A Motley Crew

Working full-time does not necessarily leave a lot of time for a social life, but luckily for me I have several colleagues at work who have become friends to me, and unless some serious scheduling conflict comes up, we like to meet up each workday and go out somewhere for lunch together.  This group was already in existence when I first joined the workforce, and it seems to have cohered largely thanks to one particular colleague who, in light of this being a public blog, I shall refer to as Super Sociable Guy. 

I had hardly been at work for moer than a few days when I was first approached by Super Sociable Guy.  He isn't in my working group, but he's from the next group over (remember, super sociable) and he heard through the grapevine that I have an interest in music.  He had the same interest, and moved quickly to sound me out about joining a community orchestra, one of the two I now play in, and the one which happens to have a concert coming up this weekend.  (Incidentally, he had a hand in forming the second orchestra.  Did I mention super sociable?)  Anyway, in the process of recruiting me to the musical cause, he invited me to join the Lunch Bunch crew.  That being the sociable thing to do, and all. 

The cast of characters who attend most regularly are a colorful lot.  There is myself, and the Super Sociable Guy, of course, who tend to lean towards the left politically.  Opposite us are two other members of the crew, who tend to the conservative.  So once conversation gets rolling (a given with you-know-who in the mix) it can get lively.  The last member of the regular crew sometimes joins in (he seems to align more with myself and Mr. Social when he does) but he also just sits quietly aside sometimes, being a person of more intellectual interests.  Others join us occasionally--friends and family of the main buch, mostly, and the occasional random colleague we manage to snag. 

A typical gathering of the Lunch Bunch goes something like this:  I notice the time, and put in a call to one of the others so they can initiate the Daily Herding of the Cats.  Usually, this is the job of Super Sociable Guy.  He rounds up the others, and if they don't get side-tracked talking to someone (it has a tendency to happen) the gang appear on my doorstep a short while later.  We then select a driver from among our number who has a vehicle suitable to the day's needs, and pile on in.

Then we decide where we might actually want to go for lunch. 

Someone--generally the driver--will ask the group where we all want to go.  We all just look at each-other and shrug: Eh, we dunno.  Where did you want to go?  At this point, no strong opinions being ventured, we proceed to to simply pick a place from the exact same list of seven or so places we always go to.  To ensure a little variety, the rule is that we try not to go to the same place more than once in a given work-week.  That is apparently suffiicent to liven things up. 

Admittedly, our town is not huge, so there aren't exactly a million places to choose from, but even then our list remains pretty short.  I don't know if it is just a facet of the Engineer/Scientist personality type, or if there is some other explanation, but by and large we seem quite content to fall into a routine and keep it.  Not necessarily out of any deep love of the exact routine, but more because we have found soemthing that seems to work, and it saves mental energy to just stick with it. 

Sometimes it strikes me that we (people as a whole) spend a lot of our lives this way, and even if they make us uncomfortable sometimes, I think that people who can enter our lives and nudge us to step out of the familiar from time to time are to be valued highly. 

Ah, well.  At least I know what's for lunch tomorrow!