In contrast, when I worked in office, I found these fabled “lunches with the guy in accounts or the women in the sales team” didn’t ever happen. A lot of the mythical spontaneous collaboration that supposedly happens in office seems to be just that: a myth. At least for many.
I think only a few people manage to build such a network inside a company. But those are usually the successful ones, because they know much more than others.
It's not super hard. You just have to listen to when people are asking for things, try to help and read an org chart.
90% of the engineers I've worked with in bigger companies wouldn't know how to find someone in the company outside of their direct reporting structure.
Honestly it's pathetic. The rest of the organization can't work like that and these are table stakes social skills IMO.
I seriously think the "headphones on, get into flow" trope is the most damaging meme in our industry. Management also takes huge advantage of the low-information environment that engineers seem comfortable in. Most of them don't even (really) know what our product is or how it's sold and marketed.
For most people it's hard, especially for the stereotypical "IT nerds".
I think the best tip for people who have a hard time is: Watch who of your colleagues know "everyone" and spend as much time as possible with them. If they ask you to go for lunch together, always join. If you can work on a project with them, do it. They will casually introduce you to all the people over time, and might just tell you the newest company gossip.
I'm closing out 3 decades+ around the "IT nerds" and if anything they spend _more_ time socializing than "normies". The difference is typically that their socializing tends to specialize around fandoms/activities instead of generalist/community things like civics, sports and family.
Not to be overly harsh but the problem is with seeing those who don't share their interests as people equally worthy of attention. IT nerds typically have trouble meeting people where they're at instead of the other way around. And most of the time it's because they've never made any effort to do so.
That's why I say it's not super hard.
It's also becoming more of a societal problem in general as younger people spend more and more time isolated and socializing in bubbles. I think it's a serious and growing problem that people don't have friendships outside of their immediate peer group age-wise.
My brother's kid is in her early 20s and her and most of her friends don't see people at 30+ as people. They don't value their opinions and it has all sorts of negative effects on their lives like they struggle to obtain/keep jobs, etc. That's not a blanket generalization though -- we have some team members in that age-range and they're great.
They happen all the time for me at small to medium companies. If the legal team is two people whose desks are by the door, then you are going to eat lunch together at some point. It would be weird not to! Just wait until someone says "anyone want a coffee?" or "who brought lunch?" and then stand up.
Obviously this doesn't happen when the legal team is located three buildings away. At that point you might as well be remote from the perspective of collaboration.
I think they say that the knowledge transfer did not happen during that. You don't want to bring work to people who are trying to take a break from it.
If you want to talk about work in any depth then you have to formalise it, yeah. The sales team might tell you they're frustrated by their process at lunch, but they're not going to sit down and explain the whole thing.
I've found the benefit of lunches together is that you get familiar with everyone, and they with you. There's more of an assumption of good will and competence between people who know each other.
