How much do you do lunch with and text colleagues at work - and is it important?

[tigermoth]

I work full time. I am busy but like my job and like my colleagues. I get on well with everyone AFAIK. I have five precious lunch hours a week. I spend them food shopping, banking, doing home admin, and once or twice a week I go for a swim - my treat.

So, I am too busy to meet up with people as a rule and go for a drink in the pub or lunch. I do go if I am invited (just a few times a year). I don't send friendly texts to colleagues either as I have never really got to grips with texting.

I realise I am in a minority - nearly all my colleagues both male and female (some childless, some with children) do make time to have lunch with others both inside and outside our department (I work in the public sector). I can see friendships being developed. I never bother to make that leap from colleague to friend.

I realise I must be missing out on some office gossip and don't get to hear as much about my colleauge's home lives. I don't put much effort into social networking, though am always friendly when invited to group gathering and like to talk to people when we're working together. No one seems to think I am anti social and everyone knows I have two children and a busy home life.

As our jobs are in the public sector, any internal job advertising/interviews etc follow clear rules and the process is meant to be quite transparent, so IMO there is little reason to network like mad, purely for promotion reasons.

But I think I am in a minority where I work and wondered if I was missing something?

I have recently returned to work on compressed hours - 33 hours in 4 days. I restrict myself to a half hour lunch, as I like to leave as early as possible to spend time with DS. I had to refuse a lunch last week (in my first week back). Think I'd make an exception for a leaving type lunch, but this was a birthday one.
Would also be interested to see what people think

Hello Tigermoth. My situation is quite different to yours in that I'm a contractor (but will have been there at least a year by the end of it) but when I was a permanent employee I didn't have much of a social relationship with people at work. I wasn't there to make friends and I relished the hour to myself at lunch time. I had the odd lunch with people and the odd time I invited people to dinner at my house (twice in 2 years!) but on the whole no, social life and work life are separate. And certainly now, as a contractor, I go to work, do my job, have a short lunch and go home again.

When I was in my twenties my social life revolved around work but not now, I don't have time. So your arrangement sounds fine to me.

That's good to know! I just feel a bit uneasy, as when I step back and think about how my colleagues spend their lunch hours, they do 'do lunch' with each other more often than I do.

I can think of around 10 people with similar jobs to mine in our department, some with children and families, some without, and they all seem do lunch with someone or other every week or so.

I have lunch with colleagues every day. I think it is really important to do so. I only have 80 minutes off, so don't have time to go into town (20 minute walk each way).

I never text them - don't even have their mobile numbers.

Just out of curiosity, why do you think it's so important?

I lunch with my colleagues most days.. always go out for a drink with them after work on a Friday... and text/phone a couple of colleagues daily.

Oh and I know ALLLLLLL the office gossip.

So, do you do it for a work reason or just because you like to? Or both?

i really wouldnt worry about it - it is completely your choice how much you choose to socialise. i am still breastfeeding and need to get home for the bedtime feed so always miss out on drinks out of an evening. i really dont care. i do have lots of friends at work though (made during my 20s!)so i look forward to spending my lunchhours catching up with them- but would not waste this precious time on people i really dont care too much about (esp when i only work 2 days per week).

I don't lunch with my colleagues, ever. I prefer to have a break, go for a bit of a wander rather than sit and chat. Maybe I do miss out, in fact I almost definitely do but it doesn't bother me.

This is a good question to ask. I work four days a week and get 30 mins for lunch. I really enjoy eating my lunch and mumsnetting, but am concious that I do need to build good relationships with my colleagues so very reluctantly have lunch with other folks about once a fortnight.

I have noticed that the people who do lunch together get on better and I am probably seen as being a bit antisocial, but dammit I get so little time to do exactly what I want to do at home that I really enjoy my own time at lunch, oh and I don't really care much for office gossip, between working and looking after my son I don't have a huge amount of time to worry about it.

i used to go out for drinks etc a lot but after mat leave and since then being based off-site for a year am really quite distanced now. i sort of miss it but just don't have time anyway. it means when i do go out everyone is very pleased to see me which is always nice

for me getting on well personally as well as professionally is really important, i would hate to only have very superficial relationships. i work in vol sector and need lots of co-operation from colleagues to do my job.

I think its nice to do social things with people at work. However, I didn't do lunch very often after having DS - always went if somebody's birthday etc. etc, but most of the time either worked or went to gym or supermarket. To be honest, loads of people had lunch at their desks in my office anyway - only about 25% went out to lunch everyday.

Tigermoth - I class some of my colleagues as very good friends now. In fact I was out on the pull with my exboss last night! lol

Some are just handy people to 'know'.

toothache, that's taking socialising to an extreme, but good on you for having found a soul mate in your ex boss. I wish I was that brave.

I could never envisage being that friendly with a current boss, or indeed anyone I worked with closely, as I would feel worried about letting my guard down and revealing too much about my personal life. In a work setting, they could use that knowledge against me, if we ever fell out.

But on the other hand, being cautious like this means I don't get to have those 'useful' friends.

I work in the public sector too.

My current situation means that I rarely take a lunchbreak (25 hrs pw). I have one colleague (diff location but we used to be in the same office) who I lunch with once a month or so (as a dual colleague/friend thing). My other colleagues are unable to leave the building on their shift, so the situation just doesn't arise.

I do have a group of friends who meet up for an evening meal 2/3 times a year. We all go back 20 years or so, and this group is important to me, although we don't share texts (emails yes). There are one or two other people who I occasionally arrange to meet up with, but they are few and far between.

I don't think you're missing out tbh.

I worked for over 15 years before having children. I think I socialised with my various colleagues a handful of times a year.

This was mainly public sector too. ANd anyway, if you did make friends with someone you can bet you never had the same lunch break!

Very rarely. We never go out for lunch as there isn;t enough time and no where particular to go. We sometimes go to the catering hall as a group. I have a very short lunch break because of my flexible working hours, so rarely go - maybe once every 3 months.

I do chat and sit in the staff room for my lunch though, so have time to relax then with colleagues.