The death of 'mandatory fun' in the office
bbc.com
bbc.com
The intervention was in response to some big attrition and rage quits on the engineering team, and a general disconnect between that office and the rest of the company. Forgetting for a moment that a group of adults had to create these objectively demeaning expressions and then present what the glitter or animal stickers represented to each other, and to an exec with hire/fire authority, HR collected the artifacts at the end of the session - and when we returned to the office the next day, they were hung on the walls for all the managers' staff to see what we had accomplished on a day long retreat while everyone was under immense deadline pressure to ship features. One engineer saw these pathetic clusters of multi coloured clutter taped to the walls and with the horror of someone whose invested career so far depended on performance reviews from said managers, she asked, "seriously, what the hell is this?" We had pissed off eng staff to begin with, but what the exec team thought we needed was a kind of coup de grace to utterly discredit managers as men and women in front of the people whose livelihoods depended on their leadership.
Since then, what I have come to think these exercises are is a test of supplication, and of whether you can convincingly and competitively debase yourself better than your next peer. It was a kind of race to the bottom to demonstrate how sincerely you could erase your humanity and individuality in service to the narrative of a team, and what you were willing to do to survive. I've even come to suspect it's a system, where they take average people with impostor syndrome, make them debase and humiliate themselves in front of others, and then leverage the shame of the exercise into a new cruelty and compensatory sadism to squeeze out marginal effort from their staff. Now when I see glitter and crayons, I am reminded of how they tried to teach me to hate.
When I've found myself in similar situations, part of what has dismayed me is observing that at least half of the people seem to enjoy it. It'd be nicer to think this was just management jerking the leash; The actual enthusiasm from colleagues is doubly alienating.
Mandatory child games like the one you described above are confidence busting exercisee, done to demoralize your colleagues to the point where they feel quitting isn't an option because they see themselves as barely worthy of the job they already have.
I sold you and you sold me under the spreading chestnut tree.
In corporate environments, more often than one would hope, one runs into an extortionist gatekeeper who just wants their ego placated. But that HR story...what's horrifying is that they probably thought they were really helping.
A prescient quote from the book 1984.
The "Immoral Mazes"[1] sequence from LessWrong may be of interest for you. Maybe jump straight into "Does Big Business Hate Your Family?"[2], but I recommend reading the whole thing.
[1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS
[2]: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS/p/229FkbLrhat9...
We can tell stories about this stuff, and lesswrong is gratifying, but I haven't seen a cogent critical theory on this stuff that has legs where we can say, "hey, this really is problematic" in a meaningful way.
If HR has fire authority, you are doing something wrong with the org chart.
A corporate drink may still deliver fun, but not for the sake of fun itself. It's a means to an end that ultimately benefits the company.
If you disagree, and are a manager that genuinely wants to add fun to an employee's life without any secret agenda, ask them which they consider more fun: leaving an hour early or staying with coworkers they already see more than their family.
You should then have no problem with the "leaving early" answer since you're all about maximizing fun. If you find that answer disappointing, you never cared about fun in the first place.
In my experience, the “fun” exercise is only a problem when it is after work hours and not appropriately compensated.
As you imply, there is a middle ground: let them off early and announce you’ll buy drinks at the bar. If people want to join, they have the option. If they don’t they won’t. If you’ve created the right culture, nobody will feel obligated, but you’ll receive feedback on the social state of your team.
Buy me food, however, and barring a conflict, I'll go. ;)
So it's a means to an end that ultimate benefits the company, and therefore it wasn't reductive, just an accurate characterization of what you're doing...
Granted my attitude is frequently called childish, and while I acknowledge it can be childish, its much more frequently simple disinterest.
Curious to hear your take as I’ve only ever heard the take of exasperated former managers who rarely-to-never care about my personal feelings. Thanks!!
I don't have to manage staff anymore but when I did, the people who didn't build relationships with their coworkers were the first ones let go. Their individual productivity wasn't good enough to justify their reduced ability to work with others. (However, note that this was at a firm where productivity was measured at billable hours, so not really comparable to an in-house position.)
It definitely hampers me, but honestly, I’m not staying for more than two years. I’m not interested in internally climbing a ladder. I’m interested in stepping up the salary ladder, and you don’t do that with promotions internally.
