Joel has a new post up on Joel on Software talking about his take on lunch and why its important for companies to think about it.
Joel Spolsky: Lunch
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Joel Spolsky: Lunch
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Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#2How 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?
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#3I'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.
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#4While 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.
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#5It'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)
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#6How 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?
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.
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#7I 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!
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#8How 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?
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..
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#9At 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.
Re: Joel Spolsky: Lunch
#10At 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.