10 ms·

Joel Spolsky: Lunch

• simulate 15y ago
  How does a small company like Fog Creek handle ordering, delivery, and clean up each day? In the photo it appears that everyone is eating off of china with silverware. Do they maintain a cafeteria?
  • patio11 15y ago
    There is a catering service which brings them food every day and sets up the serving area. You wash your own plate, I think. P.S. FC is a small company with offices literally adjacent to the New York Stock Exchange. That might meaningfully adjust one's perceptions of the amount of resources they have for a problem like this.
    • rsobers 15y ago
      Yup, pretty much spot on, except we have a dishwasher! The caterer is great about not repeating meals very often (we probably go 2-3 weeks before seeing the same thing twice). Most everything is healthy, there's always a vegetarian option, salads, etc.
  • mfuenfrocken 15y ago
    I think i've read something about a catering firm in of of joels earlier posts... It will handle all that stuff...additionally they have a small kitchen with softdrinks, fruits and such..
  • devspade 15y ago
    At our company the CEO just takes orders and goes and gets food. If he's out or busy he leaves a prepaid visa and someone else goes. No fancy china but it works. Sometimes we'll order in using foodler.com which lets you do group ordering.
  • emmett 15y ago
    ZeroCater.com can help with the first two if you're in SF
• jswinghammer 15y ago
  I'm definitely on board with this. My last job was pretty lonely until we all started eating together every day. Eventually our long table was taken away by HR and we had to find somewhere else to go. We all wanted to keep it though because it made work much better so we found a way to still eat lunch together.
• JabavuAdams 15y ago
  While there are some positives, to enforce this seems quite inhumane. People often need a bit of space in order to work together better. Also, in a group > 2 there's huge potential for conversational drift. So, if two people want to talk about a certain topic, it becomes too easy to derail. Embrace the quiet.
  • devspade 15y ago
    We do this at my company and it's awesome. The idea is it's not at all mandatory. Do whatever you want for lunch. But everyday, at noon, there will be a free lunch served at this location. Most people will participate in that 4 out of 5 days. If they have a deadline, want to meet a friend for lunch, need to run some errands or whatever it's fine. Most often the conversation is about everything but business. It makes us closer as a team and some of our best ideas come out over lunch when we're not trying to brainstorm or think about business issues.
    • JabavuAdams 15y ago
      Yes, I think this is great. It's the idea of making it mandatory that I consider domineering. Great for a cult ... not so good for herding cats.
    • sspencer 15y ago
      This is exactly what it's like where I work. It's fun to grab lunch when you want/need it at the same time as others, but it's ultra-low-pressure and in no way mandatory. Best of all possible worlds, in my opinion, and a huge perk for anyone working at a company <20 people.
• dr_ 15y ago
  It's not always so easy for everyone to eat together however. People have different work schedules - different deadlines to meet, some may be working from home at times or while on a business trip, and for some, such as myself, lunch is really something I just kind of grab and go, don't really sit down for 30 min to 1hr and eat lunch. That's just my habit, it's a working lunch (although I make up for it at dinner)
• tomstuart 15y ago
  I need a break at lunchtime. For me that means sitting quietly, spending some time away from the effort of conversation, catching up on reading or taking the opportunity to think about ideas that have been on the back burner. There goes my career at Fog Creek!
  • levesque 15y ago
    I see it differently. I sit alone all day, working on my projects by myself. Come dinner time, it is a welcome change to get to chat a little with my coworkers. Ultimately, I'd say it depends a lot on who your coworkers are. If you enjoy your coworkers, you will enjoy lunchtime with them and it won't be a chore. On the other hand, if they annoy you the second they open their mouth...
• wccrawford 15y ago
  At my last job, I ate my lunch 2-3 hours earlier than everyone else, thanks to dietary issues and the fact that I started work 3 hours earlier than they did. That meant I always ate alone. But everyone else tended to bunch together. (The boss actually vetoed that, requiring that at least 1 person remain in the tech room. (Which was me, obviously.) After the team grew, it became '3' for the requirement.) They would all have lunch together, going somewhere they decided on, or playing pool upstairs in the breakroom. It was obviously something that was strengthening them as a team, and despite my anti-social tendencies, I really wanted to join them. I don't doubt for a minute that Joel is on the money with this issue.
  • pnathan 15y ago
    Neither do I. While we all need our times off, a team needs to mesh well enough to be able to eat with each other at least a few times a week. If that can't happen, there's something profoundly wrong with the team. If "Joe" doesn't ever want to eat with the team, I would prefer not to work with "Joe", given the choice. I'd like to work with humans, not with "Joe who doesn't want to talk about anything but work". Well, that's how I feel. Others may differ.
• mrcharles 15y ago
  At my last job, I had a really fantastic lunch group -- intelligent, inquisitive, and always wanting to talk shop. It was fantastic, I feel that I learned and grew more as part of the lunch group than with respect to a lot of other things I did at work. At my current job, I'm sad, because generally I don't have anyone to do that with, as most people are only interested in empty socializing. Frankly I'm so uninterested in my current job, I'd rather eat while working and go home that much earlier. Which is sad, but there you have it.
• garyrichardson 15y ago
  I guess I'm just a lone wolf who likes to get things done during lunch. Typically, I go for a walk and get some errands done. Or sit quietly and reflect. Or I'll go have lunch with non-work friends. Occasionally I'll go out with work friends.
• soitgoes 15y ago
  I prefer to grab a sandwich and go for a walk. This was especially true when I was contracting and based in interesting cities that were fun to explore.
• mburney 15y ago
  I'd rather not be compelled to eat with co-workers at lunch. Lunch should be a time to do whatever you want. For things like meeting people/friends outside of work, having some quiet time to read a book, or going to the gym. Some days I don't even feel like eating at lunch, and prefer to have a late lunch in the afternoon. And why the compulsion to sit with people that I already interact with the entire day? Nothing wrong with being social with your co-workers, but it ought to be natural. This isn't kindergarten.
