In my current shop, among a core set of coworkers, I instituted the idea of a lunch offense. The premise is that nobody's perfect and mistakes inevitably happen. No big deal. However, if your misstep causes me more work or gets me in trouble with the brass, I will fine you a lunch. Nothing extravagant, but pricey enough to discourage the cited behavior in the future. How can we be expected to learn from our mistakes if there are no consequences?
A recent infraction involved my devoting a couple of hours prepping a report for an upcoming meeting. A colleague comes over to my desk and asks what I was working on. "I'm rushing trying to finish this up for the 10:00 brief."
"Oh. I canceled that meeting because of conflicts."
"What? But it's still on my calendar!"
"Yeeaahh...I forgot to send the cancellation notice. Sorry, man."
"No apologies necessary. You just earned yourself a lunch offense."
As the seriousness of the infraction rose, so did the lunch penalty. One of the guys on the team submitted a leave request for several days around a major national holiday. However, the request was submitted nearly the day of his departure. His coworkers who followed protocol were already on leave, and his absence would have left the remaining team extremely short-handed. The guy's site lead called me and asked how it should be handled.
"Well, what's his story?"
I could hear the annoyance in the lead's voice. "He says it's a last-minute family thing that his wife wants him to attend."
"I know it sucks, but if you're at all able to cover it, let him go and tell him he owes you a lunch for each day you cover his shift."
Particularly egregious offenses warrant levying the maximum fine of 10 lunches. While I've been hit with a lunch fine here and there, I've thus far dodged this onerous sentence. However, it has been exacted in our shop.
Naresh was reorganizing a stack of hardware one day. Zack, his task lead, admonished him, "Just leave it, Naresh. That's got a live database and I don't want anything to happen to it." Naresh pressed on.
"I'm just trying to gain us more room. Relax. Nothing's gonna happen. Why are you always so twitchy?" The words barely left his mouth when he tugged on the box just hard enough to jostle its power cord loose. The box immediately spun down and the sudden silence was like a jolt to Zack.
"What. Did. You! Just! Do!?"
"Ummm... I think it had a loose power cord"
"Did I not tell you to leave it alone!?"
I was unaware of this exchange when I came around the corner. "Hey, I was on a server at it just blipped out. What's going on?"
Zack, trying without success to access the database, sharply nodded his head towards Naresh. I looked at Naresh who was smiling sheepishly. "Naresh? Dude. What. Did. You. Just. Do?"
Unsuccessful in his attempts to revive a database he'd been working on for two months, Zack angrily pushed back from the keyboard. "I'll tell you what he did! He ignored my instructions, insulted me, corrupted a database, and earned himself a 10 lunch offense."
In the following weeks, Zack repeatedly reminded Naresh of his outstanding lunch debt and threatened to start charging interest. Naresh eventually plea-bargained his sentence down to 3 paid lunches and a $25 gift card to Chipotle, Zack's favorite fast food joint. He's never made the same mistake again.
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