(no subject)

[rhu]

Today, Joel on Software asks:

Do you like your job?

Do you enjoy the people you work with?

Would you want to have lunch with them? Every day? [...] I like to think that we just enjoy eating together because we genuinely like each other and like spending time together. If you can’t imagine eating lunch every day with your coworkers, I hate to break it to you: you might not like them. Is it OK to spend most of your waking hours with people you don’t like?

I find this interesting because I've considered it a sine qua non for my entire career -- I will not work for a team that doesn't have lunch (mostly) together most days. That kind of camaraderie is critical, in my opinion, to the formation of a team that pulls together in crunch periods.

When I was at Bitstream, in fact, we had a strict policy: No work-related conversation at the lunch table. This was great not only because it gave us a "safe zone" when things were stressful, but more importantly because it gave us a chance to get to know one another as people and not just as job roles. We'd discuss the latest production at the Huntington or the ART; we'd discuss what our kids were up to; we'd discuss books we'd read or the Red Sox or our various choirs.

And even though I've been gone from Bitstream for about 18 months now, we still get together regularly for dinner to catch up on those same things.

Joel is right. If you're not enjoying lunch with your co-workers, why not?

Comments

[cnoocy]

I enjoy having lunch with my coworkers, but I don't do it all that often because I'd rather get home a little earlier.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I have lunch with my coworkers once a week.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

If my group ever went back to "having lunch" rather than eating at our desks as we either websurf or work, depending on the day, sure. We at least go as a group whenever one of us is making a caf run. The thing is, there might be one or two people I wouldn't want to "go to lunch" with if it were just the two or three of us, but I'm comfortable with them in the group setting. I've also worked in groups in the same company that were much less collegial and in which I would never have dreamt of considering my supervisor a friend; my current group is as much luck as anything else.

I'm profoundly lucky in my job; frankly, if "not wanting to eat with my coworkers" was the only failing, I'd still stay, no questions. As it happens, my larger group occasionally attempts to schedule group nights "out", and with one thing or another I pretty much never go — I like them all quite a lot, but not enough to take several extra hours away from the cats to hang out in a chain restaurant watching people drink, y'know? But they're still great people and I am very happy to work with them.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

I've known work situations where we didn't have lunch together because such lunches tended to go on until about four o'clock, which was hopeless for getting any work done.

[cellio]

I'd be happy to have lunch with most of my coworkers, but doing so with all ~125 at once would be challenging. There are a couple people I'm not fond of and one who's a nice person but really revolting when eating, so not those ones, but mostly, sure.

That said, most of the time most of us eat at our desks...

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where everyone ate lunch together.

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

I do enjoy the occasional lunch out with my co-workers. That said, the idea that you ought to want to lunch with your co-workers all the time—that it should be a priority for anyone—seems somewhere between misguided and spoiled to me. I would much rather find a group of co-workers that churns out great product/service, that allows me to exercise my potential, and that recognizes my contribution, than one that has a blast over takeout Chinese every weekday noon.

Most people in the working world have, face it, a limited number of choices about where they're going to work. The choice of who else that workplace hires (or has already hired) is even more limited; most people don't participate in hiring decisions in any direct way. If I'm not going to work for places who hire people I don't care to lunch with, my number of choices may quickly drop to zero.

Also, certain types of workplaces tend to attract certain types of people—by temperament, by socio-economic opportunity, or for other reasons. If I happen to be a crack framistat-grazzler who happens not to fit the usual framistat-grazzler mold, and doesn't really get along with most framistat-grazzlers, does that mean I shouldn't get a job grazzling framistats?

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

I work alone in the field and eat lunch while driving. What, when, and how much I eat is so bizarre and so variable that it is very stressful to me to eat with my supervisor on the rare occasion that we work together, and she's one of the best supervisors I've ever had.