Those arent my favorites either, but lets not reduce the options to the stereotype: there are other ways too.
The two qualifiers you put in front of relationship already pidgeonholes the outcomes. I think you should consider that you may in fact not have been developing good relationships, or possibly very one-sided ones.
But then, it does seem somewhat pointless if you already know in two years maximum you’ll be moving on. I’ll have to talk with some folks that know me well to see if I can resolve this conundrum.
Thanks for your input!
As to coworkers becoming friends, there's nothing wrong with it, but hard disagree on this needing to be a company goal. Friendly? Yes. Actual friends? Very much optional.
There's big cultural and personal differences regarding this matter. Some cultures and people maintain a hard boundary between their work and personal life, they don't necessarily blend into each other.
Behind nearly every great evil in our society there was an individual, and a group behind him, who saw themselves as the good guys engaging only in awful misdeeds for the sake of a great society for everybody down the line. Their motivations noble, their actions despicable. Their great motivation never comes to pass, but the harm they did in pursuit of it certainly did.
And vice versa, Henry Ford radically improved the lives of his workers. In a time of a 6 day week with 10-12 hour days, he chose to adopt an 8 hour work day and 5 day work week. Why? After experimenting with it, he noticed it yielded greater productivity than the previous 10-12 hour, 6 day weeks. In other words because he did it because it made him [much] richer. He had a primarily selfish motivation, but in pursuit of it carried out actions that created a better life for countless others.
Of course when we look to the past, what I'm saying is hardly novel. Far more clever men said this much more succinctly than I ever could, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
Hum, nope. That's a movie thing.
Behind nearly every great evil in out society there were individuals thinking about personal gratification.
Behind most good acts too. That's a good point. But those altruist goals (for good or evil) are a small minority, and when they do happen, they don't have much of an impact.
Beware of anyone trying to sell you on why something is the quickest way to a goal.
To create the bonds you wanted, to benefit you, and not because they naturally just wanted to, so not genuine.
It's very different though if it's mandatory frequent "fun" as opposed to an occasional thing.
Saying no is instantly a negative thing by the literal definition of "no". So however you ask your staff it won't matter, they will be uncomfortable at the event or uncomfortable saying no.
I'm a new SWE Manager and I've been thinking alot about power dynamics since I got promoted. You would think that you can just tell you reports "hey you can be honest with me and speak your mind", but the difficult part about that is no one will take you at your word when you say that.
I'm still working it out but one thing I've found that helps is to crack some jokes with my reports. Like the other day I was having a one on one with a report where they were saying that they didn't like how ClientX was doing ThingY on ProjectZ. I could tell by his tone that he was trying to gauge my reaction before continuing, I interjected with a light joke about said client, basically telling him that I completely agreed with his sentiment. From there I noticed that things got much lighter and he was able to speak his mind more about the issue.
Was that the right approach? Who the fuck knows.
The majority of us understand we're not fully rational and treading ground as if that's the case, is exactly how one ruins their chances. There's a far lower risk in faking things than there is trying to be honest and hoping the opposite party is not affected by negativity, both consciously and subconsciously.
The number of superiors who say similar and do get affected subconsciously far outnumber those who aren't affected. Most of us are playing a game of Poker, not a game of DnD.
Of course not, because of the SNAFU Principle: "True communication is possible only between equals, because inferiors are more consistently rewarded for telling their superiors pleasant lies than for telling the truth."
If I'm working for you, you are not my equal. You might be my superior in the organizational sense, because you have the power to demand I be fired if I push you hard enough. You are also my inferior in that you can't meet your KPIs without my cooperation. Under no circumstances will I tell you the plain, unvarnished truth. It isn't what you want to hear, especially if you've got senior managers or clients breathing down your neck. Shit doesn't just roll downhill in the Army.
You don't want to hear that it is flat-out impossible to come to me on Friday afternoon with a feature request that must be in production by the following Monday. Instead, I'd tell you that it can be done, but I'll expect time and a half for all of the overtime I'll be working that weekend, and it will probably be buggy because the requirements were scribbled on a fucking bar napkin and I probably won't have time to test it properly. You won't like that either, but at least you'll have the basis for a rough cost-benefit analysis you can present to your bosses to ask them, "How badly do you want this done in the current timeframe?"
