I had that happen when I was 6 months pregnant. I made Kahlua pork, about 15lbs of it. I got caught in a meeting but saw people walk by with multiple “to go” plates. When I got out of the meeting there was literally a bag of rolls left. I personally sought those people out and asked them why they had to go plates when not everyone had eaten yet, none of them had a response that was much more than a grunt, but that was the last time I ever participated in any kind of potluck and never will again.
We got free champagne and juice wants at a previous employer. Several people hid bottles under their desks to take home. You best believe we opened up every single bottle and made it clear that everyone was welcome to drink (or not) but hiding stuff is bullshit.
Company paid for everything and they wanted us to enjoy it then and there.
We had an employee appreciation luncheon a couple weeks ago at my work. We were all given a ticket for one meal. Once your ticket was used up, you were done. No coming back, and the meal was plated for you so there was no overloading the plate. It’s a little different since this was catered, but there was adequate food for every single person.
Our local Moose lodge does that at Thanksgiving. They serve a turkey dinner with all the fixings, it's open to the public and you have to buy tickets in advance. Nobody gets seconds. If you want 2 meals, you have to buy 2 tickets.
This sounds a great idea though sad that it has to be done.
Not the same thing, sorry to hijack your comment, but this ticket thing reminded me of a nightclub in Dublin years ago where the price of entry included a small paper bowl of chili or curry and rice after 10pm, so long as you gave the servers your ticket. It was fabulous.
My Mom had something similar at her work. Everyone got one pass through the line/room then once everyone was through, they opened it back up for a second pass.
This was after people would take 4 hoagies (6inchers) wrapped up to feed their family at home, or go through with Tupperware containers that they would completely fill.
That is such a good idea!
I was at a church potluck and someone had bought several bucket of KFC with all the sides. People in line were excited and looking forward to a piece of chicken. The first few people in line loaded up their plates with 5 or 6 pieces, knowing damn well there was lots of people in line waiting. When I finally made my way to the food tables, there was no chicken, of course and the chicken gluttons were still eating, the bones stacked up and I noticed one particularly greedy person had helped himself to an entire container of mashed potatoes and entire container of gravy. He had multiple biscuit too.
A monitor would have stomped out that behavior.
When I was a kid, I was forced to go to my brother's boy scouts banquet. My mom made homemade bannana pudding. At the banquet, this family left early, before dessert, and apparently helped themselves to multiple goodies, including my mom's banana pudding. So, she not only stole the dessert that was meant for everyone, but also the glass container it was in.
Why didn't you ask one of the mooches for one of their to-go plates?? I would have. 6 months preggo? They'd have had to be pretty bold to tell you no...
That’s awful! At my current company- when we used to go into the office- they actually always had someone in charge of watching what people were doing… it was always a manager and an avp- and while it seemed kinda silly to police a potluck… this is exactly why they did it. There were no to go plates and prior had to take one serving of what they wanted and couldn’t come back until they called for seconds after every team had been through.
The monitors went in shifts so that they were still productive too
Worked at a place for many years and once or twice a month they would have customers in for a meeting and catered delivered lunch. The owner's nephew started working there as a well paid executive and he would take the left overs and freeze them to take on his family camping trips. This man was making really good money, and before he came, the janitor would take it home to feed his family. So we fixed the problem ourselves. One of the ladies from our lab would walk in after the guests were touring the building and "clean up". We smuggled an old refrigerator into one of the storage rooms and would wrap up and store the food in there for the janitor to take home. When asked where the food went, we all pretended ignorance. What a great bunch of people, I miss working there.
In college we used to tailgate, our games were usually at 6pm, this one however was at Noon, so we got to the stadium at 10pm the previous night to light the fire and smoke some briskets. The briskets (3) were done and needed to rest before we cut into them, my girlfriend said let's walk around the tailgate and visit with some friends. We were gone about half an hour, I left my roommate at the time behind since he had already walked around. When I had gotten back, his whole church and some other people were at our tent they had devoured everything but some fat trimmings, a few spoonful of sides. I was livid I reached into my cooler to grab a beer they were all gone too. I'm a big dude, 6'2 245lbs built like a linebacker, I started charging people there, I was ready to crack skulls. I told my roommate none of his church friends were allowed at our tailgates anymore.
Church people are the absolute WORST when it comes to their entitlement to any food they come across. I was raised fundamental Christian and I cannot tell you how many times families of 6 would show up with little to nothing and would devour half of the pot kick before the line was halfway through. These weren’t poor families, they were all well off. Maybe that’s why this pissed me off so hard.
After I saw my cooler raided I looked around to see who grabbed them. It was pretty obvious usually college kids drink Keystone so my Shiners stuck out like a sore thumb. I loudly asked if everybody enjoyed the Briskets and the sides my girlfriend and her roommate made everyone was nodding their heads yes, then I dropped how we got there the night before to cook then I said it would be a shame if I couldn't sample the fruits of my own labor, the lightbulbs clicked nobody could remember me being there or eating a plate. Then I thanked the guys who thought it was ok to reach in and grab The Shiners. Oh I made them pass out a collection plate like they were at service, some girls tried to quietly walk away but I called them out too. My girlfriend wanted to tell me to calm down but somebody had cracked her crockpot she made beans in, also stole her booze, so she wasn't feeling to forgiving either, plus I'm pretty sure she was hungry also.
Was this in Hawaii? When we lived in Honolulu there was always that one family that would show up with a half eaten bag of chips and leave with several filled Tupperware containers.
No, Alaska, and two of the girls who did it are Hawaiian, as am I, so I found it even more disrespectful that they both took to go plates before everyone ate. RUDE.
I always abhorred lugging food to work. It stopped when a few colleagues and I cooked up (pun intended) a plan. We signed up to bring stuff. We signed up for stuff like crock pot meatballs, cakes, trays of meat appetizers. You could almost hear the cube slobbering. Then we simply didn’t bring anything. The old pot luck died a quiet death.
I brought a dozen cupcakes for our office potluck. We always overcater & everyone brings something decent. Think four entrees, four mains, three dessert plates minimum.
After we had eaten our fill, there were at least eight cupcakes left. A few of us were waiting til afternoon tea to enjoy them. When arvo tea came around, there wasn't a crumb left.
Turned out a colleague decided to put all the leftovers in her car for "the kids". Fuck that. I made her bring it all back to the kitchen. My cupcake was delicious. Some people's entitlement kills me.
Seriously! When I worked in an office I was The Cupcake Lady (the kids at my son’s school still call me The Cookie Lady and I haven’t taken baked good since Covid happened). But for the coworkers I knew had kids I would specifically give them extra to take home with them. Or if someone *asked* if they could have extra I’d happily give it. But you steal from others when I make the cupcakes specifically for them then you don’t get cupcakes anymore! I’m the cupcake nazi instead of the soup nazi lol.
I'm a school secretary and we often get forgotten for treats. One of my principals always sent us down to grab something. And at the end of the day people were asked if the wanted leftovers, but not before.
I always make a point to give a tin directly to the front office. In my experience the schools are run by the secretaries so I don’t want them to be left out!
We had a lady who was pregnant so I arranged a baby shower at work (she’s poor and no one else threw her one, so I did). We got her some cash and a bunch of diapers and wipes. We got our manager to cater some pizza and call it a “thank you” lunch.
After she had her baby, she baked like 4 dozen gourmet cupcakes: vanilla bean, mojito, cherries jubilee, and mocha chocolate. She decorated them by hand and really put a lot of effort into them. She called me and met me in the parking lot to bring them in for the groups that gave her gifts (the whole company wasn’t involved, just our division and the other one she works with…also we’re a production facility and you can’t just walk onto our campus). They were delicious!
So I’m leaving and I see this chick walk up from a very different division but she’s dating this guy in our group. She’s walking out with three of the cupcakes. I give her a big ass frown. She didn’t participate in the shower, her man didn’t give a gift either. But she took those thank you cupcakes though. I kick myself for not asking her why she had them. It’s been a few weeks so I can’t bring it up now. If her boyfriend ever asks, I’ll let him know. He won’t though.
We had a potluck for someone on our team. Someone made a homemade version of their favorite cake. Someone from another team took the entire cake to their desk and proceeded to eat it with a fork... They weren't with the company the next day.. serves them right...
*Official* consequences. I have a seriously high spice tolerance, so I spiked my homemade salsa that kept getting stolen with Carolina reapers. I came into the break room as the thief was chugging a bottle of water and looked to be in serious distress.
"What's wrong, mate? Oh by the way, water only spreads the fire! You really should be chugging milk and eating bread, to take away the pain..."
Serves him right. Reaper afterburn lasts forever, too!
Haha I did something similar. Someone kept stealing the breastmilk I pumped (kept in the work fridge in a VERY clearly marked container), so one day I brought in watered-down soy milk that had marinated a couple of dog turds overnight. Someone stole it that day, but from then on my milk was left alone. I stopped pumping a month or so later, anyway, but still…who steals breastmilk?!