• jfruh 15y ago
  Joel is obviously not aware of the differences between introverts and extroverts, which seems weird for someone who works in a field with a lot of introverts. I'm not down on his idea of eating lunch together - it's probably fun and productive. But if someone spots me eating lunch by myself while reading (a book, a magazine, on my phone, on my computer), it's not because I "don't like people," or, sadder, that I pretend not to like people because I've been rejected socially. It's because I find dealing with people all day somewhat wearying and I enjoy having time to myself doing things that I like, such as catching up on reading I can't do during work hours.
  • alexlmiller 15y ago
    Yes, Joel is COMPLETELY unaware of the differences between introverts and extroverts. Except for the fact that he is an introvert and runs two companies filled with a substantial percentage of introverts. The reason that lunch here works so well is because the people we hire are fun and enjoyable people (even the introverts) so you don't have to pretend to like the other people at the lunch table, you actually do.
    • cicero 15y ago
      That's great, but I think Joel overstates the "problem" of someone eating alone. I like eating with the people I work with, but I also like reading, and sometimes lunch is the only time I have for some pleasure reading. So, sometimes I need a little down time, and I prefer to read and eat by myself rather than eating with my friends. I don't think this makes me someone who hates people or is unpopular.
    • randallsquared 15y ago
      I don't eat by myself nearly every day because I dislike my co-workers -- I actually do like my co-workers, and my job would be a nightmare if I didn't. That doesn't mean that, come lunchtime, I won't nearly always take the opportunity to be by myself (conceptually, even though I'm still surrounded by people). On your assertion that Joel is an introvert: [...] but you'll also see a distressing number of loners eating by themselves. Distressing? Really? I don't think an introvert would say that, and his later assertion that Being in any clique, even if it's just the nerds, is vastly preferable than eating alone. , and the "obligated to pretend" language, seems to indicate that he's an extrovert. I'm not sure if he's claimed to be an introvert, but if so, it's a pretty weird juxtaposition.
• hvs 15y ago
  Eating lunch together (whether to talk technology or just to socialize) is huge for building a cohesive team that works together and talks outside of the lunch room. Especially if you don't work with each other directly on a day-to-day basis, it helps to reinforce that you all work together rather than on separate teams.
• edw519 15y ago
  I have always hated this and probably always will. I have rarely eaten lunch with my work mates. Just a few reasons why: 1. I don't want to talk about work at lunch. 2. I want to get out of the office and get some fresh air. 3. I often want to get away from the very people that Joel suggests spending time with on my break. 4. I'm a "food outlier". I hate pizza, deli, and fast food. I won't eat it away from work. Why should I eat it there? 5. Sometimes I want a beer with my lunch. 6. Sometimes I just want to close my eyes for 5 minutes. 7. If my work mates are talking about something other than work, I'm probably not interested. I'd rather chew razor blades than talk about traffic, weather, casino gambling, baseball, real estate taxes, gun control, politics, or Dancing with the Stars. I'd rather shoot myself than hear anything about their children. 8. If I am going to talk about work, I will want to bitch about the boss. Tough to do if he/she is there. 9. If I am going to talk about work, I want everyone else to talk freely and openly. This never happens. They will bitch about anyone else if they're not there, but when we're all together, they act like everything is just peachy. Phoneys. 10. "Enforced association" is phoney. I'd rather just make my own friends at work or out of work. So what if it appears to be a clique? All that means is that we are humans acting naturally.
  • ry0ohki 15y ago
    Most of the reasons you mentioned are exactly why the "free lunch" perk at a former job began to show me there really is no such thing as "no free lunch". I think Joel has the right idea if you want to inspire a cult-like work environment which is probably very good for getting things done, but I worry that these type of things also cause a group think, as you notice people start sharing the same opinions about everything because of peer pressure.
    • brown9-2 15y ago
      I think what you may have experienced is a different phenomenon related to peer pressuring people to agree with everyone else. I'm not sure that a group of people eating together regularly normally devolves into something that one would describe as "cult-like".
• JCB_K 15y ago
  I remember my first day working at IKEA as a summer job. I was young, I didn't know anyone, I didn't know the culture. So I got my lunch, found an empty spot to sit, and was about to sit down. But I didn't sit down properly before someone came over from a busy table, asking me if I wanted to join them. From then on I realized that the culture was that everybody always eats together there. That way I got to know loads of people, many of whom I otherwise never would've talked to because they'd work in an entirely different department. This is just 1 example of the awesome culture at IKEA.
  • nollidge 15y ago
    IKEA's U.S. factory workers might disagree: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ikea-union-20110410,0,5341610.story http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ikea-union-20110410,0,...
    • nollidge 15y ago
      Downvotes? Seriously? It's a simple statement of fact.
• puls 15y ago
  I think Joel's article glosses over a point that most of the con arguments here don't notice: in order for this to work, you have to set up a group of coworkers who mesh spectacularly well. Fog Creek has pretty obviously done that; it's one of their top priorities. I've worked at companies where lunch is communal and companies where it isn't, and it seems to me that the difference has less to do with personality types and more to do with cohesion. Put differently, the types of teams who want to eat lunch together are the types of teams you should want to be on. The company shouldn't need to enforce it; they should just help to facilitate it.
  • tomstuart 15y ago
    This is unfair. Extroverts are energised by social interaction, but introverts are drained by it, so they're going to find mandatory group lunches tiring and unpleasant in the long term regardless of the cohesion of the group. So perhaps that's what "cohesion" really means in this context: hire a bunch of extroverts. Bully for Joel.
    • antiterra 15y ago
      It's not even that simple. There are introverted people who are largely introverted because they find the dance of formal social interaction puzzling or unrewarding. Once that's taken care of for them, they're perfectly happy interacting with others and crave being social. Then there are sorts who are fine with social interaction but rebel against perceived social obligation or pressure to enjoy or do something. They become angry at this pressure and instead choose to alienate themselves. I don't think I'm necessarily in the last group. However, I bristle at the idea of not being able to have my own personal time to daydream without interruption while I cram food into my fat idiot face.
