<p>so i’ve just started a new job and office has about 40 people. At lunch, there will be <5 people eating at the cafeteria and i’ve noticed that there will pretty much never be an engineer there. </p>
<p>i’m a new grad engineer and just started so i want people to know me and not label me as anti-social. I’m shy as well and want to make an effort to be social but i’m noticing that i’m the only engineer who doesn’t eat at his desk. </p>
<p>advice?</p>
<p>First off, thermo, congrats on your new job! So proud of you!</p>
<p>Perhaps you can eat at your desk, but roll your chair over to the desk of another engineer and strike up a conversation.</p>
<p>If you put the words Skyrim or Minecraft in your conversation, I’m sure you’ll strike up a quick friendship with a fellow engineer! </p>
<p>(I’m not being nasty, I have an engineering major son, and I notice that these two words are frequent topics of conversation!)</p>
<p>Lol, Montegut, S (philosophy major) is really into Minecraft as well. Thermo1, are most or all of the other engineers older married types? Usually if there are other young engineers in an office they are more likely to be socializing during lunch.</p>
<p>I don’t know how it is at other offices, but I’m an architect in an office with a lot of engineers. I work fairly intensively and treasure my hour at lunchtime to catch up with my personal emails and unwind - at my desk with a sandwich. Sorry, but I wouldn’t give that up to chat with you. You may find that there’s a day, probably a Friday, once a month or so that a group will get together and go out to lunch. That’s how we do it. Otherwise, you get to know people around the water cooler/coffee machine and that’s about it.</p>
<p>^^^Danceclass is right. People that work in an office do need to make those phone calls, follow up emails during their lunch hour. </p>
<p>My husband (early 50s) is a computer analyst, and has struck up a friendship with a 30-40 y/o analyst over the cubicle as they talk about recent movies, music, books, local artists. He has noticed the 20 y/o set do go out on Friday evening to a local bar to unwind, and the whole group will meet up there when someone is getting married, changing jobs, etc. Maybe once a month, they will all go to lunch as well.</p>
<p>So, give it time. Keep your ears open for when these get-togethers occur, and join in. You will soon make friends.</p>
<p>I agree with the others: most people use their lunch (I did) to catch up on personal stuff, take a walk, etc. </p>
<p>Find time to talk to coworkers throughout the day. If there is an events committee at your work, sign up to be on it. Suggest to coworkers that people get together for a happy hour after work some day. </p>
<p>Congrats on your new job and your desire to be part of the environment where you work.</p>
<p>Another person who uses lunching in my office to catch up on personal stuff. Generally every couple weeks someone will gather a group to “go to lunch.” If not, get to know people who do eat in the cafeteria there are more people than your functional area in your company.</p>
<p>My niece (not an engineer) makes it a point to go out with her co-workers on Friday afternoon/evenings. She’s not a drinker, but goes to socialize. It’s a good way to meet people.</p>
<p>A fair number of people where I work are in the gym during lunch hour. I sometimes work out during lunch or around 1:00 PM if it’s too crowded in the gym. A fair number of people also work at home some of the time or most of the time too.</p>
<p>I used to eat in the caf with others but I made a big push to lose weight and altered my eating habits to eat small parcels of food more often than big ones at meals.</p>
<p>Another desk eater here who catches up on personal e-mail and facebook at lunch or runs a quick errand. Four of us in my immediate function have a social lunch in the cafeteria area once a week and we have about monthly happy hours for social time with the bigger group. Congrats on the job!</p>
<p>Interesting. Back in the old days when I worked in London, we all went to the pub or wine bar every lunch hour. Don’t know how we got any work done in the afternoon.</p>
<p>could it be that they are just busy? I try to eat lunch elsewhere but several days a week I sit at my desk and eat while working. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day.</p>
<p>^^^Swimcats, that sounds like my locale. A local restaurant offers 25 cent martinis at lunch time. Needless to say, not much work gets done in the afternoons.</p>
<p>Back when I was a working woman, I’d make it a point to leave the building for lunch–just to get away! But those were the days before internet and email. If I were working today, I’d probably be on CC during the lunch hour. </p>
<p>But if a new guy wanted to go out for lunch someday, I’d go…</p>
<p>It may depend on the company culture. Where I work, eating in the lunch room is common.</p>
<p>So interesting to hear of these experiences. At my first job, where I stayed at for 10 years, everyone, from executives to clerical workers, went to the cafeteria in groups for lunch every day and then, weather permitting, took a stroll around the campus-like grounds. It was a great way to be refreshed and stretch your legs, and I made some long-term friends by getting to know people very well over those lunchtime conversations. The office culture was very cordial and humane, and I think the lunch habits were a big contributor to that. When I stupidly switched employers to chase money at a company with a very cutthroat environment, everyone would scurry down to the cafeteria, grab a sandwich, and zip back to their cubicles to scarf down lunch while squeezing in work. It was impossible to develop any friendships there–an occasional hour or two at a bar on a Friday night was not conducive to meaningful relationships. And it was a horrible place to work, with every employee out solely to advance and frequently backstabbing co-workers to make it happen. But since we all stayed strangers, it’s easy to see how that could result. As far as phone calls and emails are concerned, I’d be very unhappy working somewhere where a necessary personal call or message couldn’t be attended to in the course of the normal work day (assuming unnecessary ones should wait till you get home), or where co-workers would rather spend every lunch hour attending to personal business rather than nurturing relationships with colleagues. I guess this is a matter of company or, in OP’s case, departmental culture, but the culture can be a big contributor to whether a job is enjoyable or just tolerable.</p>
<p>Sadly, the lunchtime culture has changed over the years for many reasons. I also am one to eat lunch in my office most days, but will gladly join someone in the cafeteria once every week or two. I do like to get my own stuff done at lunch, but I also use a few minutes of my lunch to finish up a presentation, take care of a few emails, or just watch a TED talk. My advice is to keep trying … as a younger engineer you may have to ask folks more than a few times before they’ll break their lunchtime habit. You also may invigorate a few of them to start socializing a bit more, which is a good thing. Congrats on your new job in this tough economy.</p>
<p>Lunch is when I catch up on CC!</p>
<p>Another person guilty of eating at my desk. I do occasionally grab a bite to eat with friends, but most days I bring my lunch to work and use the time to catch up on personal tasks (like researching colleges, scholarships), facebook, make personal phone calls.</p>
<p>Our department did initiate having occasional pot-lucks a few times a year. We’ve had wonderful chili during the cold winter months (including vegetarian chili), and a cook-out during the summer. One of my colleagues has been asked by our boss to organize the events (she’s very good at it and enjoys it) and she does a great job including everyone.</p>
<p>If someone asks me to go to lunch, I will gladly meet them in the cafeteria or even go out for lunch with them. occasionally I will ask someone out to lunch as well. It might sound strange but sometimes friends from other departments will meet me at my desk and we’ll eat there. They pull over my collaboration chair in my cube and we chit chat and eat there. Not very often but there are times when I’m waiting for a call or something and someone wants to have lunch and I’m not ready yet. I tend to have a lot of meetings on certain days so it’s hard to tell when lunch will be squeezed in.</p>