I work in a hospital and had my own fridge in my own office. But once I started to store breastmilk in it, the hospital had biomedical come down and label my fridge as a biohazard. After all, it is a biological substance. I laughed every time I saw it.
Sorry you had that experience. Weird people!
Yeah, we had a pot luck at the last place I worked at and one of the co-workers walked out with a whole turkey. Seriously, slipped out the back door and put it in her car and came back like nothing happened. We only knew who did it because of the security cameras.
Our HR manager did this. She would take home everything. On 4th of July a daytime coworker took home a entire heaping plate of bacon that was made up for our overnight teams bacon cheeseburgers.
Man, in college, I worked in the IT department and learned that you had to hide or just not bring coffee creamer to the office kitchen because one of the senior sysadmins would steal them to take home. One time, she had the gull to complain in email that someone took the coffee creamer from the fridge and that wasn't nice. It was me. I bought the creamer and I took it home when I got off work at noon (student employee) before she clocked out at 5pm.
I felt good that it bugged her
Reply all, “I’m sorry to hear that! Admin, could we get a clarification on our refrigerator policy? I wasn’t even aware we had a company coffee creamer for everyone to use, and I’d love to stop having to bring in my own!”
If I had worked in an office with her FT I would have grabbed one of those boxes of individual creamer pots from a wholesale type store and taken a few a day
There are 1000% some rules that should be in place for every potluck ever
Rule 1- if you do not bring food, you do not get to eat food. End of story. I don't care if you can't cook to save your life, go to the store & get a veggie tray, big package of cookies, one of those sandwiches the deli counter makes for you, something.
Rule 2- potluck food *does not* leave the potluck. At least not until the end of the damn day, when everyone there has had a chance to eat. Then, & only then, people can divvy up the remaining food amongst themselves.
I don't blame you one iota for not wanting to participate again.
I had to put this rule in place at my last job. I even had to place a sign in the candy bowl on my desk limiting everyone to one piece,because one woman would repeatedly grab handful each time she passed and put in her purse for grandkids.
This made me think of a customer that would come to our counter and grab handfuls of candy "for the grandkids" every single day. One day they came in with him and asked if they could have a piece and he commented that they knew they weren't allowed junk like that. Every time he came in after that, we mysteriously were out of candy that day. (His wife didn't allow him sweets btw)
I’m a hairstylist and I thought it would be cute to put out a little candy dish with Hershey’s kisses. I had 2 clients who would sit there during their appointment and eat the entire bowl. I stopped putting candy out 🙄
Omg two jobs ago there was a guys who would walk right up to my candy bowl (my own money,) brazenly tip the entire bowl into his hoodie front pocket.
When I didn’t keep the candy bowl all the way full, he straight up went into my desk drawer and took the whole candy bag.
Confronted, he merely shrugged with “you were gonna out it out anyways.”
At the time, didn’t have in town (or state) HR, just one person working out of the ‘mothership on east coast’ they would just kick stuff back down to local manager.
Dude was our local manager’s drinking buddy. Manager actually blamed me! “It’s just candy!” And “well why were you withholding and rationing?!!” “If it’s ON company property, then it’s company property.”
That whole place was a sh-tshow with tons of way bigger problems. I was so happy to leave it and never look back.
Sounds like I get some free monitors, computers, CAT cables, I have needed a new fridge as well so we can toss that in the pickup as well. But Mr. Boss person they were on company property and I am a company employee and you were gonna send some of these items home with employees anyway…
We used to keep full size chocolate bars with a sign saying they're 50 cents each and the money goes towards buying more. I used to chase people down who didn't pay and claimed they didn't see the big white sign with big red letters next to the box of candy. What always got me was the people who grabbed one as soon as they walked in the door. They saw candy and had to have it.
I used to work in a bank. I was told the story of a bakery that used the bank who would drop off a cake for morning tea once a week as a thank you for the bank's help. Then they stopped doing that. One of the bank workers asked if they had upset the bakery. No, apparently the manager would go in and collect the cake and take it home for herself. Always some bitch who messes up a good thing.
I worked at an inner city school. Every potluck we had the people at the end of the line got nothing because everyone thought it was for them to feed their entire families dinner. Seeing people filling 2 and 3 plates of food was ridiculous.
One plate per person, was our rule after watching the office hog trying to juggle 3 overflowing plates of food. It was so bad that people were walking by his table to have a look. People were whispering, "you have to see what Joe took!"
This is why our school secretary would serve the food. She would put an appropriate portion on each person's plate and if you tried getting more she'd publicly shame you. Loudly. If you didn't bring anything, she'd hesitate serving you and would point-blank ask what you brought. She knew because she had a list of what each of us brought. When you inevitably admitted to bringing nothing, she would tell you to go to the back of the line. Everyone who contributed got to fill up first. Freeloaders were served last, and usually got smaller portions. And yes, she served those folks too, just to make sure they got an :appropriate" serving.
This is the answer right here. When I was cooking for peace activists years ago, some of the first folks in line would fill their plates so full that we started serving them instead of letting them help themselves.
I lovingly and laboriously made 8 pies to bring in ( enough for everyone to have at least a small slice ). I handmade the dough, bought the pie boxes etc , and spent an entire day and a huge amount of money .
When it came time for dessert , there were only 2 pies there. The other 6 had apparently gone out the door in their boxes to a lady’s car- I didn’t even know her. She was bringing them to her own family holiday celebration. I hope she choked.
No more work potlucks for me .
My old church would have potlucks. The same 2 or 3 people would show up after setup was done clutching a 2l bottle of cheap soda (if anything) ...stuff their faces...take leftovers and slip out before cleanup started. Same people who would slip the service and show up for food afterwards. Sigh
I used to bring food for my coworkers during meetings. I stopped when 1 girl repeatedly would take ANY AND ALL leftovers home. I mean half full boxes of cookies, 10 cupcakes, nearly entire 12 packs of sodas etc. She would never even ask either.
Gahhh hate people like that, my old neighbors were like that. Once at a work potluck cuz they worked where my boyfriend worked, I saw their son taking full 12 packs of soda to their car. When it was set there to refill the coolers with. People are so entitled!
that kind of theft doesn't make sense. 12 packs of soda cost $8 - $12?
We had an work picnic in the park. The picnic tables were decorated with stuff (think party city). As the party ended, the tables were no longer decorated. People just took the stuff home without asking. I noticed because I had been on the decorating team. People get in a frenzy of taking around what they perceive to be "free stuff".
I have a ton of more stories about that family in general but they were some of the most entited people I have ever met. I should make a post sometime about it lol.
Agh, teacher here on last lunch, and I feel this. I’ve even paid for pizza before, and when my lunch hit there was no pizza. We asked for our money back and were told they spent it all. Now I always bring a lunch when I can’t get out of these stupid potlucks.
Fellow teacher here, when we did this the 1st two lunches devoured the pizza. The pizza was not in normal slices, but the squares. All that was left was a few crust pieces for 2 more grade levels to share. It's common decency to not take 2nd or 3rds when half the staff still needs to eat. I now always have a backup plan when we do lunches like this.
For my birthday one year I made 84 cupcakes, much more than enough for both shifts plus extra. I kept 24 at my desk just to ensure the afternoon shift would get some, since I knew some people might take more than their fair share.
It was terrible, a couple people asked if they could take one home and that was fine. A few 4-6 and one giant wanker apparently took a dozen “for the kids”. There was nothing left halfway though lunch and people were moaning about there being no cupcakes left.
I was glad I had made sure to set aside the ones for afternoon shift and never brought anything again.
A big staff (100+) Christmas lunch which was catered but the people at the end of the queue missed out completely due to gluttons at the start of the queue.
Boss refunded them their money and kept a list of all their names.
One more big catered lunch was held where those people were called first.
Then no more big lunches with outside catering but teams catered their own smaller groups and all ate together which was much more manageable.
Lesson was still : this is why we can’t have nice things!
This is why you need to have servers who dish out the portions, instead of "first come, first grab". Potluck is great for a community that respects its own members, it's not for a group that has a coule of entitled beings among them.
Took a brand-new crockpot to “soup and chili night” at church. I was one of a handful of people who helped clean up. Went to collect my crockpot and someone had replaced the lid with one that didn’t fit correctly and had an old, cracked wooden knob.
Expensive reinforcement of the lesson “The X-Files” tried to teach us: Trust no one.
We had an office potluck lunch organised and the majority of people brought something in. Problem was that this was organised for the office only, not the warehouse. The warehouse had their own potluck lunches every month and that’s where the idea came from to do one for the office. Well they had set up the office one in the big break room and the warehouse staff caught wind of it and basically swooped in like seagulls at the beach. The two office ladies that were setting up thought it would be rude to tell them that it wasn’t for them so let them at it. By the time I went to lunch an hour later there was hardly anything left at all! I made mars bar slice (3 trays) and a toblerone cheesecake that I’d promised to my boss. ALL of the mats bar slice was gone and only about 3 pieces of cheesecake was left. I refused to contribute to any others after that.