In my first time leading a team, a few months in one of the people on my team who I had known personally from before pulled me aside and basically said "listen, I know you, and I know that you are a sarcastic person and can understand it. But everyone else kind of thinks you're an asshole". Still very thankful that they pointed that one out to me.
"You're being disrespectful."
"The team's productivity and morale is more important than you."
I've also become a manager in recent months, and have had to think a lot about this. The approach I've mostly gone with is to try to be vulnerable and open about my own issues of the sort that I would want my reports to share. In the hope that they will reciprocate. It's hard to tell for sure, but that seems to have worked reasonably well.
I'd just caution you that... If you wanna bark up that tree you better be prepared to hear what they have to say. It might not be something you actually want to hear. And you're both going to have to deal with the fallout.
Or maybe they understand completely?
I sometimes organize dinners for my team (it's France after all). People can freely come or not and there is always someone who does not come. This someone changes all the time and nobody is keeping count.
I know my team inside out and, believe me, they will say when something pisses them off. Clearly. The dinners are not one of these things.
Amazon of course took it way too far and did things where they couldn't figure out how to find the money to get Apple laptops for devs (circa 2003) because they'd cost $100 more a seat and if 5,000 devs want them, that'd be half a million dollars! (to make $750M of dev salary at the time happy).
Yeah, the "game room" style perks always felt like a trap to me.
Even better, "we're like Google" except they give you a blank stare where you ask about the 20% time, free food, compensation or where they hire from. Turns out it's all bootcamp/local wages no stock, no 20% time. But hey, they have beanbag chairs! On the flip side, they make it almost too easy to poach talent...
But I also 1) never provide alcohol, 2) never require any social 'ice breaker' type games, and 2) never have company events during non-working hours.
I am almost sure that the "mandatory fun" that the article described initially started as employees lead initiative that turned "mandatory", when he employees championing them started reaching position of power within the company. That's when people started feeling like they had to participate to impress their boss.
I can't wait for Janine "fun yoga zoom class" to become "mandatory" when said Janine becomes manager of her team and people notice that she has a privileged relationship with people who participate because they have something in common. And the cycle will repeat. There is no reason to believe the pattern has fundamentally changed.
It doesn't even have to get that far. I have low-level manager friend who's being pressured into leading "mandatory fun" events by his team. He hates that kind of thing, but if he doesn't do it his team will complain (not specifically about mandatory fun, but vaguer morale things) and it will look bad.
This sounds like it could qualify as harassment in some jurisdictions if my last harassment training is anything to go by.
If you don't "voluntarily" join and put up a smile all the time people will notice.
There is no way to prove that your performance reviews will suffer from this.
Not exactly the same, but at a previous job at a fairly small company (~25 people in total) the CTO smoked, and there would be "smoke breaks" where all the smokers would spend 15 minutes, smoke a cigarette and talk. I didn't (and don't) smoke, but it was a little frustrating to see the people who smoked seemed to consistently get promotions and special privileges, I think largely due to more personal time with the CTO.
I'm pretty convinced that at least two of my coworkers noticed this and started smoking specifically because they thought it might help their careers, and in their mind the smoke breaks weren't "optional" if they wanted to progress.
That company went belly up about a year after I got there, so I'm glad I never partook, but it was certainly tempting sometimes.
1 | 2
-----
3 | 4
To the left are folks whose jobs encourage or require this extracurricular fun, to the right are folks whose jobs do not.
If you're a #1, things are great! Work is fun AND you're making new friends!
If you're a #2, things are ok, Work is work, and you have hobbies and activities outside of work too. You might wish you were in category #1 though.
If you're a #3, your job is causing undue stress and misery. You're having your arm twisted to do things you don't want to, perhaps due to outside commitments or maybe just lack of interest.
If you're a #4, there's mutual respect in the workplace and that's enough.
I guess the traditional view is that boring old companies led to people in categories #2 and #4. But then some companies declared themselves "fun" and set people up to be in categories #1 or #3. I don't see why it's so hard to arrange fun activities, while making it clear there's absolutely no pressure, and get people into categories #1 and #4.
For one recent thing at a new company, we had to play "two truths and a lie" in a breakout room with 4 people I'd never met. Normally I can think on my feet but I ended up telling three truths by accident, and was then forced to lie about one of them being a lie to these complete strangers, which made me feel like a fraud incapable of even playing a basic icebreaker without being weird. And I'm not weird! Basic as you get. Ugh.
