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Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

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Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#41

Post by mikejchin »

We've been experimenting with voting systems in order to decide where to eat. We weren't sure which system was the fairest, so we built apps that used plurality, probabilistic, instant-runoff, and preferential voting. It reached the point where we were voting on which voting system to use!

The system we settled on was a modified Borda count (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count#Modified_Borda_coun...). Our app isn't public, but I recommend this system, because it seems to have maximized happiness in our company!

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#42

Post by ajkjk »

Kalium wrote: post #25
stephenr wrote: post #11

This sounds like a uniquely American thing to me. I've never heard of this concept anywhere except California. Everywhere I've worked on-site, if people wanted to eat together they just did that weird thing people do and talk to one another .

Yeah... at my office this leads to endless amounts of bikeshedding, because the goal is consensus and everyone gets a veto. We would wind up at the same three spots every damn time. I shortcut this by appointing myself lunch dictator.

That sounds annoying. It's not hard to not care where you eat on any particular day.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#43

Post by [deleted] »

lucaspiller wrote: post #33
dvirsky wrote: post #29

I'm from Tel Aviv, and here we use a website (that's also a payed-for by the company credit card) to order our lunches. Anyway they don't have an API, but we sniffed their AJAX stuff a bit and added some scripts to our Hubot that allow us to use Hipchat to order and get recommendations (including an I'm Feeling Lucky mode). We have company hackathons 3-4 times a year, and almost every hackathon had one project dedica…

How do you not get sick of being stuck in the office for 8+ hours a day? I like lunch as it gives me a break to go outside for a walk :)

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#44

Post by jasonkester »

stephenr wrote: post #11

This sounds like a uniquely American thing to me. I've never heard of this concept anywhere except California. Everywhere I've worked on-site, if people wanted to eat together they just did that weird thing people do and talk to one another .

There's a delicate art to these negotiations if you want to end up going someplace good.

You can't just come out and say where you want to go, because it will get swatted down by everybody else who wants the Barbeque Joint or Sushi House or Rubio's Fish Tacos or Thai Garden. You have to let them wear each other down for a while until all the good options are off the table and everybody is resigning themselves to compromise on that lame soup place or Applebees or whatever.

Then you strike with Mama's Mexican Kitchen. Everybody will be so relieved that they don't have to eat another f'ng TGI Friday's meatloaf that they'll jump on the idea, even if they weren't in much of a Mexican mood 45 minutes ago when this stupid negotiation started.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#46

Post by barbs »

jasonkester wrote: post #44
stephenr wrote: post #11

This sounds like a uniquely American thing to me. I've never heard of this concept anywhere except California. Everywhere I've worked on-site, if people wanted to eat together they just did that weird thing people do and talk to one another .

There's a delicate art to these negotiations if you want to end up going someplace good. You can't just come out and say where you want to go, because it will get swatted down by everybody else who wants the Barbeque Joint or Sushi House or Rubio's Fish Tacos or Thai Garden. You have to let them wear each other down for a while until all the good options are off the table and everybody is resigning themselves to comp…

Another tactic is to suggest McDonalds, which causes everyone to think of better ideas. This can be applied to other things as well.

https://medium.com/@ienjoy/mcdonalds-theory-9216e1c9da7d

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#48

Post by dvirsky »

lucaspiller wrote: post #33
dvirsky wrote: post #29

I'm from Tel Aviv, and here we use a website (that's also a payed-for by the company credit card) to order our lunches. Anyway they don't have an API, but we sniffed their AJAX stuff a bit and added some scripts to our Hubot that allow us to use Hipchat to order and get recommendations (including an I'm Feeling Lucky mode). We have company hackathons 3-4 times a year, and almost every hackathon had one project dedica…

How do you not get sick of being stuck in the office for 8+ hours a day? I like lunch as it gives me a break to go outside for a walk :)

As I said, it's also a credit card, so we can go out with it as well, most restaurants in the city accept that card (it has a credit of about $12 a day payed for by the company, and if you use more than that it gets billed to your personal credit card. Most restaurants price their lunches to fit into this budget). Sadly there's only one restaurant within walking distance, and it's inside the same building.

But I do take walks outside regardless, often right after lunch, or sometimes I like to have walking meetings. Although to be honest, if I'm in the zone, I just code all day and forget about the outside world.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#49

Post by castell »

dofishwatchtv wrote: post #14

We had the simplest "app" possible - cross platform, no Go or Rust or React. It was simply the newest member of the team had to go and collect the ordered lunches, organise the menus etc. Simple algo, simple implementation.

a human computer

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#50

Post by fittom »

In Berlin we have a small startup based on this idea. You can subscribe to our newsletter and we send you the daily menu of the restaurants in your area every day. With forwarding this e-mail to your colleagues, all of you can select the favourites using the up-vote buttons in the email. You can track the votes on the website, but you will receive a summary about the results as well. Give a try if you in Berlin: https://www.halb1.de/
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