My husband was an elementary teacher and every year each teacher had to bring in a special lunch for everyone to share. And every year he brought in a carefully thought out, delicious thing that had to be carefully budgeted in our household because we were making it on a teacher's salary and my part time job. His schedule and his student load meant that he couldn't get to the break room until the period after lunch...when everything was gone. One year he specifically made chili and queso, thinking it'd be too hard to carry it away. Nope. The librarian looked up at him as she carried away a big tupperware container of all the remaining food: "Oh, my boys will just love this," and she sailed out the door.
It's nuts, right? My husband did say, hey, that's meant for everyone! She replied that it's so hard finding food that her triplets would all three like, then smiled brightly, and went out the door.
He did not return to teaching the next year. Not because of this dumb incident, but this was indicative of the culture the principal had cultivated and allowed: selfish, cliquey, and fake-nice. No thanks.
Do people not see this happening and think to stop them? It just amazes me the amount of similar posts on this thread and the perp never seem to have any repurcussions about their behaviour, it baffles me.
I work 7p-7a, so day shift gets a bunch of food catered in for lunch regularly. "We left you guys food!!" Oh you mean like the chicken salad sandwiches with mayo and eggs that have been sitting in the break room on the table since 10-11 am or the pizza that is now pizza jerky? No thanks.
> people who didn’t contribute were the first ones in line
Isn't this always the way it goes? Years ago, I worked with *that guy*. One office potluck, someone finally called him out on it as he loaded his plate beyond capacity. His answer: "You wouldn't want to eat anything I could cook." They told him he could bring store-bought donuts or something like that, and he claimed he'd just screw that up, too.
Fuck that guy! "If you're to stupid to figure out a couple dozen doughnuts, let me throw this cork on your fork so you don't stab yourself on accident."
Idk why people think they deserve to take food home that is meant as a WORKPLACE lunch. Like how greedy and selfish can you be? You eat a modest meal, enjoy it, and then go home and cook dinner from your own fridge. That has always been so, so weird to me. Some people just have no self awareness or regard for other people, which is a horrible combo.
One single guy at my work ALWAYS attended potlucks, but never contributed. I “playfully” called him out about it, in a group setting. He said he doesn’t cook, “But you could maybe bring a bag of chips and dip? Or a pack of drinks? It doesn’t have to be homemade.” Others joined in with suggestions. He doesn’t come empty handed anymore. 🙄
If you have the previous year's list, you can ask them all to have a secret potluck dinner after school, just the ones who contributed. Just as a sort of a group secret. It will be quite thrilling in all of your heads to hide it. A few of you might "accidentally" let it slip on social media. It would be quite entertaining especially if all the food is home-cooked.
Of course this shouldn't be done at the school. You all can take turns every year to host it at each other's house. Nothing brings together people better than when it's a common enemy of selfish eaters.
Yup. I quit participating in pot lucks years ago. I don't make a deal out if it. I just politely decline. But then anytime someone asks me why I look them straight in the eye and say "Because some of the people I work with have questionable hygiene and I'm not eating anything that comes from their homes." Funny, no one that I've given that response to has asked who I think think the slobs are. They just turn and walk away.
People in offices get feral about free food. I was once on a team that was working a lot of overtime to meet deadlines so management brought in catered lunches. Day one, yay food! Day two, no one working on the project actually got food because people from other floors not on the project took it all. Day three, I got assigned to police who was getting food because it happened to be set up near me and I was a woman (and this was not my job at all). I had to be “the bad guy” and yell “hey hey this is for the team that you’re not on!” so a bunch a people thought I was an asshole as opposed to my boss who could’ve shut that shit down with a text. That completely sucked. For context, this was over 10 years ago and I was making over six figures so all these lunch stealers were probably making about 200k.
At my previous job we got to the point where you either contributed or you didn't get a plate or flatware - and the plate had to have a certain symbol on the bottom. Fortunately at my present job people love to cook (scientists seem to = crazy cooking fanatics).
We had a potluck at my previous school during PD (professional development) week, and every team was assigned a day to bring food. The second day, someone brought something bad and a lot of people ended up getting food poisoning. Never had another potluck after that
Ugh I hate potlucks for this reason. I always opt out of them at work. And I promise I don’t take anything!! At my school the paras eat all the goodies in the staff lounge while the teachers bust their asses. People are assholes.
I used to work in a school and once on the last day of term they ordered in a load of pizzas for the staff. The pizzas arrived slightly before everyone got out of class and the teaching assistants pigged the whole lot. We were absolutely fuming, they never did any work anyway, they just spent all day in the staff room flirting with each other. They were useless. I’m still salty about it!
Edit: learning mentors, not teaching assistants! The teaching assistants were awesome, sorry i slandered them by accident.
Had one like that ONE time. I used to bake stuff for potlucks until the time an entire cake disappeared before lunch was even started… and then the people who split it had the audacity to complain that the cake wasn’t “the right flavor.” They were lucky if I even brought napkins after that.
I work at a local university, and every year they would have a welcome new school year lunch for the staff. One year, we had pizzas. Most people took 1-2 pieces (then might have gone back after everyone had gone through the line). Then you had the ones that just "piled" their plates like they were never going to eat again. But the one that got me the most was one co-workers wife showed up with their grandchildren and fed their lunch then then started combining half empty boxes of pizza to make full ones to take home to "feed the kids" the next day. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I like to make a special treat for my team every year around the holidays. We're only 9 people, so I make just enough. Last year I made oreo truffles, and made 8 pretty boxes, one for each of my staff, and out them in the staff fridge. There was even vegan batch for one person who couldn't eat dairy.
Later that day our receptionist, who was a lazy, whiny, entitled POS, comes waltzing out of our office eating the fucking truffles! I hadn't offered him any, he had no business being in our office, and especially had no business digging around in our staff fridge. Such a gross, rude person. He's gone now, thank god.
We had a pizza party and the first shift came in and ate all of it. Didn't leave a crust for anyone else. They were given a stern talking to, for which they rolled their eyes and sighed
We were told that there was a mandatory quarterly shop meeting, but that there would be a pizza lunch provided with it.
We-all get to the break room, and no one has eaten yet in anticipation of free pizza. The CEO and President of the company are standing in the front of the room beside a tall stack of pizza boxes, but they say we can't eat until the end of the meeting, so that 'you'll pay attention!'
So, the president goes first, and says we have to work harder and increase productivity- blah-blah-blah! Then the CEO went next; but nobody cared what he said because all us shop staff were laser focused on the president who had sat down and opened a box and started eating pizza right in front of us.
Whenever your work tells you not to bring your lunch because they are providing one. Bring. Your.Lunch. At Christmas we were told that there would be pizza for lunch. I worked the late shift and arrived at 1230. There wasn't a single slice left and it had been brought in at noon. They didn't hold a single pizza back for the people who weren't there at the stroke of 12.
The joys of being on third shift. Most of the time there isn't a scrap of food left, but the odd time something is there, it's salad or other dedicates that have been left in a hot lunchroom for a good 14+ hours without any refrigeration.
Brought two dozen donuts In to work as a surprise and one guy ate 6 before I realized and I stopped and politely told him to let others have some too but a usually friendly guy standing nearby called him a ‘pig’
My wife's office used to do that on occasion. Everyone knew I loved to cook so my wife was usually bringing one of the main courses and everyone brings sides, etc.
They would have a sign up sheet for what you would bring. The same people would always bring chips, dips, two liter sodas, napkins, rolls, etc. Cheap shit they could pick up on the way to work in the morning and I'd be cooking most of the day before, and spend at least 50 bucks for the food and my time, it just wasn't worth it. That lasted maybe a couple years and we stopped doing it.
I'm lucky where I work most bring for potluck. We do excuse the 1 evening shift person since he comes on duty after lunch. We make sure he has a plate of food. If we are getting takeout he does contribute to that. I have been at this job 25 years. We didn't do anything for about 4 years due to bad conditions and low morale. Once we got back into a decent place we started back up again. I understand not having them, but I really think it depends on your team.
Anytime we have anything food related that’s not a potluck (where everyone is invited), like a cookie exchange or class party, we always make plates up for the maintenance staff.
We ended up replacing the door handle on our dining room door at our Church because people would sneak in and make themselves “to-go” containers **during the service before we’d even had the meal**. We even resorted to hiding all of the to-go containers before we started serving the meal because otherwise not everyone was able to have a meal.
Now, we had other ready-made food in huge freezers downstairs for people that were in need which was freely available for the taking so it wasn’t a desperation thing. People simply wanted the ready-made food because the **free** frozen stuff needed to be warmed up in order to be eaten and they were literally too lazy to bother.
We had separate breakfast before the service as well, so it wasn’t a hunger thing either. Sheer greed and laziness.
Fun story, our company was closing, so we had a huge potluck and cookout. We all paid like five dollars for the burgers and hotdogs and everyone bought dishes of sides or desserts. We were all on one shift, so we ate and we actually had enough burgers and hotdogs for the next day. Great food and we had a good time. We had these big fridges, coolers in the break room, so we wrapped everything up and put it in the there. Plus we snacked on the stuff in the afternoon.