And I've got another one of those godawful 300 person-with-breakouts ra-ra sessions coming up in 15 minutes.
(and, no, anxiety isn't "healthy" but an employer disregarding your mental health is the real problem)
You have to spend ~1/3 of your waking life working in almost all cases and I can't imagine trying to frame it solely as an impediment to the other things I could be doing or other people I could be interacting with.
I feel negative about work and the concept of work even a lot of the time, but I don't like the idea of fully giving into that and accepting that 1/3 of all my time will be captured by some not valuable time sink with people I'd rather not speak to. I don't think I could live that way for long.
I was wooed by koolaid and 'perks' at companies when I was fresh out of school, but when that faded or failed, it was the people you could build relationships with, learn and win/fail with that really makes it tolerable to go into an office or spend 8 hours a day making someone else a bunch of money.
My biggest question looking at orgs is if they look at people as human beings or cogs in a machine first, and at what level as you go up the chain, if any, that stops. When you read about Amazon forcing leadership to distance themselves from DR so they can not feel when they shrewdly make the business more efficient, that is one of the most glaring examples.
These are dangerous places to work for people who like co-workers because they hold up their end of the work, and have their own criteria for choosing friends. It turns work into high school, with an in-group and outgroups. Those outgroups will often be older people with children and lives, or something like all of the women or all of the Indians.
I'm friends with people I would never work with, and I love working with people who I would never be friends with. People don't have to be everything for me, they just have to be at least one thing well. I choose my friends carefully, and they were difficult to find. A job is arbitrary people thrown together by their ability to do that job. The odds that I would want to be friends with a bunch of them are about the same as the odds that I would want to be friends with everyone at a random bus stop. The odds that I would want to work with them are a lot better. Settle for that.
edit: I'm actually annoyed when I realize that a coworker would make a good friend. I have to say things to coworkers sometimes that I would never say to friends, because coworkers need to get shit done.
I think the word 'friend' is too broad here. Maybe the French ami versus copain is more apt[1].
While I wouldn't say many co-workers are close friends, all but a handful have been or could possibly be good acquaintances.
Another way to say it is I wouldn't mind spending a couple hours at a happy hour with them chatting.
Since we're such social creatures and how that maps to our physical and mental health, I still worry too hard a line between the the two and how much we all work could be risky/detrimental.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/French/comments/3r0djp/ami_vs_copai...
I'm a brand new manager, managing several reports and we are all remote. I've been tossing thoughts in the back of my head around on various ways we could bond as a team. My managers suggest that we do Zoom happy hour but I honestly cringe at the idea. With that said does anyone have any suggestions for things I can do with the team that wouldn't be "mandatory fun"?
My thought on it thus far is if we are all remote, the best thing you can do is to just support your team and not get in the way with various activities and such. But I would love to be proven wrong.
What is the problem that lead to you thinking about this in the first place? Maybe somebody will be able to give you better advice if you can be more specific about what needs to be corrected.
If you think your team needs to be better meshed with each other, then suggest to one of them (who, after discussion, seems to think the same) that they propose an out-of-work bonding thing to their coworkers. And that they invite the rest of their team, but—crucially—not you.
Much more likely to be seen as a pleasant activity, rather than “mandatory fun.”
Now, if you as a manager want to bond better with your team yourself… I have no honest idea.
Probably you can at least build empathy, by taking on some of the worst “somebody’s gotta do it” work they’d otherwise be doing, to shield them from said work and instead keep them on work that’s their comparative advantage. They may never notice this / may take it for granted, though.
(But the real trick is to rise through the ranks from a non-managerial role, and ensure everyone already vibes with you before the promotion to management.)
After all, employee happiness from a company perspective, is really primarily for the benefit of the company so paying for it, in time and resources, should be an acceptable expense.
People will complain about these events, but I just don't know any other way to help teams learn about each other.
In gaming, there are entire genres which expect people to cooperate to get better results. Initially, they don't know anything about each other, but in functional groups there's at least a silent agreement to work together and not cause a fuss. Let's say in professional environments, it's fair to expect most employed people would do the same (ergo, the hiring process properly filtered the problem people out).
