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Comment by masterponomo | Hacker News Reader

How nice. On my first day 27 years ago as a programmer, I followed the team to the bank op center cafeteria at lunch time. I loaded up my tray and went to join them at the long table. As I sat down in the only empty seat, someone said, "That's Linda's place." I looked around and saw no Linda, but they were all staring at me with hostility. I dumped my tray and went back to my desk. Some years later during a review, my boss nailed me for not being more sociable with my colleagues. I told him I did not want to upset Linda.

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For some reason that story makes me feel really sad. I know us geeks are not supposed to be the best with social skills and awareness, but treating a new junior hire like that is tremendously insensitive.

There are always jerks, geeks or not.

Actual experince at my secnd job:

First day: No one talks to me, lunch alone, leave withou having said a word to anyone apart from my manager who showed me my desk and introduced me to everyone.

Second day: Walking in past the desk of a long time employee... Me: Good Morning! Her: You came back?

...again: this actually happened.

I have to wonder if these forced-socialization companies have a hiring filter for the asocial or otherwise uninterested due to time or whatever, woe betide those who slip through and risk an ignominious culture-firing.

The worst part is that there was no Linda at the company.

The BEST part was that some years later, the cops busted a coke ring that was operating out of the cafeteria. Lots of cafeteria workers and IT folks went down. Not me--I was at my desk with Campbell's Soup every day. I realized my post made me sound a pathetic loner. I actually made some friends there who I still lunch with today, though they are of course pushing retirement age now. Business IT was very different from now in the 1980's. At 24 I was by far the youngest on the mainframe team. I kept that distinction on into my early 30's at different employers, before "youngsters" in their late 20's started showing up. The mainframe IT guys/girls (at least in bank IT departments) of the 1980's tended to be older than 30, very much relics of the 60's and 70's. This means I also witnessed the Y2K bug being crafted. I was zapped quite a few times for carelessly allocating 8 bytes for date fields. "You're wasting 2 bytes carrying the century." My bad! I worked on the same system (for a different company) 20 years later and made good money helping upgrade all the dates. Things changed over the years, but in my experience, I have never been at a place that has any kind of food culture aside from ad hoc lunch groups that form outside the office. Certainly never any company-funded food.

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