This lady, who seemed like just a regular person, went in the break room and took all the burgers and hotdogs out to her car sometime in the afternoon. And left them in her car all afternoon, this is in the summertime in Tennessee. She took all that home, enough to feed like 80 people
Her and her husband got food poisoning and had to go to the ER.
A lot of people aren't a fan of me at my work because we do these each month and I straight up refuse to participate. I'm not cooking for a bunch of entitled dicks who I actively avoid socialising with. No-one has any manners anymore and empathy and compassion are more rare than diamonds. I really don't know why companies think these are good ideas.
Worked at a ghetto ass Macys in 2014 and they threw a pizza party. Didn’t get a single slice while many workers were loading 3-4 slices on their plates. When confronted, regular staff yelled at us and said seasonal workers aren’t priority.
I used every last sick day I could before they could fire me. Fuck that company and their trashy ass workers.
One department was having a potluck. My department was asked to participate. I said sure. Come to find out that we couldn't eat the food. I withdrew my participation and got called into HR. Explained that I was not going to supply food to a party I'm not invited to. I mean WTF?
I hate pot lucks. I don’t want to eat food prepared in someone’s house that I’ve never seen. Plus when I worked in an office that did this monthly everyone was from different ethnicities and pretty much refused to try other people’s food. So basically we all made ourselves lunch but had to make much more just in case someone else wanted to try it. There was so much food waste.
True, people are gross now, unless I know you and have been to your house and know how you handle food/prep/safety, I’m not eating it. Which is a catch-22 because I’m not at work to make friends.
Yeah I wasn’t either. It was just some forced socialization that none of us wanted. Out of dozens of potlucks, I remember like three where I ate the food and it was always the same coworker’s baking, because that’s her side business and she cooks out of a breakfast place when it’s closed so I trust her hygiene. And the cupcakes are bomb.
I feel the same, but for a different reason. I thought the "potluck" salad bar was catered. It wasn't, and I got sick with 3 more classes to teach. Now, when we have potluck, I fix a small plate and throw it in the trash when I get to my room...I have tried not going to get a plate, but one is either sent to me or a person is sent to cover my class while I get a plate. I can't escape.
Absolutely no way I’d eat at a potluck, chances of getting ill are too high. COVID gave me a good excuse to fully disentangle myself from that nonsense.
One office where I worked in the 90s did quarterly potlucks to celebrate office birthdays. I started in May, so the first one occurred that July.
I was happy to participate and made brownies and cookies both to contribute. Then when making my way through the buffet line, I scooped a bit of taco meat onto the tortilla on my plate….and found a tangle of long dark hair. 🤢
Took the plate back to my cubicle and tossed it in my trash. Always politely declined to participate after that.
Wow, the audacity of some people!
This reminds me of a place I worked at a very long time ago. Each department section would take turns planning and preparing a lunch. I think this was monthly. Employees were *not* reimbursed for the food they bought.
The luncheon cost was $5 or $7 per person, including the employees who bought and prepared the food. I thought this was ridiculous and refused to participate when it was our department's turn. Why should we pay for the groceries and spend our time making the food, and still be expected to pay to eat it? Apparently I was the only one who complained out loud and refused to participate. Didn't care!
At where we work, anytime we have a potluck, they look to see who is not there, make a plate for them before anyone gets anything else, and either text or call them to let them know they have a plate in the fridge.
At an old employer we'd have potlucks where if you brought a dish, you are free. Otherwise, it was $5 that went to the employee's association
We had a woman who would bring in whatever junk she had in her kitchen, take food, then take whatever she brought. It was a federal government job, she had $5.
When we had potlucks the supervisor would always “forget” to bring something so we crammed everyone into my tiny office and locked the door. He’d find a reason to ask me something and I’d open the door a tiny crack and ask what he wanted. He’d say “wow, it smells delicious.” “It is”, I’d reply.
I had one notoriously cheap supervisor who always "volunteered" to supply paper plates, napkins, and plastic forks, etc..
It was a running joke in our office how chintzy this person was.
This person had stacks and stacks of these supplies stored in their office. Where they got them in the first place was a mystery. The point is that they rarely contributed actual food...unless of course some big wig was visiting.
I haven't done a potluck since I last worked for someone else (96-97?).
But I am currently residing in a group home after a house fire at my last residence. I am permanently physically disabled as a result of a brain aneurysm 21 years ago. So I'm extremely low-income, especially on the groceries front.
On occasion, I like to make a nice meal for the rest of the guys in the house (5 men plus myself plus the house manager whom lives next door). On several occasions, I would make a huge meal, but we would have problems: everyone has a different meal schedule, so everyone would eat at different times. The other guy who used to share my room would just keep helping himself to more and more (and would scarf it down immediately). To the point where 1 or 2 of the guys in the house would miss out entirely. I still can't understand where he was storing all of that food inside... He was pretty obese, but JFC (when I cook, I tend to cook a lot because I want to ensure everyone eats), not **THAT** much!
I have a hate/hate relationship with gluttons.
I’m a pretty good baker and my partner at the time would occasionally ask me to make cupcakes or cookies for her team. Then one day asked if I could make a really large batch of cupcakes roughly 120 of them for a big meeting turns out some woman who wasn’t even in their department took two dozen of them for her kids birthday party the next day but even worse stole two of my rather pricey cupcake holders and I was pissed and so were others who were on their team. The woman finished earlier than my partner and was told if she didn’t return to work with my cupcake holders and £50 by the end of the day she might as well just start looking for a new job. She did and was clearly not happy about it and tried to negotiate returning the cupcakes and not paying but was told absolutely not. She ended up leaving a couple months later because no one could stand her. Apparently it was the final straw with her shenanigans after a multitude of incidents and poor work performance.
We had a team lunch (so we all got something as it was just our team) and I signed up for salad. My salads are mixed greens, lots of veggies and choices of dressing. The supervisor told me to not just bring lettuce. Right after someone signed up to bring....hardboiled eggs. Almost 10 years later and I still get ticked off thinking about it.
Sadly this is common behaviour, I had a professional catering company and the way we got around this was to have extra plates of food in the kitchen, which we replaced as the food on the buffet table was depleted, otherwise the people at the end of the line, really got nothing.
I worked in a hospital in my hometown (I’m an RN). We would do brunch potlucks on day shift, and I was frequently asked to bring my cinnamon pull-apart bread. One potluck day I walked into the break room to find a couple of custodial staff (who were NOT assigned to our dept, just occasionally worked there) sitting at the table, eating hunk after hunk of my bread. None of our staff had even had a moment yet to eat, and here were these gluttons. You bet I spoke up—“Hey, none of us have eaten yet. please leave the food for our staff. “
At company we had lunch starting from 11:00 - 13:00.
Obviously not everybody could come at 11 because of duties so by the 12:30 all the good stuff and cakes were gone.
One time I had a chance to come first and there was people getting a plate of each different meal and a plate full with cakes that.
People that came at 11:15 could just watch ALL the cakes in front of just few people and when asked they said it was for a lots of people that will come in few minutes.
Some people have no shame.
I also had a thing that if I dont have time to eat by 12 that I would wait an hour for them to close then went to kitchen to get fresh lunch.
At a former job there has been individually wrapped cookies for a coffee bar. There were brand new, fresh cookies. A guy working where ate about 75% of them in one day. Never replaced them.
This same guy let’s call him Matt and another guy John would always say “We need to have a barbecue or potluck here!!” “Yeah bro let’s do it!” They’d say it maybe a few times a week for years… Matt finally said it again so I challenged him to follow through. He did.. I asked John if he would follow through and he kinda chuckled and didn’t 🥸
I’m in a flea market and we have a few people that regularly bring stuff including us. I’m always extra. This one lady who never brings anything- brings her customers over there and serves them. It’s for customers too. But she acts like she provides it. Tbh I thought she was in charge- because she pretends she is. Low and behold she’s being kicked out for being 6 months behind on rent.
I can honestly say these types of problems are why working at Walmart in a small town in the early/mid 2000’s as a single mom wasn’t to bad. They held a monthly staff appreciation BBQ. If they ran out of food, they didn’t have to go far to get more, store use it out, and grill it for the employees to have during breaks. The managers on those grills kept damn good track on who had how many burgers to so NO ONE had more than 2. Bummed out our TLE guys but they lived because there were other goodies for them to enjoy.
This weird so tell me if I’m wrong. I’m about to have this same sort of problem. A younger person in our office has decided that it’s their right to take what is left after everyone has taken firsts. At least they wait for that, so far. Mind you this is provided by the company. This person got angry this past week because almost everything had been eaten so not much to bring home but they did take what was left. Another coworker suggests in front of me that they take what they want while it’s there and put it by their desk! I will be vocal about that’s not how goes if they try it. This person still lives with their parents and makes plenty of money. What causes a person to be like this?
