[balinvadasz]

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.