• nikki9696 15y ago
  Why does Joel hate introverts?
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
• droz 15y ago
  What a crock of shit. This strikes me way too much of the, "I see people doing something I don't do, so there must be something wrong with them." mentality. I like leaving the office. Go outside for a good long, quiet walk along the creek to think about non-work stuff. Or going home and enjoying some left overs. When I come back to the office, I'm fully refreshed and ready to jump right back into things.
• barkingcat 15y ago
  I don't mind lunching together with a bunch of people if there is no pressure to join in with the "conversation" or the "group activity" at the table. Sometimes I want to read the Bible at lunch. I don't mind if we talk shop about which chapters we're reading, which Biblical story best fits our challenges at work, or maybe even discuss differing viewpoints from differing faiths, etc, but a lot of times reading the Bible requires some personal concentration and contemplation. In that case, I wouldn't mind eating at a big table - just don't expect me to join in talking about the latest movies, or which MacBook Pro is better to buy, or which web server we should use. For me, I can handle reading in solitude while also being in the middle of a group. If the group of coworkers can understand and accept that idea, then I'm all for eating together. However, if my religion makes other people at the table uncomfortable, I'd rather sit and lunch on my own.
• GrandMasterBirt 15y ago
  I am right now unable to have lunch with co-workers. I've always done the group lunch and would always make every possible effort to get as many people involved as possible. The problem is that at some point, I simply run out of people :( I am not that much of a social person who comes up to random people and socializes with them very well, so its really hard for me now, I'm not getting my daily dose of talking to people, its maddening. Talking about work or not is irrelevant. What is important is that the conversation is completely friendly, enjoyable by all, not stressful, and does not in any way require immediate action. Also it means that at any point we can go off on a completely different direction talking one moment about building software and the next about how cats decide that your keyboard is a backscratcher. To be honest, the lack of socializing is demoralizing and depressing :(
• blhack 15y ago
  Lunch is also a really important part of my job. I run the IT department for a fairly small company (~200 employees). Going to lunch with people affords me the opportunity to hear them complain about their job. Sometimes, although they might not realize, their complaints are things that I can fix for them. They're my best source of ideas for projects. "GUH! I keep asking $so_and_so for new $office_supply, but I guess we're out of it, WTF!?" Hmm...maybe we need an inventory tracking system for the office supplies? "$so_and_so is gone today, and she is the only one with the $excel_spreadsheet on her computer. It sucks because I can't get ahold of her and I need $excel_spreadsheet!" Well how can we solve this? Why aren't they using the file server for this stuff? And so on.
  • rodh257 15y ago
    While the ideas for projects is a good one, do you ever get sick of hearing peoples complaints in social situations? Nothing is more annoying than when you are having a few Friday beers and all people want to do is tell you how crap their computer is expecting you to promise them a new one by Monday.
    • ora600 15y ago
      Oh, that was my favorite thing about working at HP. The conversations! "Where do you work?" "HP" "Oh, I have a problem with my printer/laptop" "Actually, I work on superdome specific optimizations for the HPUX compiler." "So why does printer ink cost so much?" ....
  • vacri 15y ago
    heh, 200 = 'small' :)
• cletus 15y ago
  This is something that varies depending on scale. I work for Google in one of the larger offices (New York). Here we have several cafeterias. You go at anytime (in the meal times), take what you want, eat it there or eat it at your desk. You can eat with team mates, by yourself, with friends from other teams, with random strangers or whatever. I love this for several reasons: 1. There is obviously the cost aspect (not having to pay for lunch) but for me this is probably the least important part; 2. It saves so much time. Other places I've worked, going out to lunch means 30-60 minutes for a lunch break. Here you can eat and be back at your desk, if you want to, within a few minutes. Waiting for elevators, waiting in line, etc are all such incredible time wasters; 3. When choosing where to go and what to get for lunch, you're basically asking me to make decisions I don't care about. This I hate. Here I simply choose what cafeteria to go (typically the closest one) and take from the selection. I don't have to decide about where to go, what to get. I simply taken what's (generously) offered. (3) for me is probably the most important. This one applies to software and hardware too and is (IMHO) one of the key reasons for Apple's success: Apple is unafraid and unapologetic about making most decisions for you. These decisions are right for most people most of the time. Joel had an old blog post on this (probably the famous "Controlling Your Environment Makes You Happy" one that everyone should read) that said something like this: every option you give someone forces them to make a decision. I would go on to add that every decision has a cognitive cost, which simply annoys the decider if they're deciding on something they don't really care about. Now, on a smaller scale I can see work lunches being a problem. If you need to be there at a set time, have limited opportunity for mingling or your team is so small that if you don't want to get stuck with someone (eg you don't like them or you simply don't want to talk about work). So I see edw519's point. On a sufficiently large scale however, provided meals are fantastic.
  • smackfu 15y ago
    Do you go home earlier because of the time saved?
    • Shengster 15y ago
      I'm curious about this too. I'd imagine the motivation for saving this much time would be to go home earlier to see your kids or something. Otherwise, I'd rather spend those thirty minutes interacting with my co-workers and relaxing.
• TimothyBurgess 15y ago
  Test comment. Please ignore.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• wolter 15y ago
  I hate it when people assume that everyone else thinks the same way they do. Just because you get lonely eating alone doesn't mean everybody does. "Being in any clique, even if it’s just the nerds, is vastly preferable than eating alone." This is just bullshit. I don't want to be part of a clique. Or a group. Or anything of the sort. My lunch time is a time to get AWAY from people and recharge. Take that away from me and I get stressed out and my productivity suffers massively. "For loners and geeks, finding people to eat with in the cafeteria at school can be a huge source of stress." For a lot of us, feeling pressured into "socializing" because some bigwig decided that it's good for us is a huge source of stress. Just leave us be! Please! It's my time, so let me do my thing. Alone.