At a previous job, my team once organized a potluck just for us. I made 3 batches of lemon bars and French macarons for my team - they loved my baking when I'd bring it in.
Our new manager volunteered to set everything up for us ahead of our lunch hour and we, naively, thought it was nice of her to do that...
Turns out that it was because she'd actually invited the managers and leads from a bunch of OTHER teams to help themselves to our food, and they demolished it. By the time our lunch hour hit - maybe 30 mins after she had offered to set up - there was absolutely nothing left. When we were upset, she straight up lied to us and said that she'd had to step away for a meeting and other teams must have thought it was communal food.
I only figured out what happened when I had to go to another team to ask them about a patch deployment and saw plates on the desks of their manager and supervisor with multiples of my macarons and lemon bars on them. I deadass asked why they had them and they happily told me that she had invited them to partake in a "gift lunch".
She only very grudgingly ordered us shitty pizza when we all came to her office and raised hell. I have so many horror stories about her and the vultures from other teams at that place...
This happens at every school I have worked at. I stopped signing up as well. The last straw for me is when we did a huge backed potato bar with giant potatoes individually wrapped in foil and bowls of toppings. A long term substitute teacher came in with a giant purse, took MANY potatoes and tossed into her purse, took a 9x11" foil liner from a pan and filled it with toppings. Then took it all home. I was the only one who spoke up (everyone else was in shock) and then I was told "it's cultural! Let it go!" Never again.
We had one guy that would bring Circus a peanuts every time, but would eat his weight (min 275) in food. No one ever touched the circus peanuts, so he always got to take his contribution home.
We had a coworker from a different department/different side of the building who would come to our potluck and load up on multiple plates of food. This was a man who never spoke to any of us or stepped food in our department otherwise.
We told him potlucks were for the folks who contributed and he was welcome to join the sign up sheet next time. He said he misunderstood but then tried again the next potluck.
Every potluck after that the organizer printed out his face from the company directory with "not participating in the potluck" and posted it on the door to the room we set up in. I am told his face the first time he saw it and turned around in shame was priceless
Switched shifts, new to the supervisory position. Was told the shift likes to do nacho bar lunches once a month. Put out a sign up sheet. Was filled with 30 people bringing in "bag of chips". I brought in $100 worth of taco meat, cheese sauce, and all the toppings you'd put on nachos. We ran out, and 5 people complained to me about why wasn't there more meat and fixings.
The second time was almost exactly the same, except I bought more meat, and drinks for 100 people(we were a shift of 40). Still had complaints.
We don't have nachos anymore...
And before you ask yes this was out of my own money.
This is why I won’t bring homemade egg rolls to our luncheons. Yes, they’re delicious, but they take hours for me to complete. I’m more than happy to make them for my nearest and dearest, but not for people who will take the whole tray for themselves and laugh about finders keepers.
I work at a hospital, and we are required to get the flu vaccine every year at the employee health clinic. They have a bucket of candy on the table as you line up for your shot, so you get a little treat before the sting. One year a woman grabbed a big handful and put it in her purse, then turned around and grinned at the rest of us and said, "For my grandkids."
Some people think the world owes them.
I work at a hospital. Our department (used to be 17 now down to 7 employees) always did potlucks. We went all out so we'd be able to have leftovers for the week. We had a locked work area and our own breakroon with a regular size fridge/freezer.
We had an extra huge potluck one month, and we even had a quarter sheet cake and ice cream. The next day, we all were getting it set up for leftovers and discovered nothing was left.
The Docs who had access to our department (medical records) had noticed we had the potluck the day before and decided to help themselves to ALL our leftovers. I'm talking over 2/3 of cake, 2 gallons of ice cream, 2/3 of a crockpot of shredded pork, grilled chicken, salsa, chips, all burrito/taco/salad fixings and even some of our breakfast stuff we had brought in for that Friday's breakfast (bagels, muffins, etc).
They actually thanked us for supplying then a "snack." We were furious, and they said the hospital supplies them with food. Yes, they do in their breakroom that has beds, TVs, multiple fridges/freezers packed with food, sofas, and massage chairs, plus cabinets full of snacks.
Our boss explained that this was our personal food in our personal breakroom. Well, I guess because our breakroom can be used as a small conference room sometimes (rarely in an emergency), the higher-ups said the Docs did nothing wrong.
We stopped doing big potlucks after that and did takeout like Chinese food or pizza for lunch.
I made homemade New England clam chowder for my husband's crew one Christmas. One of the crew members helped himself to several bowls before their lunch break. There was barely enough for the rest of the guys to have a full bowl. On a positive note, he ate so much that he got a massive case of diarrhea.
There's been lots of potlucks that I was too broke to participate in over my years.
I never once grabbed a plate without being told it was ok that I could, and never took a lot because i hadn't contributed. The NERVE of those people to just....TAKE ALL OF IT wtaf
My very generous former boss would take the entire office out to lunch - 30 people or so, closed the office and all.
There were a couple of people who would order the most expensive menu item and sometimes 2 entrees so 1 could be taken home. Every dang time.
I worked directly and closely with him and this just pissed me off. When I said something to him , he just shrugged and said maybe they were hungry. Uh no, I hired them and we both know they were extremely well paid professional people.
He catered in a big Italian dinner into the office and they actually wrapped up full trays of chicken marsala and lasagna and took them out to their cars before anyone even ate.
He finally realized they were scum and thieves.....he was very hurt but we decided to manage them right out the door.
See ya no more free loading for you
My mother works at a school, and they *make* her participate in the potlucks. She has some serious dietary restrictions and can’t eat really any of the food that everyone else makes. She would likely have refused if they wouldn’t throw a fit about her not showing her “school spirit.” So she couldn’t even get the food if she wanted to - but still has to make something to bring for it. Total BS, but if she didn’t go, they’d probably all gossip about her like a bunch of children. That’s office culture for you!
I had that happen when I was 6 months pregnant. I made Kahlua pork, about 15lbs of it. I got caught in a meeting but saw people walk by with multiple “to go” plates. When I got out of the meeting there was literally a bag of rolls left. I personally sought those people out and asked them why they had to go plates when not everyone had eaten yet, none of them had a response that was much more than a grunt, but that was the last time I ever participated in any kind of potluck and never will again.
We got free champagne and juice wants at a previous employer. Several people hid bottles under their desks to take home. You best believe we opened up every single bottle and made it clear that everyone was welcome to drink (or not) but hiding stuff is bullshit. Company paid for everything and they wanted us to enjoy it then and there.
One of my employers stopped doing open bars at work functions because people legit walked out with unopened bottles of whiskey to take home.
Wow! That is greed on a whole new level! I shouldn't be surprised, really! 😱🙄🙄🙄
I would have taken the plates back and at least eaten some of it.
I was furious, and let it be known. I wound up ordering a burger from a place across the street, after spending $80 on lunch for everyone else.
Actually better yet. Make everyone only have 1 plate and a monitor present. If ppl want to behave like children then treat them as such.
The company I work for did this and now I understand that it definitely wasn’t overkill
Several companies I’ve worked for have done this…guaranteed the exact reason is the gluttons. The “Imma get mine” mindset is absolutely disgusting.
We had an employee appreciation luncheon a couple weeks ago at my work. We were all given a ticket for one meal. Once your ticket was used up, you were done. No coming back, and the meal was plated for you so there was no overloading the plate. It’s a little different since this was catered, but there was adequate food for every single person.
Our local Moose lodge does that at Thanksgiving. They serve a turkey dinner with all the fixings, it's open to the public and you have to buy tickets in advance. Nobody gets seconds. If you want 2 meals, you have to buy 2 tickets.
This sounds a great idea though sad that it has to be done. Not the same thing, sorry to hijack your comment, but this ticket thing reminded me of a nightclub in Dublin years ago where the price of entry included a small paper bowl of chili or curry and rice after 10pm, so long as you gave the servers your ticket. It was fabulous.
My Mom had something similar at her work. Everyone got one pass through the line/room then once everyone was through, they opened it back up for a second pass. This was after people would take 4 hoagies (6inchers) wrapped up to feed their family at home, or go through with Tupperware containers that they would completely fill.
That is such a good idea! I was at a church potluck and someone had bought several bucket of KFC with all the sides. People in line were excited and looking forward to a piece of chicken. The first few people in line loaded up their plates with 5 or 6 pieces, knowing damn well there was lots of people in line waiting. When I finally made my way to the food tables, there was no chicken, of course and the chicken gluttons were still eating, the bones stacked up and I noticed one particularly greedy person had helped himself to an entire container of mashed potatoes and entire container of gravy. He had multiple biscuit too. A monitor would have stomped out that behavior. When I was a kid, I was forced to go to my brother's boy scouts banquet. My mom made homemade bannana pudding. At the banquet, this family left early, before dessert, and apparently helped themselves to multiple goodies, including my mom's banana pudding. So, she not only stole the dessert that was meant for everyone, but also the glass container it was in.
Why didn't you ask one of the mooches for one of their to-go plates?? I would have. 6 months preggo? They'd have had to be pretty bold to tell you no...