Eventually people end up working together on things more and more. From there, depending on their personalities, they will either learn more about each other, or come to an agreement they are only there to do the work. Both outcomes are fair, though individuals might feel left out when their expectations aren't met (team culture mismatch).
By introducing these events, it feels like managers are trying to fastforward a process which would happen naturally, through events which have little to do with the work at hand. If your projects need collaboration, surely these people will eventually communicate with one another and go through the flow illustrated above. I only expect managers to step in when there's a clear mismatch or sign of dysfunction within the team.
And honestly, I'm skeptical whether functional adults as a whole enjoy the attempts at fastforwarding the process. These events have a tendency to feel forced and infantilizing.
I certainly don't. I'm there to make money, not friends.
I've tried making friends at work before, and it was never worth it. They expect you to be there for them, they're never there for you, and once you've left the company you might as well have never existed to them.
I'm not saying you can't be friendly. But you need to lose any illusion that you can be friends with your direct reports. And the way to be a great boss is respecting people's time. So instead of piling more stuff onto their calendars, try to identify some time wasting meetings/ceremonies and replace them with something fun and engaging.
Anything work related is "mandatory". And bonding happens also naturally, when people work together on something with success.
Mandatory remote team bonding sounds bound to fail in most cases.
Depending on the size if the team and their interests, maybe some computer games could be fun and useful. I probably wouldn't say no to play battlefield or Left4Dead on company time with coworkers. But not everyone enjoys that.
"drink up, happy hour is now enforced by law" - Dead Kennedys [0]
I'm not personally plagued with this problem, but have no difficulty empathizing with the situation and think it's completely asinine for employers to encourage drinking among employees.
I absolutely hate that, and yes, that strikes very close to home. Over the years, I've had countless coworkers, peers and even a couple of managers, pressure me hard to drink. The pressure they're willing to apply skyrockets as they get more drunk. All I'm saying is, it's easier to deflect over zoom.
And that is the very hard line for a happy hour: No one should be "getting drunk" or otherwise visibly intoxicated on company time.
That's something I'd bring up with HR / upper management or my direct. "I had enough pressure to drink to excess in my college fraternity. I don't want it in my workplace."
There are plenty of online games, from card games, to pictionary/drawing, to word games. I'd start with short list of options, let the team select one, and play during an existing team meeting. Limit it to 30 minutes during normal work hours. That way there's no pressure to stay late or give up a lunch break.
If the team is brand new (to each other and to you), there are get-to-know-you activities. One that's kinda fun is "3 things" where each employee gives three things about themselves, but only one is true (or one is a lie), and the team has to guess which is true/lie. Sometimes unconvers interesting/unique things about employees - I had an employee who was a pro golfer at one point, stuff like that. Same as above - during an existing meeting, not after work or during lunch.
For a year I worked hybrid (mostly remote) with a guy who was a single gamer. We'd try to play a game once a week; it was never mandatory. We met face-to-face every other month or so in the office and had lunch together.
In another remote position, we occasionally flew to the main office to meet each other face-to-face. We made a point of having team lunches.
For example: If everyone is within a 90-minute drive, coordinate a monthly (or quarterly) day together. Provide lunch, and focus on a task that works best face-to-face, like whiteboarding.
If many people need to fly, consider a yearly meetup at a hotel with a conference room.
Regarding a traditional "happy hour," I think if your team can't spend 30-60 minutes chit-chatting over some snacks, you have bigger problems. Feel out your team about alcohol, the presence of alcohol can make some people uncomfortable; but on other teams is perfectly welcome.
Crucially, they'd been nagging ME for months to do some sort of team bonding thing but nobody wanted to do the usual Zoom HH; everyone was well past the novelty of that by late summer 2020.
I'd inherited the team during the pandemic, we were spread out over 4,000 miles and six time zones, and we'd grown the team by hiring remotely too. So it was important, but the initiative came from them and I just facilitated it.
No, I'm not fun at parties. I'm the designated driver.
I bond with my teammates by working with them, by overcoming struggles, confusion, stupid corporate policy, and deadlines with them. We learn to trust each other, to reach out to each other, and help each other. They are not my friends, they are my coworkers.
Managers, stop trying to force coworkers into my personal life. I have multiple groups of amazing, personal, and dedicated friends. None of them come from work.
In short, make it optional, don't make it regular ("we have a happy hour every Friday :^D"), and make sure it's reciprocal.
