Constant team lunches

[Meadowbreeze]

I don't know if I'm being a precious person here but I'm starting to get annoyed with constant team lunches we seem to have. We are only expected to work from home 1 day one week and 2 days the following week. Before this, it was all WFH and changed from 1st July. Every single week now we have had a team lunch. Basically pizza and £5 donation and stuck in a smelly room inside the office. I don't even get full off this as often there's quite a lot of people and not much pizza. I had two small slices this week.
I don't mind a team lunch here and there but AIBU to think this is a bit much? I know they're trying to get people to bond but we're quite ok. Most of us go to lunch together in pairs anyway. I also like to get errands done as my lunch is an hour and it's the only time I really go into town. I've not been able to do that which is actually becoming quite annoying. Its cash only so I have to go out of my way to withdraw that and really I like to get a break from the constant interaction my job requires. It's not really a solitary job.
Again, I really don't mind this normally but it's been every flippin week.
IABU- Get a grip it's a team lunch it's fine
YANBU- This should be a monthly thing at most.

YANBU, I like my own free time in my lunch break and like you said to get errands done!

I'd really not like this and would try and opt out as much as I could tbh 😅

Yanbu - I'd hate it. Team lunches spoils be done on company time so there is still dome time to get some fresh air and do jobs.

Maybe turn up but bring your own lunch and say you're not paying the fiver as you're not getting enough to eat? If you start it others might follow

I presume it’s not compulsory? Then why not just carry on and do your own thing? I’m sure others will probably be feeling the same way as you and might start following suit.

I would hate this. I recharge by being quietly on my own. When we first went back to the office the team lunch became a thing for us too. I attended one or too and then just found it totally overwhelming. Now I take myself off. But re the £5 pizza contribution that isn't even filling, just take your own lunch in and stop contributing.

OP, just say you have a couple of errands to run this time so sorry you're unable to attend. Or you bought your own lunch in this time because you didn't feel like pizza. I bet there's several other people who are also not wanting to go, it just needs one person to say something. £5 for 2 slices of pizza seems quite dear.

@jetadore it's not but you're basically told this is happening and there is a lot of guilt tripping going on after its announced. I presume people will slowly stop going. I didn't expect it to last this long so I've not said anything but this week really annoyed me. Im going on holiday in a couple of weeks for 2 weeks so hopefully once I'm back it'll be stopped.

I would hate this so much.
Your lunch break really is your time to decompress and do whatever you want . I wouldn't be impressed at being expected to eat pizza either to be honest.
As you say hopefully it'll have died off before you return from holiday.

Yes, this would annoy me too. The occasional team lunch event is fine as a one-off but I wouldn't want to do it every week. I don't want my lunch-break to feel like work, so I'd rather have the time to myself to go for a walk, run an errand, sit in a coffee shop with a book or whatever. Sometimes I'll have lunch with some colleagues but it's usually a casual thing with colleagues that I see as mates anyway so we've got lots to talk about that isn't work-related and we can be ourselves, which isn't always the case when it's loads of people milling about and making small talk.

These things are great if it's clear that they're voluntary drop-in type things and there's no expectation or judgement about attendance, but if people feel obliged it's crap. I bet there are others who feel the same as you, so maybe if it's still carrying on when you're back off your holiday, you could be the one to say 'I'm going to give it a miss today as I've got a couple of errands to do' or 'I don't really fancy pizza today and I really feel like I need some fresh air so I'm going to pop out and get myself a sandwich somewhere instead'.

@Meadowbreeze How you deal with it is up to you. Waiting it out is a good approach. If its annoying you then it’s almost certainly annoying others. Maybe chat with a few people about it and it might embolden you or them to start declining.

Ugh. My idea of nightmare. Hate team lunches.

Just politely decline. I’m assuming you aren’t paid for lunch times so you don’t have to be there. I’d very much resent paying £5 to get 2 little slices of pizza, too!

Team lunches- so called enforced fun in my opinion. As opposed to a manager or managers doing something that would make a real difference to how your work is, such as responding to emails or other queries in a reasonable time, empowering people, never being routinely late for meetings etc.

I am with you OP on this one.

Every week is a bit much, yeah.

We mostly work remotely across the country, but most of us do try to get into the London office about once a quarter and we'll have a big lunch then, which works for us (the smaller teams do their own thing throughout the month / year).

I barely eat lunch with my own partner once a week, never mind my colleagues.

As a solution, why not propose a regular, bigger lunch and give people plenty of notice to replace the tenuous weekly ones?