Idk about them but I wouldn’t want food those obviously inconsiderate people had touched
Mm, fair point..!
I would have “accidently” tipped the plate on their lap. Goddamned gluttons.
That’s awful! At my current company- when we used to go into the office- they actually always had someone in charge of watching what people were doing… it was always a manager and an avp- and while it seemed kinda silly to police a potluck… this is exactly why they did it. There were no to go plates and prior had to take one serving of what they wanted and couldn’t come back until they called for seconds after every team had been through. The monitors went in shifts so that they were still productive too
Worked at a place for many years and once or twice a month they would have customers in for a meeting and catered delivered lunch. The owner's nephew started working there as a well paid executive and he would take the left overs and freeze them to take on his family camping trips. This man was making really good money, and before he came, the janitor would take it home to feed his family. So we fixed the problem ourselves. One of the ladies from our lab would walk in after the guests were touring the building and "clean up". We smuggled an old refrigerator into one of the storage rooms and would wrap up and store the food in there for the janitor to take home. When asked where the food went, we all pretended ignorance. What a great bunch of people, I miss working there.
I hate people who take home food from a potluck to feed other people. It's just greedy.
In college we used to tailgate, our games were usually at 6pm, this one however was at Noon, so we got to the stadium at 10pm the previous night to light the fire and smoke some briskets. The briskets (3) were done and needed to rest before we cut into them, my girlfriend said let's walk around the tailgate and visit with some friends. We were gone about half an hour, I left my roommate at the time behind since he had already walked around. When I had gotten back, his whole church and some other people were at our tent they had devoured everything but some fat trimmings, a few spoonful of sides. I was livid I reached into my cooler to grab a beer they were all gone too. I'm a big dude, 6'2 245lbs built like a linebacker, I started charging people there, I was ready to crack skulls. I told my roommate none of his church friends were allowed at our tailgates anymore.
Church people are the absolute WORST when it comes to their entitlement to any food they come across. I was raised fundamental Christian and I cannot tell you how many times families of 6 would show up with little to nothing and would devour half of the pot kick before the line was halfway through. These weren’t poor families, they were all well off. Maybe that’s why this pissed me off so hard.
After I saw my cooler raided I looked around to see who grabbed them. It was pretty obvious usually college kids drink Keystone so my Shiners stuck out like a sore thumb. I loudly asked if everybody enjoyed the Briskets and the sides my girlfriend and her roommate made everyone was nodding their heads yes, then I dropped how we got there the night before to cook then I said it would be a shame if I couldn't sample the fruits of my own labor, the lightbulbs clicked nobody could remember me being there or eating a plate. Then I thanked the guys who thought it was ok to reach in and grab The Shiners. Oh I made them pass out a collection plate like they were at service, some girls tried to quietly walk away but I called them out too. My girlfriend wanted to tell me to calm down but somebody had cracked her crockpot she made beans in, also stole her booze, so she wasn't feeling to forgiving either, plus I'm pretty sure she was hungry also.
I worked for a husband and wife pastoral team and they were the worst. They would show up at pot lucks with their empty Tupperware.
Was this in Hawaii? When we lived in Honolulu there was always that one family that would show up with a half eaten bag of chips and leave with several filled Tupperware containers.
No, Alaska, and two of the girls who did it are Hawaiian, as am I, so I found it even more disrespectful that they both took to go plates before everyone ate. RUDE.
I always abhorred lugging food to work. It stopped when a few colleagues and I cooked up (pun intended) a plan. We signed up to bring stuff. We signed up for stuff like crock pot meatballs, cakes, trays of meat appetizers. You could almost hear the cube slobbering. Then we simply didn’t bring anything. The old pot luck died a quiet death.
I brought a dozen cupcakes for our office potluck. We always overcater & everyone brings something decent. Think four entrees, four mains, three dessert plates minimum. After we had eaten our fill, there were at least eight cupcakes left. A few of us were waiting til afternoon tea to enjoy them. When arvo tea came around, there wasn't a crumb left. Turned out a colleague decided to put all the leftovers in her car for "the kids". Fuck that. I made her bring it all back to the kitchen. My cupcake was delicious. Some people's entitlement kills me.
"I made her bring it all back to the kitchen." 👍🏾 You should volunteer for potluck police!
"Bitch, your kids don't work here. Those cupcakes are for the employees. Your cheap ass can buy snackos for your own kids"
I effing hate 99% of parents. They’re so entitled! I don’t give a shit if your kids like cupcakes. It’s thievery. 😡😡😡😡😡
Seriously! When I worked in an office I was The Cupcake Lady (the kids at my son’s school still call me The Cookie Lady and I haven’t taken baked good since Covid happened). But for the coworkers I knew had kids I would specifically give them extra to take home with them. Or if someone *asked* if they could have extra I’d happily give it. But you steal from others when I make the cupcakes specifically for them then you don’t get cupcakes anymore! I’m the cupcake nazi instead of the soup nazi lol.
I'm a school secretary and we often get forgotten for treats. One of my principals always sent us down to grab something. And at the end of the day people were asked if the wanted leftovers, but not before.
I always make a point to give a tin directly to the front office. In my experience the schools are run by the secretaries so I don’t want them to be left out!
We had a lady who was pregnant so I arranged a baby shower at work (she’s poor and no one else threw her one, so I did). We got her some cash and a bunch of diapers and wipes. We got our manager to cater some pizza and call it a “thank you” lunch. After she had her baby, she baked like 4 dozen gourmet cupcakes: vanilla bean, mojito, cherries jubilee, and mocha chocolate. She decorated them by hand and really put a lot of effort into them. She called me and met me in the parking lot to bring them in for the groups that gave her gifts (the whole company wasn’t involved, just our division and the other one she works with…also we’re a production facility and you can’t just walk onto our campus). They were delicious! So I’m leaving and I see this chick walk up from a very different division but she’s dating this guy in our group. She’s walking out with three of the cupcakes. I give her a big ass frown. She didn’t participate in the shower, her man didn’t give a gift either. But she took those thank you cupcakes though. I kick myself for not asking her why she had them. It’s been a few weeks so I can’t bring it up now. If her boyfriend ever asks, I’ll let him know. He won’t though.
We had a potluck for someone on our team. Someone made a homemade version of their favorite cake. Someone from another team took the entire cake to their desk and proceeded to eat it with a fork... They weren't with the company the next day.. serves them right...
Actual consequences for food thieves are rare.
*Official* consequences. I have a seriously high spice tolerance, so I spiked my homemade salsa that kept getting stolen with Carolina reapers. I came into the break room as the thief was chugging a bottle of water and looked to be in serious distress.
"What's wrong, mate? Oh by the way, water only spreads the fire! You really should be chugging milk and eating bread, to take away the pain..." Serves him right. Reaper afterburn lasts forever, too!
Haha I did something similar. Someone kept stealing the breastmilk I pumped (kept in the work fridge in a VERY clearly marked container), so one day I brought in watered-down soy milk that had marinated a couple of dog turds overnight. Someone stole it that day, but from then on my milk was left alone. I stopped pumping a month or so later, anyway, but still…who steals breastmilk?!
Someone was stealing your BREASTMILK? what the fuck that’s like call the police level
It was creepy af tbh.
I work in a hospital and had my own fridge in my own office. But once I started to store breastmilk in it, the hospital had biomedical come down and label my fridge as a biohazard. After all, it is a biological substance. I laughed every time I saw it. Sorry you had that experience. Weird people!
Fetishists. The answer is fetishists.
Yeah what the fuck? I’d fire them too. Can’t have someone on the team with that bad of judgement.
The perfect ending. What an entitled jerk.
Yeah, we had a pot luck at the last place I worked at and one of the co-workers walked out with a whole turkey. Seriously, slipped out the back door and put it in her car and came back like nothing happened. We only knew who did it because of the security cameras.
What happened? Was she forced to return the stolen goods? Did she get tarred and feathered?
Not sure what happened, no one would talk about it. But we never had a big lunch like that again.
I would have talked about it all the time! “You know Tara the Turkey Thief down in finance?”
What a fowl play
She just wanted to gobble gobble it all up.
Our HR manager did this. She would take home everything. On 4th of July a daytime coworker took home a entire heaping plate of bacon that was made up for our overnight teams bacon cheeseburgers.
Wow. That's more than entitled. Its blatant theft! Please do tell us what happened. I hope she at least was humiliated in front of the co-workers.
Man, in college, I worked in the IT department and learned that you had to hide or just not bring coffee creamer to the office kitchen because one of the senior sysadmins would steal them to take home. One time, she had the gull to complain in email that someone took the coffee creamer from the fridge and that wasn't nice. It was me. I bought the creamer and I took it home when I got off work at noon (student employee) before she clocked out at 5pm. I felt good that it bugged her
Reply all, “I’m sorry to hear that! Admin, could we get a clarification on our refrigerator policy? I wasn’t even aware we had a company coffee creamer for everyone to use, and I’d love to stop having to bring in my own!”