We used to have a happy hour at the office when we were in person. Snacks, alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages, etc.
When the company went remote due to COVID, we kept the time as an open chat. Most people joined in, some with beverages, some from their backyards, and some just kept their cameras off and mic on mute. I think it worked well. The understanding (carried over from when it was in person) was that it was completely optional and that definitely helped.
As far as non-mandatory fun goes, it has to be on "company time." And you really need to emphasize that it is optional (this means not doing anything that requires you to know the number of attendees ahead of time) and that there are no repercussions for not going.
I remember two outings at the same company, same department but under different managers: with manager A we went to lunch and a movie but anyone who wanted to could just take the afternoon off instead. Under manager B we went to a movie (with paid snacks - company budget was less then) but it was either go to the movie or stay at work. There was a definite difference in vibe at the two events.
I joined the first half of the first call back in 2020, nothing after that.
It will hurt me in the long run, but I can’t stomach mandatory fun.
Company holds a mandatory Diplomacy tournament.
Company folds right after because of an extensive and unstoppable spree of employee-on-employee murders.
We had Zoom 'happy hours' where people drank alcohol and rambled about inane stuff. It was certainly an hour, but happy? No, more like depressing hours.
The enforced fun stuff at the hellscape company that laid me off were a non-issue. The layoff got me in a position to go work for a much less poisonous place.
The moment when he points to a stuffed monkey on top of the coat-rack to demonstrate how much fun it is to work there... that moment is with me forever.
Also, most of my outside interests and lifestyle is not HR appropriate. So, outside of the work we do, I don't have much in common with coworkers. Or, at least, I don't know that I do because talking frankly about outside activities could lead to a trip to HR. So there's not really anything to talk about except works tangential to work. And I already do that for 1/3 of the day when I'm forced to. I'm not looking to talk about AWS outside of my working hours with the people on my immediate team.
Things change slightly when it stretches beyond my current workgroup. If I'm in an offsite training? Yeah, I'll go do the 'fun' stuff. Because that's where I can get to know new people and have potentially find a lead on my next job move.
But with my current team? After work? Nah... Unless it's with the one person on my team who shares the same taste in music. We can hang out a bit and talk about music.
My current employer did a lowkey after work beer here and there, and during the pandemic, awkward "forced fun" zoom meetups which started off with the guy pulling things to remark on everyone's camera image. I mean I get it, someone has to do it because in this company nobody else will because they all just want to get paid and get on with their life, but still.
Since at the time I was driving a minivan, my family got to load up half the server room, racks included, and drive it to the new place.
(yes, the startup failed)
The ridiculousness-yet-very-serious nature of the scenario reads almost like satire, but it's what I've always imagined Silicon Valley's forced social events to be like.
It's a holiday together, somewhat boozy with different social activities where not everyone is forced to participate (some might need something physical in between and others are not really in shape to participate).
Which might be the secret to 'mandatory fun' in the office. Maybe just ask what they would like, listen a bit and gather feedback what worked and what not, instead of just booking some random team-building offering. Top-down, mandatory fun (with a focus on mandatory) is just not going to work.
We hired this director-level engineering manager who took it upon himself to commandeer the slack channel we had previously used to coordinate these outings, to dictate that they were now daily, and to dictate that he was in charge of choosing the location every day.
Covid quickly made the specific point moot, but they have since suffered nearly complete turnover in the engineering organization.
Personally, the idea of "fundatory" is lost on me; I am working to perform a function that furthers an end goal and in return collect payment for doing so.
If work wishes to have a weekend event or a no-obligation after work get together, the people who wish to be there will happily show up with those who would rather not be there won't.
I've worked at several (small I have to admit) companies where the people were usually honestly disappointed if they couldn't join the yearly weekend outings, the parties were fun and if someone didn't want to join, they didn't join. OK, I only started at my current one during the pandemic so I haven't actually met most of the people and it's also a bigger one, with actually separate departments, so no high hopes here, but I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be this bad.
Happy hours are the fastest way to bond, because libations lead to openness, and openness leads to friendships. Do that while you can. Then switch to lunches. Or even dinners!
No clue if any made it
Of course they also have that mindset in a dozen other ways, so I shouldn’t really be surprised.
Sent from my mandatory conference with mandatory fun events.