Working at ezCater, Making Beautiful Confetti
Some people are a trifle touchy in their dealings with obstacles, and would like a workspace without them, but Giliah Librach appears not only comfortable with barriers but capable of rescuing others from them, too. One woman, who works under Giliah, gushed that her manager only needed to glance in the direction of an “overstuffed queue” of obstacles for the knotty problems to explode into “a million tiny pieces” of beautiful confetti.
Giliah Librach is the director of merchandise operations at ezCater. In a bright office overlooking Boston’s Post Office Square, Giliah bounces between her four teams and makes sure that those pulling the levers behind the scene get the support they need to do a good job and sail through their work, even when things feel off-kilter. A manager’s success depends on gaining the confidence of people with the smarts and the means—and Giliah Librach’s team, who are smart, have the means to be effective, due to Giliah’s support and her ability to look at all the details with a hyper-focused lens.
This month ezCater has acknowledged Giliah’s dedication with the “Aim High” cupcake. The award is part of ezCater’s culture code, called the ezCater “culture recipe,” which comprises of nine playfully disruptive phrases like “move fast, break things” and “no assholes.” What has carried ezCater through is a team of hardworking employees like Giliah Librach who display character traits of being humble, effective, adaptable, remarkable, and eager to help the company grow.
Early this week, we chatted with Giliah about working at ezCater.
What about working at ezCater most excites you?
This is a hard question because there are so many parts of it that I love! I would say that the access to analytics is particularly exciting for me. During [my years of undergraduate studies] I worked at the Kinsey Institute as a research assistant, and while my career developed in a different direction, I have greatly missed diving into data to both answer questions and generate lots of new ones. It has been an integral part of my day at ezCater and fuels my decision-making in a major way. It is also just tons of fun for me, so I appreciate and love that my job description allows me to do that.
What was your best experience so far, working at ezCater?
I recently traveled to New York with some members of the photo team who went to do shoots for top local catering partners. It was a special trip.
Working at ezCater, there are a lot of perks. Which ones do you enjoy the most?
Can I be a huge nerd and say that I love catered Wednesday lunch because it gives me so much insight into how we are representing caterers on the site? I also love company meetings—the level of transparency is very special and gives me so much context, energy, and motivation. That transparency really does trickle down. It affects how I manage my teams and how the teams interact with our catering partners.
Working at ezCater, you work really closely with your team. What do you like most about them?
About a billion things! I think my favorite part is that our backgrounds are all pretty different, which means there are a lot of diverse voices. We have former chefs, writers, food bloggers, photographers, editors, and more. We are also all pretty ardent foodies. We do something called Secret Chef every season, where everyone cooks a special dish for someone on the team based upon their likes and dislikes. When you get a bunch of foodies (many with chef experience) together for something like that, well, the sky is the limit.
What lessons have you learned from working at ezCater?
People are important to creating an organization that thrives. We could hire the most brilliant and talented minds out there, but none of this would ever be enough if these people didn’t also possess all of the cultural [values] that we strive so much to have represented.
What do you like about working at ezCater and being in Boston? What are some of your favorite things to do?
I grew up around here so have quite a bit of loves: shows at the Sinclair or the Middle East, getting lost at Brattle Book Shop, vintage shopping at the Garment District, searching for records at Newbury Comics, reading at Diesel Cafe, wandering at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, breakfast at the Friendly Toast, and taking the ferry to Georges Island (to name just a few)!
What’s your favorite snack from ezCater’s community kitchen?
I have celiac disease, so gluten-free snacks are always a treat.
Interested in joining ezCater? Come on down!