We got some sad news today at Union Street Media. Our longtime neighborhood office lunch dog, which we renamed Scraps, was put down. She had been a part of our culture and community for more than a dozen years, visiting us every Tuesday in the summer when we would have our office lunch outside.

Office lunch at Union Street Media started in 2008. During a trip to Google, I discovered that 110% of Google employees eat for free at Google every day. I figured that if Google can do it five days a week, we can do it one day a week. Upon returning from the trip, we started the tradition of Tuesday office lunches that continues to today.

During the winter, which in Vermont lasts from October to May, we’re generally inside for office lunch. Over the years it has moved from the common area on the first floor in the Adams School building to The Kingdom, our new company-wide meeting space up on the second floor. It’s the time we get together as a team, talk about what’s going on in our lives, with our families, who is winning the office fantasy football league or March Madness bracket. There’s not much shop talk. It’s the time of the week we get to hang out together.

At our first outside office lunch, generally, sometime during the month of May, Scraps would arrive for the meal. Every Tuesday she would be there, week in and week out until we went back inside for the winter. This summer it was obvious that Scraps wasn’t who she used to be. Her eyes looked a little hazy and she didn’t seem to hear all that well anymore. However, that dog could smell … as soon as we were outside and the food was served, she was there looking for leftovers.

In a lot of ways, Scraps was a microcosm of Union Street Media. A feisty hustler that punched above her weight, always looking for the next opportunity and unafraid to ask for it. I believe that if you don’t ask for something in life, you’ll never get it and Scraps lived that to the fullest.

We found out years later after rebranding her Scraps, that her real name was Olive. However, that name didn’t fit the dog we knew and loved. She’ll always be Scraps to us and she will be missed.