in my experience, a lot of Irish people don’t like fish unless it’s battered and fried, and our kitchen doesn’t use a deep fat fryer. The others received relatively tame main-dish ingredients: Jenny (Nutrition) got chicken; Joe (Sales/Procurement) got beef; Diarmuid (Supply Chain) got ham/bacon and Ruanne (HR) had to feature pork in her main course.

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