• gdulli 15y ago
  Joel's free to want to eat lunch however he wants, but who is he to decide that people who are happy to eat alone are "loners", "don't like people" or are pretending not to be sad?
• sterling 15y ago
  I am 49 years old and I work as freelance consultant on e-commerce projets. Honestly, it is impossible for me to work (which means mostly sitting) for 3-4 hours in the morning and 4-5 hours in the afternoon and also sit during lunch. If I do that I will either fall asleep or be unproductive for most of the afternoon. At lunch I spend at least one hour walking, running or biking. At the least I must get outside, whatever the weather.
• impendia 15y ago
  It seems there's an obvious middle ground which doesn't seem to have been mentioned by Joel or anyone else. Being compelled to have lunch with colleagues every day sucks. Sometimes you are feeling cranky, want some fresh air, need to run errands, or have a hot date. Not having the opportunity to lunch with colleagues also sucks. It provides a great opportunity for employees to get to know each other, make friends, and informally discuss company business. Seems the onus is on the company to make lunch pleasant, and perhaps to steer newcomers into the middle of the crowd. After that, create the kind of environment where no one feels compelled to do anything, but employees want to eat with each other at least a lot of the time.
  • r00fus 15y ago
    One compromise is like one of my previous teams did: One day of the week is team lunch day (and a longer lunch at that). This isn't so quotidien, but still has a bonding effect, diffusing group tensions while satisfying the need for self-time. I think daily mandatory would be weird, but I'd be up for 1-2 days a week where the team meets over food.
    • frossie 15y ago
      One day of the week is team lunch day (and a longer lunch at that) There is nothing better than a 2-hour team lunch in a park, on nice sunny day. You don't need to do it every day, or even every week, but it has many of the advantages without robbing people of their personal time (which is what lunch break is meant to be).
• mmagin 15y ago
  I like eating lunch with my coworkers some of the time. (Maybe once a week.) It's good team building. However, I'm an introvert, and I pair program nearly every day. This tends to leave me wanting a nice break in the middle of the day where I can have some time alone. Also, my idea of a good/healthy lunch usually doesn't intersect with any sort of work-provided lunch, if such a thing is being provided.
• neworbit 15y ago
  If this is a useful part of corporate culture here (it rarely is) that's one of the first reasonable arguments I've heard AGAINST telecommuting. In general, I think I'd opt for a telecapable workforce, but there's certainly some reasonability to adhoc meetings at lunchtime.
• helwr 15y ago
  wtf
• kloncks 15y ago
  For those that are against spending time eating lunch with your co-workers, the following Tina Fey quote comes to mind (paraphrased. not exact): Never work with or hire someone who you wouldn't want to run into at 3am.
  • oinksoft 15y ago
    I thought we'd all long since done away with the idealism that we can pick and choose every detail about our work lives.
    • kloncks 15y ago
      Well, this at least applies if you're starting a company from scratch. You can hire someone that might be a genius...but not a team-player or might hurt the dynamic. That's where I was going with this.
• jaysonelliot 15y ago
  I rarely get time to eat lunch. When I do, it's a precious 30 or 60 minutes of solace where I can actually get away from people and enjoy some time to myself. Why on earth would I want to spend it jammed shoulder to shoulder with people chewing and talking about work?
• sklivvz1971 15y ago
  I so wholeheartedly and completely agree with Joel. Things that really "make" a team: 1) Having lunch together 2) Having booze together 3) Going out together regularly
  • tomx 15y ago
    What about introverted people, who will do good work, but prefer their own company at lunch time?
    • cpeterso 15y ago
      Or people who don't drink?
    • sklivvz1971 15y ago
      > What about introverted people People that have difficulties socializing will probably benefit as well from a more informal setting. Some other people are so introverted that they will not -- but then they probably are not going to be good team players for that reason, no?
  • durga 15y ago
    +1 for (2) ;-)
• kaitnieks 15y ago
  You can achieve the same effect with smoking pauses: 1. your mouth isn't stuffed and you can and want to talk during smoking. It's reflexive - as soon as you light the cigarette you're looking for a conversation; 2. you have more pauses per day; 3. the pauses are shorter; Are there any downsides? Well, some say it's unhealthy... Anyway, I'm not smoking anymore, but back when I was, we solved lots of problems and came up with tons of ideas while smoking.
  • thenduks 15y ago
    Yea I think you hit the problem with that at the end there. Besides killing you it's also: 1. Expensive 2. Stinky 3. Addictive :)
• tomx 15y ago
  Do any other introverts feel this arrangement would affect them negatively? Subjected to this setup, it's likely I'd perform worse. I work with some loud opinionated people all day, and look forward to my quiet walk around a park each day. Often I'm walking on complicated problems, and the last thing I need is an hour of listening to pointless arguments about movies or whatever.
• pauljonas 15y ago
  You know, my 1st instinct is to disagree vehemently with the sentiment here. But if I reflect upon past job experiences, more often we (at least a good bit of the team) ate lunch together, the greater and more harmonious the team experience was.
  • logic 15y ago
    Ah, but which is the cause, and which the effect? Was it lunching together that made you a harmonious team? Or was it the good teamwork that lead to wanting to spend free time together as well as professional time?
