Lunch is also a really important part of my job. I run the IT department for a fairly small company (~200 employees).
Going to lunch with people affords me the opportunity to hear them complain about their job. Sometimes, although they might not realize, their complaints are things that I can fix for them. They're my best source of ideas for projects.
"GUH! I keep asking $so_and_so for new $office_supply, but I guess we're out of it, WTF!?"
Hmm...maybe we need an inventory tracking system for the office supplies?
"$so_and_so is gone today, and she is the only one with the $excel_spreadsheet on her computer. It sucks because I can't get ahold of her and I need $excel_spreadsheet!"
Well how can we solve this? Why aren't they using the file server for this stuff?
While the ideas for projects is a good one, do you ever get sick of hearing peoples complaints in social situations? Nothing is more annoying than when you are having a few Friday beers and all people want to do is tell you how crap their computer is expecting you to promise them a new one by Monday.
Going to lunch with people affords me the opportunity to hear them complain about their job. Sometimes, although they might not realize, their complaints are things that I can fix for them. They're my best source of ideas for projects.
"GUH! I keep asking $so_and_so for new $office_supply, but I guess we're out of it, WTF!?"
Hmm...maybe we need an inventory tracking system for the office supplies?
"$so_and_so is gone today, and she is the only one with the $excel_spreadsheet on her computer. It sucks because I can't get ahold of her and I need $excel_spreadsheet!"
Well how can we solve this? Why aren't they using the file server for this stuff?
And so on.