People who know me know that I like to eat lunch - not the cheap, greasy, fast food garbage, but the expensive, unique eateries that abound around town. People also know that I like to go to lunch with everyone I work with and I have had the pleasure of dining with thousands of people over the years.

On the surface, it's a good way to get to know people. Stephen King, in his autobiographical work of non-fiction, On Writing, said that if you know the character, they'll get up on stage, introduce themselves, and tell you all about themselves, their life, and their concerns. He was talking about characters in writing, but it's the same with real people. If you see them - if you really see them - they will tell you all about their wants, needs, and desires. And that is powerful insight for influencing people.

Lunch, particularly at a nice place, also has the capacity to affect someone's opinion of you, particularly if it's your first real time to get to know each other and it's your guest's first time there. Eating a good lunch and getting to know someone is like meeting someone in a happy place - you're more likely to come away with a positive view of that person and they're more likely to think the same of you. If they have a positive view of you, they're less likely to stand in your way when you try to affect policy or direction.

But "WAIT!", you say, "Do you mean I have to interact socially with people and be a software developer too? I entered the field so I wouldn't HAVE to interact with people!"

I'm sorry to say, and it's sad, but it's true (to paraphrase Dr. Seuss), that work as well as life is a human endeavor. If all the humans on the world died tomorrow (including those floating around in that space-station thingy), no one would care that you implemented a unit-testing framework. Life is about people - and until you remember that you will never be much more than competent in any job (with some exceptions - undertaker, morgue worker, mime, etc.).

"But I'm not good with people!" you say. It's a skill - you learn it. At one point in your life you didn't know how to write the C# language, but now you can do it in your sleep (where some of the best code is written). It's the same with people. Get off your duff and learn the skill.

Work is a game whose rules haven't been written. Learning to influence people (without using the force) will help you write the rules that guarantee your success.