    • pauljonas 15y ago
      Maybe it was a bit of both. Kind of like a snowball rolling downhill…
• msg 15y ago
  From "You and Your Research" by Dick Hamming: Now Alan Chynoweth mentioned that I used to eat at the physics table. I had been eating with the mathematicians and I found out that I already knew a fair amount of mathematics; in fact, I wasn't learning much. The physics table was, as he said, an exciting place, but I think he exaggerated on how much I contributed. It was very interesting to listen to Shockley, Brattain, Bardeen, J. B. Johnson, Ken McKay and other people, and I was learning a lot. But unfortunately a Nobel Prize came, and a promotion came, and what was left was the dregs. Nobody wanted what was left. Well, there was no use eating with them! Over on the other side of the dining hall was a chemistry table. I had worked with one of the fellows, Dave McCall; furthermore he was courting our secretary at the time. I went over and said, "Do you mind if I join you?" They can't say no, so I started eating with them for a while. And I started asking, "What are the important problems of your field?" And after a week or so, "What important problems are you working on?" And after some more time I came in one day and said, "If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?" I wasn't welcomed after that; I had to find somebody else to eat with! That was in the spring. In the fall, Dave McCall stopped me in the hall and said, "Hamming, that remark of yours got underneath my skin. I thought about it all summer, i.e. what were the important problems in my field. I haven't changed my research," he says, "but I think it was well worthwhile." And I said, "Thank you Dave," and went on. I noticed a couple of months later he was made the head of the department. I noticed the other day he was a Member of the National Academy of Engineering. I noticed he has succeeded. I have never heard the names of any of the other fellows at that table mentioned in science and scientific circles. They were unable to ask themselves, "What are the important problems in my field?"
  • alphakappa 15y ago
    And that's Hamming of the Hamming Window and Hamming Code fame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamming
• bmccormack 15y ago
  One of the first things I noticed when I started working at Fog Creek is that most everyone in the office is always working and it stays pretty quiet. We rarely have meetings and individuals are able to remain focused on getting things done. The office is generally quiet except for lunch. Lunch gets pretty loud when Fog Creek and Stack Exchange gather around two long tables to eat great food. Sometimes we talk about work, but most of the time it's off-topic. Occasionally people eat at their desks, but most of the time everyone is together for lunch. The people I work with are incredible and I'm excited to join them for lunch every single day. Perhaps I get an extra boost at lunchtime because I'm an extrovert, but I think even the introverts enjoy this time together with great people. I see a lot of comments here about how awful it is that introverts are forced to sit with others at lunch. I suppose that's possible, but I don't get the slightest impression from anyone that they'd rather be eating alone. Since most developers are shielded from distractions most of the day and are heads-down in code, lunch allows them to connect socially with other people at the company. Maybe you'd have to experience lunch with great coworkers day-in and day-out to understand Joel's perspective. I couldn't agree more with what he wrote.
• yannk 15y ago
  I thought Joel stopped blogging?
• mhb 15y ago
  An alternative might be afternoon tea.
• bconway 15y ago
  I use my lunchtime for personal pursuits, like reading articles by Joel Spolsky.
• justin 15y ago
  Interesting that there is so much anti-company lunch sentiment on HN. At Justin.tv we serve lunch (and dinner!) every week day. Originally, when we were much smaller, it started as a time saving measure (it was a lot quicker to get back to work than if everyone went out). Now, I see it as much more about giving everyone a chance to hang out and eat, and as a cost benefit to employees. If you don't want to eat at the big lunch tables, you don't have to. If you want to go somewhere else, you're welcome to. People do meet friends for lunch elsewhere, or bring them to the office for lunch. At lunch, people rarely seem to talk about work (or at least, in a specific "x,y,z tasks need to be done" kind of way), and generally talk more about topics I can only really describe as technology and liberal arts. We don't really talk sports or reality tv, as pretty much no one in the office watches. After lunch usually a few people play Street Fighter 4 for 20-30 minutes or so in our common area which adjoins the lunch room.
  • k7d 15y ago
    Indeed, I'm equally surprised. At my last startup we also had a voluntary group lunch. I think it was quite critical to maintain a good spirit during rapid ups and downs common to most startups. Imho absolute loners are dangerous to startups.
  • nsfmc 15y ago
    i think part of what's going on here is that everyone is taking the position of disliking a mandate to eat with your coworkers, which is arguably a troubling thing. When i interned at pentagram's ny office, one of the nice things was lunch, which was served tue-thu. It was totally optional and you could eat with members from your team or others, whatever. It sounds similar to what you're describing and i thought it worked really well, i liked it, and it always bummed me out a little when it wasn't there on those bookend days. sometimes i'd be busy during lunch and there might be something waiting in the kitchen or i'd go out to eat with a friend. I don't think it really works if you force this sorta thing, but if the food is compelling (i really liked the cheese, personally) and everyone's on good terms, i think the staff lunch works really well. the exception here is if there's a toxic team member or individual, which i think really sours the experience and which many people may be also reacting to. When i worked as a line cook, staff lunches were also equally gratifying, but for entirely different reasons.
• justin 15y ago
  Interesting that there is so much anti-company lunch sentiment on HN. At Justin.tv we serve lunch (and dinner!) every week day. Originally, when we were much smaller, it started as a time saving measure (it was a lot quicker to get back to work than if everyone went out). Now, I see it as much more about giving everyone a chance to hang out and eat, and as a cost benefit to employees. If you don't want to eat at the big lunch tables, you don't have to. If you want to go somewhere else, you're welcome to. People do meet friends for lunch elsewhere, or bring them to the office for lunch. At lunch, people rarely seem to talk about work (or at least, in a specific "x,y,z tasks need to be done" kind of way), and generally talk more about topics I can only really describe as technology and liberal arts. We don't really talk sports or reality tv, as pretty much no one in the office watches. After lunch usually a few people play Street Fighter 4 for 20-30 minutes or so in our common area which adjoins the lunch room.
• balinvadasz 15y ago
  I think this is very important and not because of the fact that you're more likely to talk shop when eating with your team. What is more valuable IMHO is that you'll get to know your teammates better as _people_: what they like, their hobbies, their tastes their culture (if you're in such an team) etc. It's insanely interesting and valuable: it will make communication much smoother and misunderstandings much less frequent. A team needs to gel and having common experiences outside of strict "work" settings is really important for that. BTW, this can't be forced but can be facilitated by creating the right conditions and I think that's what Joel's post is about. One more thing: having lunch with people only loosely connected to your day-to-day activities is also very interesting and can lead to serendipitous insights about things totally in your area of expertise.
