By: Caroline Crossley
The first traditional Zimbabwean meal which I had during my internship was shared with my co-workers after our weekly Monday morning meeting. The office manager lived on the property with his family and every Monday his wife would cook sadza (cornmeal porridge) with chicken or beef stew for the whole ZELO team. This quickly became a favourite ritual of mine, breaking up the lengthy (5 hr+) Monday meetings with a laugh, casual chat, and a delicious meal. The act of taking an hour out of the workday to enjoy a warm meal and connect with your colleagues humanizes the workplace in a way that I feel we are often missing in North American working culture. During the semester, I’m embarrassed to say that I honestly can’t remember the last time I didn’t eat my lunch in front of my laptop while trying to multi-task on something school or work related.
It’s not as if my colleagues had free time to burn during the workday, in fact it was quite the opposite. The pressure of a shrinking donor market and recent staff reductions has left the remaining employees with multiple roles to juggle and projects to manage, including the endless and often invisible work of grant seeking and resource mobilization. Often there would be colleagues under the wire for a deadline who couldn’t join the group for these weekly meals, however this shared time was generally prioritized. It was during these times that I felt the most connected to my colleagues, and where I learned the most about their work – their struggles, successes, and motivation to continue to push forward.
These conversations reminded me why we put up with all the unpleasant aspects of the legal profession, and why I chose to pursue this career in the first place. This is something that I feel I’ve missed thus far in my law school experience. How often do I just settle down in the atrium, pop in my headphones, wolf down a packed sandwich, and hop back on the hamster wheel of the never-ending to-do list. It may feel like an insignificant detail in your day, but these small moments of missed connection add up.
I’ve experienced some significant feelings of loneliness and isolation throughout my time at McGill. I believe that a lot of that comes from the individualistic and competitive nature of law school. However, my time away from McGill this summer has taught me that although it’s easy to internalize the values and expectations of your surrounding environment, we are still active participants in this culture. I know that there are too many times where I’ve prioritized an assignment, an application, or some other deadline over my own mental, emotional, and social wellbeing. These choices have had cascading effects on my ability to give back to my relationships and communities. It’s easy to tell yourself that it’s just a short-term sacrifice for a long-term goal, but then you find yourself repeating the same patterns and all of a sudden, it’s been two years and you haven’t even given yourself a second to breathe.
It feels daunting to actively work against the work-life imbalance that permeates nearly every modern workplace. My goal is to start small, maybe just with lunchtime. After my time with ZELO, I know that I can no longer scapegoat a lack of time or an overwhelming workload as the reason why I can’t take that extra twenty minutes to share a meal with a friend between classes or take the opportunity to make a new connection. It’s these moments that reconnect you to your own values and personhood outside of being a law student. I don’t know what my version of Monday sadza will be back at McGill, but I am committed to finding it.