group work lunches

B. clipped me this Dilbert

with a note to the effect that this is how group work lunches seem to her.

I'm reminded of an incident in the memoirs of the late Roy Jenkins, the biographer of Gladstone and Churchill who was also a politician known for his tastes for prandial comfort. As a young British government minister in 1965, he was sent on a tour of various countries, and reports:

New Zealand I liked less than Australia, thinking it more claustrophobic, and in Wellington found this prejudice perfectly confirmed. The Prime Minister kindly invited me to lunch with all his colleagues. "How often do you have these Cabinet lunches?", I asked him. "Every day," he said. "We always lunch together; only those abroad unfortunately miss it."

I decided that the social aspects of political life in New Zealand would not suit me.