• mikegreenspan 15y ago
  What is the best way to meet new people during lunch at a company cafeteria? This summer, I visited a friend at Google and stayed for lunch (the food is incredible, better than most five-star restaurants btw). That day I noticed the same problem this article highlights. Either groups are meeting during lunch, or the remaining "loners" are reading the latest tech news on their computers and appear completely unapproachable. So if you don't want to eat alone and want to make new friends, what is the optimal way to overcome these barriers?
  • cpeterso 15y ago
    I'm in a similar situation. I will soon working from a satellite office. Few to none of my new office mates will actually work on my team. I won't receive "welcome to the team" introductions and none of my office mates will have shared work topics to discuss. Some Google cafeterias have tables labeled for people interested in meeting new people. Lunch can be easier when you know that anyone sitting at those tables is open to new people joining their conversations.
    • danenania 15y ago
      That's a cool idea. It would also be cool to see this kind of thing more often at cafés or restaurants. I'm introverted, but I also like meeting people and would often prefer a decent conversation to eating or hanging out alone. I assume plenty of others are the same, but the threat of awkwardness/rejection keeps people from striking something up. This seems like a nice low key way to get around that. I did some backpacking in Europe on my own several years ago, and one of the better experiences was a hostel in Prague that provided cheap home cooked meals in a dining room with big group tables. Made it really easy to meet people and was the time when everyone made plans for the day/night, so I always had the option of attaching to a group if I wanted to. I was only there for a week, but the group of travelers there at that time actually became fairly close knit, and I'm certain it was primarily due to the group meals.
• jowiar 15y ago
  I think taking Joel's thoughts on lunch in isolation from his thoughts on workspace design is a mistake. In my experience, when my workspace has been more quiet/isolated, I've enjoyed lunch as an opportunity to get to know colleagues, wrap my head around what's going on, and otherwise get my quota of human contact for the day. On the other hand, in more "social" work environments, i.e. stereotypical startup open floor plan, lunch is a nice opportunity to escape, walk in the park, watch kids chasing pigeons, reset my brain, process the morning, and figure out the rest of the day. As Joel is a huge advocate of private offices in the work environment, the social lunch is a natural compliment to that.
• csomar 15y ago
  Being a geek and of an extremely different mind and culture than most of my peers, I usually find myself alone. I just fail to integrate since I'm quite different. Being alone, at lunch for example, was very stressful. Lately, I found a friend of the same mind (or close) and he also don't succeed to integrate smoothly into the community (although better than me, but has a girl friend). I then discovered that he does spend a good amount of his time alone. He'll just get a coffee and sit their browsing on his smart phone. After that, I take it easy finding myself alone, even if there are lot of people near me gathering, talking and laughing... It doesn't bother me any more, I'm actually better off with it.
• SebMortelmans 15y ago
  I always felt there is something special about sharing food with others, it gives a sense of bonding rarely seen elsewhere. For building up a great company culture, food plays in my opinion a pretty big role on many layers.
• DavidMcLaughlin 15y ago
  Cause/effect. I'm sure anyone who has ever worked in a team where things weren't going so well has tried the whole "let's go to lunch together!" thing but it's never a solution. Good teams tend to eat lunch together = true. Good teams are good because they eat lunch together = false. A good team evolves from a consistent and careful approach to hiring and organisation and when a manager groups people together based on common principals, approaches and motivating factors. Or they form themselves when people who realise they see eye to eye decide to team up and build stuff. If people who don't agree on the basics or just plain don't get along get together and try to be productive, there will always be that loss of focus and resentment when compromises have to made. Getting together for one hour a day to make small talk doesn't change that.
  • rubergly 15y ago
    A bad team isn't going to be made good because of lunch. But I think the point of the article is that it can make a good team (full of very skilled people who are unenthused about their work experience) into a great time (full of very skilled people who enjoy spending time with each other much more). And sure, a group that constantly bickers isn't going to instantly transform because of spending time together, but it could build enough of a community to bring together groups that get along fine but aren't that friendly.
    • roc 15y ago
      Or you could turn functional professional relationships sour when people inevitably discuss the non-work hot-button topics. All it takes is one off-color joke. And good luck with your 'one big happy lunch' when there's a rift.
• dabeeeenster 15y ago
  Does Joel pay his staff for attending the lunches?
• thenduks 15y ago
  Unfortunately, eating lunch with a group of people every day tends to get very expensive. You either need to be working at a big company with a cafeteria (pass) or for a fancy place like FogCreek, otherwise it's $10-20/day to eat out all the time. Besides, I like to swing home and hang out with the cats sometimes, or work on a side project at my desk, or whatever.
• dwc 15y ago
  At my first real programming job we (developers) went out to lunch together every day. We went out to restaurants, not fast food. Lunch often took 1.5 hours and sometimes 2 hours. Our boss came with us. We were a small company, so there were only four of five of us, usually. Sometimes we talked about work, and sometimes not. When we did, we often discussed higher level stuff rather than quotidian matters. We had our boss there, so anything we decided at lunch was ready to go ahead with. Back at the office we almost never had to have meetings, because we didn't need them. This alone is pure gold. Outside of work some of us were actively friends, and others not. But this really didn't change lunch. Nobody was forced to go to lunch, and there was no unwritten rule that non-lunchers were outsiders. It's that lunch was pleasurable, relaxing, with good food, and we naturally talked about what we had in common. Since that time it's never quite reached that level, but I've come close occasionally. If you've never experienced it I imagine that it might be hard to grasp how nice it can be. I think some of what I've said above is inline with what Joel is talking about, but it's a slightly different take. Make of it what you will.
  • phillijw 15y ago
    That's an interesting take on it. I can't imagine spending 1.5 hours eating lunch every day. If I'm not home from work after about 8 to 8.5 hours on a regular basis I would probably want to quit.
• abecedarius 15y ago
  This article could have extolled shared lunches without othering the people who sometimes eat alone as sad and less than human.
