Lunch and Learn

Much to my coworkers’ dismay (and my officemate’s disgust), I spend far too many lunch hours at my desk. It started a few years back and has become a habit that I cannot seem to break. For most of my career, I have been exposed to fresh air for an average of five minutes a day, when I run out to grab lunch before scurrying back to the office. I could literally blow an entire meal out from underneath the keyboard of my laptop. I’m not proud to admit this.

On a recent Friday afternoon, an exciting thing happened. One of our interns was accepting her full-time offer and wanted to meet me for lunch to hand over her signed offer letter. As a recruiter and a person, how could I refuse? The lunch quickly turned into a bigger social event when other consultants in the office came along.

We decided on a location – The Berghoff, which the group assured me was a favorite amongst employees in the Chicago office – and walked out into the blaring day. (For more information on top Chicago lunch spots, see the informative Lunch Evaluator above, which was created by impassioned foodies in our Security practice).

My eyes teared from the unfamiliar bright light of the noon hour. As we walked further from the office, I resisted the urge to head back, but persevered in an attempt to “act cool.” I knew I was officially out of my comfort zone when I stood at the cashier and uttered the words “For Here.”

While I can’t say the experience broke my habit completely, it brought home the value of taking a break, as well as the importance of getting to know people outside of their work selves. And though I may, on occasion, revert to my “To Go” routine, I am more aware of the time that I spend away from my desk, the sunshine on my face, and the hustle and bustle of a weekday in the Loop.

- Bridget

MORE THAN JUST A POWERPOINT…

For any student organization leaders out there (Accounting Society, Beta Alpha Psi, Delta Sigma Pi, Alpha Kappa Psi, etc.), I’m sure you’re currently working with different firms on coming up with event ideas for the upcoming fall recruiting season! Many firms typically come to campus organization meetings and make a 45-60 min long presentation. While these presentations are very informative, we understand that it may be difficult for students to sit through 10+ presentations each semester/quarter…on top of all the classroom lectures.


Are you looking for ideas to make your meetings/events a little bit more interested for your members? Here is an example of a fun community service event that our Phoenix office held with the University of Arizona Accounting Students Association members. The student members still had the chance to learn about Protiviti and we all had the opportunity to give back to the community. (If you’re interested in holding a joint community service event with your local Protiviti office, just contact your local campus recruiter!)



Protiviti Philanthropy with the Accounting Students Association of The University of Arizona and Ben’s Bells Project


Ben’s Bells Project: Jeannette and Dean Packard lost their son Ben tragically when his airway swelled shut. The therapeutic effect of working with clay had an amazing healing power for the family. So the Packard’s decided to start a non-profit organization in their son’s honor by making hundreds of the Bells and distributing them randomly in the Tucson community and to families. Since Ben’s death, it has been the kindness of others, strangers and friends, that has helped the family heal. You can learn more by visiting their website at http://www.bensbells.org.


This year our Phoenix campus recruiting team thought that we needed to mix it up a bit with our recruiting efforts and for the students on campus. One of the greatest things about Protiviti is the people we get to work with everyday and it’s what really differentiates us when we step onto a college campus. Here in the Phoenix office, we have a committee of professionals who join together to come up with ways to really give back to our community because we are all truly blessed for the opportunities we have in life. Since everything at Protiviti is done as a team, we do everything together…thus the WeShare Committee was born.

So I decided that rather than heading down to The University of Arizona and rolling out the red carpet and a formal PowerPoint presentation for the Accounting Students Association members…we were going to get our hands dirty with these kids!! So I reached out to the club’s Activities Chair to coordinate a joint philanthropy with the Ben’s Bells Project. One of the greatest things you will see randomly in Tucson are these tiny little hand painted clay charms and bells hanging from trees, bushes and archways. These have been created by volunteers for the Ben’s Bells Project as a representation of honoring the Packard family and their tragic loss, but also the story and mission of the organization to give back to the community and bring comfort to other families who have experienced their own personal losses. It goes to say that if it “takes a village to raise a child” I think we can also say it takes a community to heal the loss of one.

First of all, we had a great turnout for the event and were able to fill three full tables of students eager to help us out in painting the bells for the community. To this day, I’m continually amazed at how bright these young students are and how excited they are to pitch-in and help in any way possible…plus the beautiful Friday afternoon weather didn’t hurt either!! We started off by enjoying a couple pizzas from a local Tucson staple, No Anchovies and mingling with many of these young minds to really see what makes them tick...I think a lot of times we meet so many people when we step on to campus that it becomes a blur…but in a setting like this we get to see what these kids lives are really like and what they love to do. After devouring the pizza, we set-up the painting supplies so we could start our volunteerism. We were really impressed with the student’s painting creativity, even though none of them would admit they had any painting talent!! Time seemed to fly by as the students entertained us with their stories of accounting classes, interesting times in their lives and things they enjoyed outside of the classroom. After we painted all of our charms that get attached to the bells, all the students helped us clean up and put everything away.

At the end of the day, it was sad to leave because we thoroughly enjoyed meeting all of the students and giving back to the community. Clearly, these students were not afraid of getting their hands dirty and I can definitely say Protiviti looks forward to the next time we get to see some of these familiar faces when we come back for future recruiting at The University of Arizona.

Protiviti Attendees (from the Phoenix office): Nick Trent, Michael Fowle, Rob Konkel

Los Angeles Business Journal “Best Places to Work” 2010

Congratulations to our Protiviti Los Angeles office! The Los Angeles Business Journal has awarded our Protiviti Los Angeles office with a # 22 ranking on their “Best Places to Work 2010” list. This is a wonderful accomplishment! Jeff Sanchez, Barbara Cabello, Jon Bronson, Kim Tran and Madhushi Kurera represented our office and accepted the award at a luncheon at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA on August 4th, 2010. The August 9th edition of the publication will include a special “Best Places to Work” supplement.

See the complete list of companies awarded here: “2010 Best Places to Work in Los Angeles”.

Battle of the West!

Intern Joe Murrell shows us where his loyalty lies

And the Giants did win – actually they swept the series against the LA Dodgers. The Bay Area office was invited to the game on Friday for a evening filled with good food, fun company and cold SF summer weather. . . . .

Kat Kennifer, Katie Brown, Clint Maples, Alex Goldberg & Spencer Starley are ready for the game!

Kat Kennifer, Meghan Hargreaves, Eugenia & Keith Kawashima, Nicole Miller basking in the SF fog

Ken Morretino, Nate Fong, Tyler Johns, Ashley Del Pozzo and Tony Chigazola are excited for a win!

Interns Kristyne Wada, Serene Lau and Dana Hansen along with Sylvia Auyeung, Gavin Yates and “RG”

GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!