Rising to every challenge during a unique time
Pros
I started at Methodology as an operations lead right when the pandemic hit. Pretty wild timing for your first real job, but I didn't know any better. I thought this was just how companies handled a crisis. Our job was to make meals for people. But we lived up to our motto food as medicine because we also made meals for people with diabetes who were part of Stanford University clinical trials. Just like our regular meals that we made in our kitchen and portioned using scales, everything had to be measured so precisely so the nutrition values were exact. I learned about so many vegetables and greens from different farms I'd never even heard of before and started understanding how food actually affects your body. We got to do the meal programs ourselves for free, which was huge for me and my coworkers. We tracked our own blood sugar and our weight and health and it was fascinating especially coming from a family that had a lot of processed food. I was eating the food we made and really got what we were making each day. And remember, this was all during COVID which forced us to figure things out really fast. I remember we closed the main kitchen when no one knew what it is was, and the company still paid all of us. They then set up 3 other kitchens that were partnered with other catering kitchens in case we had to shut down again. We also let Atelier Crenn pop up on our menu for a month so they could stay in business. And we also helped a few other restaurants. Methodology kept other struggling businesses in business. Even when money got tight, I remember our sourcing manager had to renegotiate contracts for glass jars we used, the company paid for our ops team and chefs to commute to these different kitchens so everyone could stay spread out and safe. I know we didn't make any money that year, but in our team meetings our head of operations let us know that we were stable and we will worry about making money the following year. But to just stay focused on how important it was to do the right thing and how proud he was of us. The founder's mom made masks that we gave to our guests and to hospitals. We also helped out other restaurants pop up on our menu to help them survive. We increased up food donations during a time our own costs were sky high. At the time I was just focused on keeping everything running. I didn't realize how unusual any of this was. Now I work at a high-end Michelin restaurant (the other founder got me this job) where the ingredients are not even as expensive as the ones we were buying and I still have to pay for my food, with a small employee discount. That's when it hit me how much Methodology was investing in us and the product and culture. Now I understand business budgeting and finance better now and can see what they were giving up to do the right thing. I'm still really proud of that team and what we pulled off. I use what I learned there literally every day for my career today.
Cons
The leadership team gave a few people too many chances and some people we had to work with were really lazy. Even though we did a lot, I know we could have done more with some less lazy people. But that also goes to show that management was also compassionate and gave people opportunities, even when I didn't think they deserved it.