• masterponomo 15y ago
  I usually need to pinch a mega loaf right around lunchtime. I would love to do it earlier, but getting ready and commuting all use up too much time in the morning. Call me anti-social, but I treasure the "me time" that allows me to get it done w/o an unexplained long absence from my desk. Likewise, if I were expected to show up at the communal lunch table, I'm sure I would always be late and be met with snide remarks such as "everything come out all right?" and "out with the old in with the new, eh?" and other such witticisms. No, give me my very special session in the restroom followed by some time with my Kindle and a sack lunch in a quiet grotto, and I'm OK with the forced togetherness of the rest of the workday.
• hinchley 15y ago
  It seems Joel finds it difficult to believe that people can eat alone without being lonely. I am an introvert that is rejuvenated by spending time alone. I like eating lunch by myself. It helps clear my mind. The idea that new starters are "not allowed to sit by themselves in a corner" is draconian, and in my case, it would prove counterproductive. It would make me feel like I was back in school, being told where to sit by my teacher. This is not the mindset you want to instil in your employees. I think the best approach is to provide a working environment where people have the opportunity to gather together. Those that want to socialize can do so, and those that prefer periods of solitude aren't made to feel guilty for spending time alone.
• s00pcan 15y ago
  Video about snacks/dinner at Valve: http://www.dump.com/2011/04/24/valve-behind-the-scenes-the-snack-bar-video/ http://www.dump.com/2011/04/24/valve-behind-the-scenes-the-s...
• mklappstuhl 15y ago
  Well, when I read the Twitter headline I was sure that this is a link I'd like to share with my coworkers. After reading it however it seems not to have much of content. Some other reasons beside the obvious social ones: 1. If you aren't working on the same project you can use these lunch-discussions to generate ideas. 2. You can ask for feedback on any descision from people that are not actually involved in your project. 3. If you are working at a company where you can actually influence the company's principles, rules and processes you can make your job even better by improving the company's behavior. Which is far more fun if you are not doing it alone. There are probably more reasons. This article is really missing some substance beside the psychological impact of social interactions. Common lunch can also provide value to the company itself.
• luke_osu 15y ago
  My experience has usually been that lunch with coworkers is awkward. Most people just sit on their iphones and no one really talks. The conversations seem forced. Maybe I have worked at the wrong places but this is my experience at the places I have been.
• projectileboy 15y ago
  As @paul says: "limited life experience + overgeneralization = advice"
• mgcross 15y ago
  I spend my lunch hour at the gym. Since I've started this routine, I workout more frequently, feel like my workday is shorter, and love not having my workout hanging over my head after hours (when I need the time for helping kids with homework). If I don't go to the gym, I'll run errands or work on my own projects. I get enough socialization during meetings.
• mdpm 15y ago
  The best place I ever worked at was small: ~7 people. We ate together every day. Every day of the week, it was someone's duty to make lunch. I mean that, make it. You started an hour before lunch, went to the kitchen and made a meal. Generally a full hot meal. We got every variety you could think of - people enjoyed the time out creating someting different, something else for their co-workers to enjoy, and it Worked. We got to sit outside, in the garden, next to the pool, and eat lunch (and yes, there was beer). And if it was Friday, well. Then we started a fire, and had some more beer. And there may have been instruments. And our respective children running about. Not bad for a bespoke dev company. Not bad at all. To address some of the other points raised in the comments - No-one was forced to be there, if they wanted to go out for lunch they could. Few did, and rarely. More important than an individual's 'desire to associate' is whether they fit in. If they don't, they likely don't belong on that team. Ditto for if they can't communicate honestly (positively or negatively) about/with peers/managers.
• dools 15y ago
  I can't stand the sound of other people eating. I would gladly eat lunch with my co-workers if I was allowed to wear headphones.
• spolsky 15y ago
  To those who thought that team lunch is "mandatory," you misread the article. It's not mandatory. You can go out instead. You can go to the gym instead. You can hide in your office and "free your mind" instead. You can bring your friends or family to our lunch. You can go out instead. You can take a picnic. You can come in after lunch and work late instead of working early. I don't even think there's social pressure to go to lunch. People do because they enjoy it. Sorry if this wasn't clear from the article. It's not a weird cult where I'm forcing introverts into cult-like hanging out with people that they hate or already spend too much time with. That would be inconsistent with our goal of making a humane, friendly, and fun workplace, which was the point of the article. We very rarely talk about work at lunch. I've never met anyone who visited us for lunch and thought that it was weird. I have met some pretty anti-social people in my time and some of them work for us and somehow they don't seem to mind sitting at the table during lunch and listening to everyone else enjoying the conversations.
  • metachris 15y ago
    That’s why when new people start work at the company, they’re not allowed to sit off by themselves in a corner. Sounds like pretty strong social pressure to me.
    • mattmanser 15y ago
      Trouble with words on a page is that you can't convey all that other stuff. When I read that I read it as jokey and also a camaraderie thing on the first day. It sounded good to me. Other people are reading it as a dictat. It sounded bad to them. But Joel just explained what he meant explicitly, you can't keep on challenging him after that.
      • narag 15y ago
        Hmmm.... he said that people has misread the article. Yes, later he apologize if he hasn't made himself clear. I think that most of us that got infuriated by the article have had different experiences: bore or jerk coworkers, crowded offices, unhealthy food... the reasons that edw519 has enumerated. Joel is a very influential person. And the perspective that some boss in a not-so-nice environment as Fog Creek understand the "policy" like we have and "copy" it is really really scary.
• tt 15y ago
  Shameless plug for my own startup: for any San Francisco based company, Munchery is offering $50 off for any lunch or dinner order over $200. We have multiple professional chefs who serve the entire San Francisco, cooking only sustainable, locally grown ingredients. Please ping me if you want to chat first.
• Andys 15y ago
  This might work better where people have their own offices with doors that close. Where I work we are all in one room and so constantly sharing banter on and off all day.
