Why I eat alone and probably you should too • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#21

Post by HackyGeeky » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:11 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #18

Holeinthewall wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like lot of food to me :) any other ideas ?

Well, when I was at Cisco there were a lot of ways of meeting new (and interesting?) employees. Many employees kept internal blogs on things they were working on (including CEO Chambers). Employees also had keywords for things they liked to do or were good at (C#, starcraft, hiking, investing, etc would be someone's keywords). There were also a lot of mailing lists to search to find people who liked to do things toge…

Thanks ! you just gave me a great idea !!

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#22

Post by maukdaddy » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:15 PM UTC

This is absolutely terrible advice. Lunch is the ideal opportunity to expand your social network, make connections, learn from others, etc. It is by definition a small-ish block of time and if you're not feeling particularly talkative you can just concentrate on your food.

Getting to know colleagues from different parts of the business will greatly expand future career opportunities. Lunch is the best way to do this, followed by happy hours and other after work activities.

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#23

Post by theprodigy » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:17 PM UTC

Lunch and Dinner with friends just keeps me sane. I work so hard and intense during the work day that meals with friends is a great change of pace and keeps me from burning out.

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#24

Post by jessewmc » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:21 PM UTC

I have just recently given this up, it's a bad habit I've had for years. I wasn't enjoying my food, or doing good work. If I don't need a break at lunch I haven't been using my _other_ time effectively.

Eating alone with just my food and thoughts or socializing have both improved my work output and mood.

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#25

Post by Timmy_C » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:33 PM UTC

I feel like this article and others which mention Tim Ferris start with a premise that isn't true for all people. They assume that 100% of our time is our own and we are free to use it as we choose.

For myself, I find that large portions of my time belong to someone else; my family, my job, my church. And once I carve out that time for others I am often left with only a couple hours here or there. And it seems laborious to fill that time with what would otherwise be considered work.

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#26

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:44 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#27

Post by acangiano » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:44 PM UTC

Dear OP, it's not so much about what you know. It's about who you know. Had I spent half of my programming hours networking with people, I'd be richer, healthier, and happier today. And I say this as someone who really loves programming.

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#28

Post by jimmyjazz14 » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:47 PM UTC

Personally I have found that if I relax and enjoy life when I can, I get a lot more done when I do decide to work on a personal (or work related) project.

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#29

Post by KirinDave » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:51 PM UTC

Perhaps he could spend some of this conserved time learning to write at least a 10th grade level. This piece is so mangled it's difficult to read. Our strategic reserve of commas is being single-handedly depleted by this man.

Re: Why I eat alone and probably you should too

#30

Post by lkrubner » Tue, Oct 19, 2010, 4:52 PM UTC

HackyGeeky wrote: post #5

lkrubner wrote: post #4

If the author wants to use his lunch break to work on his side projects, then, more power to him. Personally, I like to segment my free time by month, rather than hour, but I realize a lot of people do not have the freedom to do that. I would rather have an 8 month contract job during which I work 60 hours a week, and then I have 4 months to work on my own projects. It takes me days to get my mind into a new project,…

"I would rather have an 8 month contract job during which I work 60 hours a week, and then I have 4 months to work on my own projects." That sounds interesting, is this kind of schedule widely prevalent among contractors ? Maybe I've been working at a job for too long to know this...

Partly it depends on the business cycle. From 2003 to late 2008 I was offered far more work than I could accept, so I felt free to turn down whatever I wanted to, confident there would be more. And in that situation, I preferred to overwork for stretches, and then claim whole months for personal projects. That was a personal preference of mine.

Since the onset of the recession, picking up work has taken slightly more effort, though I've been lucky in that corporations seem more interested now in developing with some of the web frameworks that became available for PHP, and I have a track record with frameworks like Symfony.