The luncheon equilibrium

My lunch group at work consists of many of my peers and a couple of seniors. The group has been steadily growing in numbers in the last 4 years and as a result, there are at least 8 of us at the table on an average day.

Though there may be seniors, till recently, not many of us had any direct reporting to anyone else (barring 1 or 2 here and there) and so, there was no underlying tension. However, in the past few months, there has been a significant change in the equation at the table.

What happened you wonder? Due to the sudden spike in the demand for people in one of the accounts, a lot of my friends have all been moved to fill in the gap. As a result, almost 80% of my lunch group now belongs to a single account. Moreover, they all now have a direct reporting into a couple of the seniors in the group as well. I am thankfully not part of that crowd and am still one of independent members in the group.

Previously, the conversations used to be around anything under the sun. We of course did have some shop talk and that would be inevitable in a group formed in the shop! But what I liked a lot was that since all of us very pretty much disconnected from each other in terms of the project we were working on, the managers we worked for etc., even when one person talked about the mundane irritants at work, there was always another person who could talk on the same topic, but with a slightly different flavour.

We got our chances to voice things about the processes or our managers without much restraint. And like I said before, even when we didn't have to talk about work, we always had so many other topics to discuss. In many ways, this was a good opportunity to de-stress yourself.

Not any more. These days, the conversation is invariably just around the account that most of my group currently works for. The issues they are facing. The support that they are not getting from others. How important they are. How big they are. How envious others are of them. What is the level of influence they have in the "system".

As ever, I try my best to steer the conversation to general topics. And I can clearly see that somehow everyone wants to return back to discussions surrounding the account. What used to friendly banter earlier, is fast turning into accusations and counter-justifications.

So, what has changed in this group? These are the same individuals, but with a closer peer equation and a clear line of reporting. Clearly, the friendship on display at the table, was clearly just that - a display. A display that always had an underlying current and the movement into a single umbrella has regulated this current to throw some light!

These days, I am almost keen on not joining them for lunch. Or for a caffeine break. Thankfully, I am spending a lot more time in the other office these days and that is certainly helping me a lot. I dunno how many days that can happen, because my visits to the other office has already started raising many an eyebrow.

Looks like it is time I find a different group for lunch and caffeine. And only time can tell me if it is going to be in this same company!