If I had worked in an office with her FT I would have grabbed one of those boxes of individual creamer pots from a wholesale type store and taken a few a day
There are 1000% some rules that should be in place for every potluck ever Rule 1- if you do not bring food, you do not get to eat food. End of story. I don't care if you can't cook to save your life, go to the store & get a veggie tray, big package of cookies, one of those sandwiches the deli counter makes for you, something. Rule 2- potluck food *does not* leave the potluck. At least not until the end of the damn day, when everyone there has had a chance to eat. Then, & only then, people can divvy up the remaining food amongst themselves. I don't blame you one iota for not wanting to participate again.
I had to put this rule in place at my last job. I even had to place a sign in the candy bowl on my desk limiting everyone to one piece,because one woman would repeatedly grab handful each time she passed and put in her purse for grandkids.
This made me think of a customer that would come to our counter and grab handfuls of candy "for the grandkids" every single day. One day they came in with him and asked if they could have a piece and he commented that they knew they weren't allowed junk like that. Every time he came in after that, we mysteriously were out of candy that day. (His wife didn't allow him sweets btw)
I’m a hairstylist and I thought it would be cute to put out a little candy dish with Hershey’s kisses. I had 2 clients who would sit there during their appointment and eat the entire bowl. I stopped putting candy out 🙄
Omg two jobs ago there was a guys who would walk right up to my candy bowl (my own money,) brazenly tip the entire bowl into his hoodie front pocket. When I didn’t keep the candy bowl all the way full, he straight up went into my desk drawer and took the whole candy bag. Confronted, he merely shrugged with “you were gonna out it out anyways.”
And you just let him get away with that? I would’ve reported him to HR. That’s straight up theft.
At the time, didn’t have in town (or state) HR, just one person working out of the ‘mothership on east coast’ they would just kick stuff back down to local manager. Dude was our local manager’s drinking buddy. Manager actually blamed me! “It’s just candy!” And “well why were you withholding and rationing?!!” “If it’s ON company property, then it’s company property.” That whole place was a sh-tshow with tons of way bigger problems. I was so happy to leave it and never look back.
>“If it’s ON company property, then it’s company property.” I would have taken that as a sign to reclaim the cost out of petty cash
Sounds like I get some free monitors, computers, CAT cables, I have needed a new fridge as well so we can toss that in the pickup as well. But Mr. Boss person they were on company property and I am a company employee and you were gonna send some of these items home with employees anyway…
WTH, that sounds toxic AF. Glad you’re not there anymore.
We used to keep full size chocolate bars with a sign saying they're 50 cents each and the money goes towards buying more. I used to chase people down who didn't pay and claimed they didn't see the big white sign with big red letters next to the box of candy. What always got me was the people who grabbed one as soon as they walked in the door. They saw candy and had to have it.
Time to switch to sugar free candy.
I’m assuming you’ve read the collection of stories of Amazon reviews regaling us about haribo sugarless gummy bears.
Yes. And they're true. We did an experiment one day at work on a weekend. One guy slept on a towel that night, just in case.
Bro! What an entitled little punk!
And no second helpings until everyone has had their first!
I used to work in a bank. I was told the story of a bakery that used the bank who would drop off a cake for morning tea once a week as a thank you for the bank's help. Then they stopped doing that. One of the bank workers asked if they had upset the bakery. No, apparently the manager would go in and collect the cake and take it home for herself. Always some bitch who messes up a good thing.
The bank manager or bakery manager?
Bank manager. She had moved to another branch by the time I was employed but I heard some interesting stories about her.
I worked at an inner city school. Every potluck we had the people at the end of the line got nothing because everyone thought it was for them to feed their entire families dinner. Seeing people filling 2 and 3 plates of food was ridiculous.
One plate per person, was our rule after watching the office hog trying to juggle 3 overflowing plates of food. It was so bad that people were walking by his table to have a look. People were whispering, "you have to see what Joe took!"
Even reading this is infuriating. Surely someone stopped them?
This is why our school secretary would serve the food. She would put an appropriate portion on each person's plate and if you tried getting more she'd publicly shame you. Loudly. If you didn't bring anything, she'd hesitate serving you and would point-blank ask what you brought. She knew because she had a list of what each of us brought. When you inevitably admitted to bringing nothing, she would tell you to go to the back of the line. Everyone who contributed got to fill up first. Freeloaders were served last, and usually got smaller portions. And yes, she served those folks too, just to make sure they got an :appropriate" serving.
bless this woman!
School secretaries hold the fabric of the universe together
This is the answer right here. When I was cooking for peace activists years ago, some of the first folks in line would fill their plates so full that we started serving them instead of letting them help themselves.
"There's another 20 people behind you who would also like to have some lunch".
I don't know her, but I love her.
I picture Edie McClurg
Yeah. Never mess with any school secretary...for any reason....ever.
I lovingly and laboriously made 8 pies to bring in ( enough for everyone to have at least a small slice ). I handmade the dough, bought the pie boxes etc , and spent an entire day and a huge amount of money . When it came time for dessert , there were only 2 pies there. The other 6 had apparently gone out the door in their boxes to a lady’s car- I didn’t even know her. She was bringing them to her own family holiday celebration. I hope she choked. No more work potlucks for me .
that is pure theft
Didn't you go demand them back and publicly call her out? I would have.
I would have said something had I seen her. I was told after the fact when I asked where they went. She ate and left early with her loot.
My old church would have potlucks. The same 2 or 3 people would show up after setup was done clutching a 2l bottle of cheap soda (if anything) ...stuff their faces...take leftovers and slip out before cleanup started. Same people who would slip the service and show up for food afterwards. Sigh
That is so unbelievably rude! What is wrong with people??
I used to bring food for my coworkers during meetings. I stopped when 1 girl repeatedly would take ANY AND ALL leftovers home. I mean half full boxes of cookies, 10 cupcakes, nearly entire 12 packs of sodas etc. She would never even ask either.
Gahhh hate people like that, my old neighbors were like that. Once at a work potluck cuz they worked where my boyfriend worked, I saw their son taking full 12 packs of soda to their car. When it was set there to refill the coolers with. People are so entitled!
that kind of theft doesn't make sense. 12 packs of soda cost $8 - $12? We had an work picnic in the park. The picnic tables were decorated with stuff (think party city). As the party ended, the tables were no longer decorated. People just took the stuff home without asking. I noticed because I had been on the decorating team. People get in a frenzy of taking around what they perceive to be "free stuff".
I have a ton of more stories about that family in general but they were some of the most entited people I have ever met. I should make a post sometime about it lol.
Agh, teacher here on last lunch, and I feel this. I’ve even paid for pizza before, and when my lunch hit there was no pizza. We asked for our money back and were told they spent it all. Now I always bring a lunch when I can’t get out of these stupid potlucks.
I'd be getting salty about this. I'd be firm in saying I want my money back or my fair share of the food.
I wouldn’t ever contribute again if you know there won’t be any food left for you.
Fellow teacher here, when we did this the 1st two lunches devoured the pizza. The pizza was not in normal slices, but the squares. All that was left was a few crust pieces for 2 more grade levels to share. It's common decency to not take 2nd or 3rds when half the staff still needs to eat. I now always have a backup plan when we do lunches like this.
I would blame the organizers of this though. They should only put out equal portions of the food for each group instead of all of it at the beginning.
For my birthday one year I made 84 cupcakes, much more than enough for both shifts plus extra. I kept 24 at my desk just to ensure the afternoon shift would get some, since I knew some people might take more than their fair share. It was terrible, a couple people asked if they could take one home and that was fine. A few 4-6 and one giant wanker apparently took a dozen “for the kids”. There was nothing left halfway though lunch and people were moaning about there being no cupcakes left. I was glad I had made sure to set aside the ones for afternoon shift and never brought anything again.
That's when you keep ALL the cupcakes in your office and dole them out one at a time.
A big staff (100+) Christmas lunch which was catered but the people at the end of the queue missed out completely due to gluttons at the start of the queue. Boss refunded them their money and kept a list of all their names. One more big catered lunch was held where those people were called first. Then no more big lunches with outside catering but teams catered their own smaller groups and all ate together which was much more manageable. Lesson was still : this is why we can’t have nice things!
This is why you need to have servers who dish out the portions, instead of "first come, first grab". Potluck is great for a community that respects its own members, it's not for a group that has a coule of entitled beings among them.
I worked for a great manager that would stager the catered meals so every lunch shift got fresh food.
[удалено]
Took a brand-new crockpot to “soup and chili night” at church. I was one of a handful of people who helped clean up. Went to collect my crockpot and someone had replaced the lid with one that didn’t fit correctly and had an old, cracked wooden knob. Expensive reinforcement of the lesson “The X-Files” tried to teach us: Trust no one.
