[spolsky]

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.

[reso]

I feel like those of us blessed to work in very positive environments forget that many people do not, and when those people hear that "the team always eats together" immediately assume it is a management enforced policy, and not a spontaneous event.

[metachris]

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]

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]

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.

[iam]

I interpreted that as the new people don't need to sit by themselves in the corner since they would get invited to lunch from day 1.

It could definitely get lonely if a new person starts and they don't develop a regular lunch routine with a group when they are used to it (from their previous job?).

People who actually prefer to sit alone and aren't making this up should be able to sit alone (or do their own thing).

[bmccormack]

One of the guys on our support team had his sister come to lunch at Fog Creek during their visit to NYC. Even amidst all the wonderful things they did in New York, she said that coming in for lunch and seeing Fog Creek was the highlight of her trip. It wasn't that the incredible food (though it was), but rather it was witnessing the comradery the exists at meals and the overall wonderfulness of the workplace. When my colleague shared her story with us, it made us realize that we oftentimes take for granted how rare it is to work in such a great environment.

[alexgartrell]

So then I assume that she missed cubed meat day :)

[zohebv]

I am surprised the negative comments on HN. I worked at Microsoft, where one team followed your policy while another did not and lunch time was always better with the team that had your policy. I think you should really just ignore the comments on HN. Maybe they are missing some kind of context.