
One Engineer’s Love Affair with ZeroCater - arram
http://blog.zerocater.com/one-engineers-love-affair-with-zerocater
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martian
ZeroCater is great! We have used them a few times and been impressed with the
quality and variety. My only complaint would be that take-out food can be
greasy and unhealthy sometimes. It'd be great if ZeroCater could cater to the
"healthnut" crowd.

My company usually has healthy, seasonal lunches cooked by an in-house chef,
but when she is not available we use ZeroCater. The discrepancy between
healthy home-cooked food and sort-of health catered food is more visible when
switching back and forth.

That said, the ZeroCater guys are great and I'm quite impressed with the
service. If your startup isn't eating together yet, you should. It's
definitely worth the cost!

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rhizome
I like ZeroCater, but "[t]he team that eats together stays together" is BS in
my book.

~~~
joebadmo
Joel Spolsky made a good case for eating lunch together in a blog post earlier
this year: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2011/04/28.html>

There are many cultures, too, in which eating together has a lot of
significance for a relationship. It's a very basic biological necessity that I
think has deep, tribal roots as a bonding experience.

I think it can be especially important for nerds, too, in that we're not
gregarious or socially outgoing by nature.

~~~
rhizome
_I think it can be especially important for nerds, too, in that we're not
gregarious or socially outgoing by nature._

Well how does this work, then? "Some people don't like olives, that's why we
have an olive-eating contest every Thursday."

~~~
joebadmo
Come on. Seriously? Not being gregarious or socially outgoing isn't the same
as anti-social or misanthropic. Some of us welcome and appreciate a structured
way in which to socialize. Without a group lunch, a hypothetical nerdy new
employee might not reach out to people socially, and his equally nerdy co-
workers might not reach out to him. With a group lunch, nobody has to.

~~~
rhizome
_Without a group lunch, a hypothetical nerdy new employee might not reach out
to people socially, and his equally nerdy co-workers might not reach out to
him._

A company who relies on group lunches to make a company work normally needs
new management, period. Surely there's an HR/hiring problem if people are
being brought on board who require informal interaction outside of a work
context in order to do good work. You might think I'm being all Sheldon about
this, but work-life balance is important to me, and lunchtime is a part of
that.

 _It's a very basic biological necessity that I think has deep, tribal roots
as a bonding experience._

Sure, but as you say, this is solely your belief. That doesn't make it fact,
and it doesn't mean it applies to anybody else. If you can only work at a
company that subscribes to this belief, that's your option, but it's not fair
to say that every company should hew to your beliefs.

~~~
joebadmo
I think you miscontrue the premise. It's not that the company _relies_ on
group lunch. It just helps to integrate the group and improve communication.
It also helps people get to know each other, which can be hard for introverts
to do without structure. Maybe that's not necessarily a boon to productivity,
but I appreciate it.

I also don't think anyone (least of all me) is saying this should be
universally enforced as standard practice. If you say you must have this time
for yourself, and that's a deal-breaker for you, then I respect that. You
obviously wouldn't want to work for a company that insists on this. I'm also
not saying that I wouldn't work at a company that didn't have this or a
similar policy.

I'm just saying I agree that this kind of policy can help, especially among
nerds.

~~~
rhizome
The lack of structure you mention is my point. There are a million ways to
compensate for it, and group lunch is one of them.

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kordless
We've been using ZeroCater since the very early days. As Dave said in the
article we went away for a while but then came back because of the variety and
how easy it made it for us. Just fire and eat.