• Eagleman99 15y ago
  I've often felt ostracized at my employer just for not following the rite/folklore of lunch together. Joel has a conflict of interest. As owner of course he stands to benefit if his employees went for lunch together, because inevitably they'd be talking about work, maybe even solving work-related problems in the process. While lunch is a great occasion for socializing - it'd be best to be up to the individual on how to spent that time.
  • mkramlich 15y ago
    You nailed it. I think Joel as a business owner likes to have all his staff eat lunch together, because it helps "build team" and lets him evaluate all of them further in an alternate setting. It's beneficial for him. But it's not necessarily the best thing for each individual employee.
• alienfluid 15y ago
  Interesting read, though as always, a little extreme. Eating lunch with co-workers 2-3 times a week is sufficient - sometimes you have a life outside of work too! Also, I can vouch for the fact that cafeterias at Microsoft are NOT cheap - quite the opposite actually. You can get a better deal almost anywhere outside campus. LOL @ "Excuse me, I’d love to introduce myself to you, but it’s very important that I update my cabbage."
• statenjason 15y ago
  My lunches are spent at the gym. Nothing helps me focus on work better than getting away for an hour or so.
• mkramlich 15y ago
  Joel's somewhat right and somewhat wrong. He's both. And for the record, I'll say right now, without reading even reading it yet, that whatever edw519 says on this topic is going to be golden and I'll agree with it. ;) With that said, as I was reading the article, I kept thinking to myself, "The conditions where what Joel is saying hold true, and have the most benefit, are ones where you have a bunch of young adults, say early 20's or late teens, with lots of energy, lots of free time, a fairly simple life outside of work, little roots, and a sort of bright-eyed and arguably naive sense of wonder about things. Because then, by golly, you're just gonna lurv having lunch in a cafeteria with all your other young coworkers because you can goof around and talk about the latest Ruby PHP AJAX Agile blah blah blah blah or pop culture thing." And so I keep reading, and then there's this photograph of, ostensibly, their staff at the cafeteria table. And I see a lot of early 20's or late teens folks. Nailed it. Case closed. Which isn't to say that older adults wouldn't like it. They do, clearly, sometimes. But when you're older and/or more experienced, or have a wider variety of interests, or more demands on your time, you're much more likely to want to either (a) spend time with friends/family during that period (meet them?), or (b) zone/veg out, or (c) knock out some non-work chores (appointment scheduling, calling people back, etc.), and so on. And bantering about tech stuff, again, further, in every spare moment, really grows old after a while. Once a geek, always a geek, but after you've done it for a decade or more, day in, day out, as a day job, a lot of people want to "claw back" as much non-tech/non-geek stuff then can into their lives, wherever they can find it. Speaking from direct experience anyway: doing mass grubs with all my corporate coworkers was kinda fun in my early 20's, but really loses its attraction by your 30's and beyond. Many people are just not that interesting to hang out with. And geeks, especially younger geeks, are often associated with annoying conversations and choice of topics -- though they usually mellow out with age.
• yason 15y ago
  While some people certainly enjoy it, this kind of culture might be horrible for others. I would detest it; I like to choose who I spend my spare time with, and for lunch that's often alone. Sometimes I go and have lunch with someone I consider a friend. Being just the two of us at least opens the window for good discussions. Nothing against coworkers, really. But it's hard to comfortably talk about anything else than work or perhaps some impersonal superficialities with people who aren't your friends in the deepest sense of the word. And I certainly do mind talking about work or impersonal superficialities when I'm supposed to have a nice time off to enjoy some food. It takes a special group where all members can talk openly about themselves without boring or irritating others; not going to happen at work. One knows a friend when one sees one, and they're rare to come by. So the situation where most of your coworkers would also happen to be your friends is nearly impossible unless you only have one or two coworkers. I have one friend at work, another who's a very good acquaintance, but often I just hook up with some other friend not from where I work.
• torpor 15y ago
  Hooray for the Judeo-Christian bias in this article. You're a "loner" if you just want to sit by yourself and eat, or a "member" if you hang with a clique .. Sheesh.
• jrs235 15y ago
  Points 8 and 9 are a result of not communicating and acting assertively. Stop partaking in, allowing, and accepting aggressive, passive, and passive-aggressive behavior and communication. This is what the higher ups in a company need to foster. I highly suggest reading "Life Would Be Easy If It Weren't for Other People" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803968655/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=j02-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0803968655 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803968655/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
• oddthink 15y ago
  Huh. I've never worked somewhere where people do anything other than grab some food and eat it at their desks. Who has time to actually go out for lunch? One advantage of the open, trading-floor layout is that you can chat with the people around you, if you want.
• ScreaminScott 15y ago
  I'm glad I found you all, 'cause I so desperately wanted to comment on Joel's post, but his discussion group is closed. I'm one of those people who eats lunch alone everyday, mostly just to take a break from work and catch up on my reading. So the statement that bothered me the most was this one: "Maybe they’re reading a book or checking their email while they eat so they don’t look sad" I don't understand why so many people think that reading a book is only something you do, when you don't have anything else better to do. I read 2-3 books a month and lunchtime is when I get a vast majority of my reading done. It annoys me to no end when people interrupt me because they think I’m “lonely”. No, I’m READING! If I was looking for conversation, the book would be closed and I would be looking around to make eye contact. What part of the whole nose-in-a-book-with-a-totally-engrossed-expression do you not understand? Having said that, I do think Joel simply makes the office environment conducive to eating together. I just hope he doesn't look down on people who don't take advantage of it.
• EGreg 15y ago
  My, this sparked a lot of discussion. When I worked at a company, I used lunch as a chance to go out into the sun and maybe meet a random nice girl. Don't date people at work, they say ... and they're probably right. Sometimes I would invite my co-workers to a new place. Why eat in the same cafeteria all the time? I basically used lunch as a social building time. but that's just me, I'm kind of bored just eating by myself.