board games & golf

[brainwane]

I grew up understanding "golf" as "a game rich people play while doing low-key industry networking." Indeed I know at least one executive woman who learned how to play golf tolerably well in order to acquit herself well when invited to play by colleagues, clients, etc.

Here in NYC it feels like game nights/board game afternoons are the golf of the programming class. It's kind of assumed that you can play socially, there are gaming circles that also end up serving as industry networking. And you can invite a coworker to a game night and they'll understand that it's social, and not a date, and it's ok if they play really badly as long as they show good sportsmanship.

Is it like this in other cities too?

Edited to add: By the way, I am someone who loves a few board/card games and doesn't love most of them and is willing to play many of them if that's what everyone else in a group of visitors wants to do, and I believe I recognize many of their virtues and their downsides. What I'm specifically curious about is what other cities have this same kind of scene.

Comments

[inkstone]

Yes, game nights are common here across all job occupations and I just don't get it. (I'm not a big game person, though, so I know that contributes to my not getting it.)

[brainwane]

Thanks for the data point! And sympathies! They're not usually my cup of tea either.

[seekingferret]

Golf's virtues are that it takes a long time to play, with long breaks in the action, it requires patience and strategic thinking as much as it requires strength or dexterity, so that naturally athletic people are not guaranteed to be better at it, and you get to do it outside in pretty parks. Board games have all of these virtues, except done indoors.

[brainwane]

I'd quibble, a lot, with the "all of these virtues" -- but then again it very much depends on the game!

When I was a teen, I had a doomed online romance with a guy who (among other things) golfed and followed golf, so I read a bit about pro golf, which is probably how I came across the Twain quote about spoiling a good walk. Your assessment reminds me that I ought to go on more walks!

[altamira16]

I do not think that the people that I knew who played golf were necessarily rich, but they were mostly white. One of my friends who played golf had it as the thing that he could struggle with. He was extremely bright as a child, and the really bright kids need situations where things do not come naturally so they learn persistence.

I think that my household is connected to three different board game circles.

I just assumed that all of my friends are nerds, and it is okay.

One of the groups involves people that I have known for many years. We never attend these because all the people who host have multiple cats. One of these people works at Google.

One of the groups involved involves someone that I have known since graduate school who now works at Google and probably a bunch of Pagans and Wiccans.

The third group is a newer friend that I made since moving back who has been really important in my tech learnings, and okay this is definitely networking. This friend is the best.

[brainwane]

Thanks for the data points!

I think most nerds who play board games socially do not think of it as networking -- it's interesting to hear about the different textures of the different groups.

the really bright kids need situations where things do not come naturally so they learn persistence

I agree 100%.

[lilacsigil]

My brother and his wife are both programmers who live in London and it's definitely a thing there.

[brainwane]

Thanks for the data point!

[thetransintransgenic]

How much is it the equivalent of golf, versus the equivalent of drinking-together-as-coworkers?

games as not drinking

[brainwane]

So that question gets at something that I also talk about in this comment over here, which is that having a more structured activity with clear rules makes it easier for some people to socialize -- at least in the US it seems to me that board/card games have more structure than "drinking with colleagues" but I know that in some places drinking-with-coworkers is ritualized.

And -- at least in my experience -- drinking-together-as-coworkers in Monday-to-Friday jobs happens after work on a weekday, but it's very unusual to invite someone/a group to drink together during a weekend day. But it's unremarkable to invite a coworker to socialize via board game afternoon/night on a weekend day -- much like with golf.

I think drinking-together-as-coworkers and board/card game get-togethers fulfill overlapping but different sets of needs, and golf is a closer analogue to game stuff than drinking is.

[luinied]

It definitely is not in Seattle (while going out for drinks with coworkers still is), at least in my experience.

It may be in Chicago? I've seen some hints that suggest yes, but I need more data.

[brainwane]

Thanks for the data!

[alexr_rwx]

Seems pretty similar over here in California-ville.

Lots of Googlers seem to play board games. The other thing, and I think this is more true in G. Research and G. Translate, is cycling.

I really don't love board games, but I realize my taste is weird on a lot of axes. I like cycling, but I don't have a fast road bike anymore, and I realize long distance rides exclude a lot of our teammates...

[brainwane]

Thanks for the data! That's my recollection from when I lived in Berkeley and SF, too. I wonder about the Bay Area and Santa Cruz as opposed to, say, Los Angeles....

I think cycling and rock climbing are the shared hobbies of a lot of coders, including people who enjoy the exercise-y dimensions and -- especially for cycling -- the tinkering dimension. (There's that bit in the Jargon File mentioning the preponderance of hiking boots, quoting some other writer joking that hackers wear them "in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the machine room.")

[selki]

It is not, in DC/MD/VA, though there are a lot of boardgamers here (and I am one). I have occasionally worked at jobs here where there was *overlap*. I remember playing Magic:The Gathering with a few geeks in a conference room after work in the late 90's. And at one job over a decade ago, one boss would regularly have teambuilding games (e.g., Robo Rally). But it's not a widespread expectation at IT companies here. The one job I had with mandatory "fun" instead put in your performance review whether you attended their charity marches and "happy hours" and "holiday" parties (raises and bonuses depended on being a "team player").

[brainwane]

Oh interesting. I see another person (removing username for potential privacy concerns) is having a different outskirts-of-DC experience above. Which of course speaks to the different experiences different people can have in the same metro area but in different circles, sub-industries, etc.

The one job I had with mandatory "fun" instead put in your performance review whether you attended their charity marches and "happy hours" and "holiday" parties (raises and bonuses depended on being a "team player").

OH GEEZ. Do they want Dilbert cartoons resentfully pinned onto every cubicle wall? Because that's how they get Dilbert cartoons resentfully pinned onto every cubicle wall.

[selki]

Dilbert cartoons were explicitly disallowed. The schadenfreude happy ending is that the mandatory fun company went for an IPO? and couldn't get funding in boomtime because VCs/banks took a look at their (non)professionalism including, explicitly, the merit review process, and said politely they didn't think the company would thrive under a more regulated format. I was at the all-hands company meeting where the CEO raved angrily about this to his "family", as he liked to call us, and I enjoyed keeping a straight face for it. He had put up a slide with a middle finger pictured at a previous company meeting after some negative reviews the company had received from anonymous employees on Glassdoor.