Coin-worthy

I try to bring my lunch to work most days in an effort to be healthy and make use of leftovers. My colleagues are all laying odds on how long my personal healthy initiative will continue – on average they give me about one more month.

Even at my most ambitious, I still have at least one day a week when my super-slick, Arctic Zone lunch bag with the built-in ice pack doesn’t make it to the office. Luckily, we do have a cafeteria one floor down that has a lot of yummy options. This is a welcome respite from the crowded and pricey restaurants on Park Avenue.

GE has a company-wide healthymagination initiative called Your Health Your Way. As you may have guessed by now, we insist on calling it by its acronym: YHYW. As part of YHYW, our cafeteria has an incentive system in place for employees called Change Your Way. In this program, if I make a healthy choice in the cafeteria – for instance, if I choose to get the soup and salad option – I get coins that can be redeemed.

There are two denominations of coins. Red coins are for entrée items that have certain fiber content, calorie count, etc. Blue coins are for small salads, fruits and veggies, etc. The parameters for what qualifies as coin-worthy are strict. I consider myself a healthy eater and my first time in the cafeteria, I walked out coinless. As a result, the rewards for the coins are legitimate: two red coins can be redeemed for a free entrée and two blue coins can be redeemed for a free soup, small salad, etc. in what is already a relatively inexpensive cafeteria.

I have no idea how this will play out, but my guess is, while the Arctic Zone lunch bag will continue to make the occasional appearance, my Monopoloy-esque desire for a massive collection of red and blue coins will win out.

Posted by Kathleen