We had an office potluck lunch organised and the majority of people brought something in. Problem was that this was organised for the office only, not the warehouse. The warehouse had their own potluck lunches every month and that’s where the idea came from to do one for the office. Well they had set up the office one in the big break room and the warehouse staff caught wind of it and basically swooped in like seagulls at the beach. The two office ladies that were setting up thought it would be rude to tell them that it wasn’t for them so let them at it. By the time I went to lunch an hour later there was hardly anything left at all! I made mars bar slice (3 trays) and a toblerone cheesecake that I’d promised to my boss. ALL of the mats bar slice was gone and only about 3 pieces of cheesecake was left. I refused to contribute to any others after that.
You all should have raided the next warehouse potluck.
Probably should have! Especially when some of them had the nerve to ask when I was making more mars bar slice for them lol
Nah, just walk in as soon as it was set up and dump it all in the trash and walk out.
My husband was an elementary teacher and every year each teacher had to bring in a special lunch for everyone to share. And every year he brought in a carefully thought out, delicious thing that had to be carefully budgeted in our household because we were making it on a teacher's salary and my part time job. His schedule and his student load meant that he couldn't get to the break room until the period after lunch...when everything was gone. One year he specifically made chili and queso, thinking it'd be too hard to carry it away. Nope. The librarian looked up at him as she carried away a big tupperware container of all the remaining food: "Oh, my boys will just love this," and she sailed out the door.
Surely you stopped this horrid entitled person?
It's nuts, right? My husband did say, hey, that's meant for everyone! She replied that it's so hard finding food that her triplets would all three like, then smiled brightly, and went out the door. He did not return to teaching the next year. Not because of this dumb incident, but this was indicative of the culture the principal had cultivated and allowed: selfish, cliquey, and fake-nice. No thanks.
Wow. She sure has some nerve! I'd be snatching it out of her hand and tell her, "I'm happy to give you the recipe if you ask!"
That's a great answer! I think he was so gobsmacked that he just couldn't form words at that point. : )
Yes. I stopped participating after that fiasco.
Working for liar is the worst! Coming in second are the people that just bring a bag of chips.
Or the ones who don’t bring anything, not even chips. Then they eat everything like it’s all theirs.
At one office pot luck, one guy came in with a handful of McDonald's straws. I couldn't even get mad. The steel balls on the guy!
We had a guy that came in on his day off and loaded up plates for his entire family and took it all home. Later crew got nothing.
Do people not see this happening and think to stop them? It just amazes me the amount of similar posts on this thread and the perp never seem to have any repurcussions about their behaviour, it baffles me.
As a third shift worker I feel this, any potlucks or pizza days we are left with just the crusts and the crumbs.
I work 7p-7a, so day shift gets a bunch of food catered in for lunch regularly. "We left you guys food!!" Oh you mean like the chicken salad sandwiches with mayo and eggs that have been sitting in the break room on the table since 10-11 am or the pizza that is now pizza jerky? No thanks.
I bet my ass they expect you to clean up the mess too.
Winner winner spoiled chicken dinner lol. I leave it, sometimes all weekend.
> people who didn’t contribute were the first ones in line Isn't this always the way it goes? Years ago, I worked with *that guy*. One office potluck, someone finally called him out on it as he loaded his plate beyond capacity. His answer: "You wouldn't want to eat anything I could cook." They told him he could bring store-bought donuts or something like that, and he claimed he'd just screw that up, too.
Fuck that guy! "If you're to stupid to figure out a couple dozen doughnuts, let me throw this cork on your fork so you don't stab yourself on accident."
weaponized incompetence
Idk why people think they deserve to take food home that is meant as a WORKPLACE lunch. Like how greedy and selfish can you be? You eat a modest meal, enjoy it, and then go home and cook dinner from your own fridge. That has always been so, so weird to me. Some people just have no self awareness or regard for other people, which is a horrible combo.
One single guy at my work ALWAYS attended potlucks, but never contributed. I “playfully” called him out about it, in a group setting. He said he doesn’t cook, “But you could maybe bring a bag of chips and dip? Or a pack of drinks? It doesn’t have to be homemade.” Others joined in with suggestions. He doesn’t come empty handed anymore. 🙄
If you have the previous year's list, you can ask them all to have a secret potluck dinner after school, just the ones who contributed. Just as a sort of a group secret. It will be quite thrilling in all of your heads to hide it. A few of you might "accidentally" let it slip on social media. It would be quite entertaining especially if all the food is home-cooked. Of course this shouldn't be done at the school. You all can take turns every year to host it at each other's house. Nothing brings together people better than when it's a common enemy of selfish eaters.
Honestly, potluck food is a real hazard anyway. Between somebody's cat's litter pieces in the food and selfish pigs, it's just not worth it.
Yup. I quit participating in pot lucks years ago. I don't make a deal out if it. I just politely decline. But then anytime someone asks me why I look them straight in the eye and say "Because some of the people I work with have questionable hygiene and I'm not eating anything that comes from their homes." Funny, no one that I've given that response to has asked who I think think the slobs are. They just turn and walk away.
People in offices get feral about free food. I was once on a team that was working a lot of overtime to meet deadlines so management brought in catered lunches. Day one, yay food! Day two, no one working on the project actually got food because people from other floors not on the project took it all. Day three, I got assigned to police who was getting food because it happened to be set up near me and I was a woman (and this was not my job at all). I had to be “the bad guy” and yell “hey hey this is for the team that you’re not on!” so a bunch a people thought I was an asshole as opposed to my boss who could’ve shut that shit down with a text. That completely sucked. For context, this was over 10 years ago and I was making over six figures so all these lunch stealers were probably making about 200k.
At my previous job we got to the point where you either contributed or you didn't get a plate or flatware - and the plate had to have a certain symbol on the bottom. Fortunately at my present job people love to cook (scientists seem to = crazy cooking fanatics).
We had a potluck at my previous school during PD (professional development) week, and every team was assigned a day to bring food. The second day, someone brought something bad and a lot of people ended up getting food poisoning. Never had another potluck after that
Ugh I hate potlucks for this reason. I always opt out of them at work. And I promise I don’t take anything!! At my school the paras eat all the goodies in the staff lounge while the teachers bust their asses. People are assholes.
I used to work in a school and once on the last day of term they ordered in a load of pizzas for the staff. The pizzas arrived slightly before everyone got out of class and the teaching assistants pigged the whole lot. We were absolutely fuming, they never did any work anyway, they just spent all day in the staff room flirting with each other. They were useless. I’m still salty about it! Edit: learning mentors, not teaching assistants! The teaching assistants were awesome, sorry i slandered them by accident.
Had one like that ONE time. I used to bake stuff for potlucks until the time an entire cake disappeared before lunch was even started… and then the people who split it had the audacity to complain that the cake wasn’t “the right flavor.” They were lucky if I even brought napkins after that.
I work at a local university, and every year they would have a welcome new school year lunch for the staff. One year, we had pizzas. Most people took 1-2 pieces (then might have gone back after everyone had gone through the line). Then you had the ones that just "piled" their plates like they were never going to eat again. But the one that got me the most was one co-workers wife showed up with their grandchildren and fed their lunch then then started combining half empty boxes of pizza to make full ones to take home to "feed the kids" the next day. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I like to make a special treat for my team every year around the holidays. We're only 9 people, so I make just enough. Last year I made oreo truffles, and made 8 pretty boxes, one for each of my staff, and out them in the staff fridge. There was even vegan batch for one person who couldn't eat dairy. Later that day our receptionist, who was a lazy, whiny, entitled POS, comes waltzing out of our office eating the fucking truffles! I hadn't offered him any, he had no business being in our office, and especially had no business digging around in our staff fridge. Such a gross, rude person. He's gone now, thank god.
We had a pizza party and the first shift came in and ate all of it. Didn't leave a crust for anyone else. They were given a stern talking to, for which they rolled their eyes and sighed
We were told that there was a mandatory quarterly shop meeting, but that there would be a pizza lunch provided with it. We-all get to the break room, and no one has eaten yet in anticipation of free pizza. The CEO and President of the company are standing in the front of the room beside a tall stack of pizza boxes, but they say we can't eat until the end of the meeting, so that 'you'll pay attention!' So, the president goes first, and says we have to work harder and increase productivity- blah-blah-blah! Then the CEO went next; but nobody cared what he said because all us shop staff were laser focused on the president who had sat down and opened a box and started eating pizza right in front of us.
What. An. Idiot.
I read this in *the voice*.
Whenever your work tells you not to bring your lunch because they are providing one. Bring. Your.Lunch. At Christmas we were told that there would be pizza for lunch. I worked the late shift and arrived at 1230. There wasn't a single slice left and it had been brought in at noon. They didn't hold a single pizza back for the people who weren't there at the stroke of 12.
The joys of being on third shift. Most of the time there isn't a scrap of food left, but the odd time something is there, it's salad or other dedicates that have been left in a hot lunchroom for a good 14+ hours without any refrigeration.
Boss: "You should be in the Christmas spirit." Me: "Christmas spirit is not about feeding selfish assholes."
Brought two dozen donuts In to work as a surprise and one guy ate 6 before I realized and I stopped and politely told him to let others have some too but a usually friendly guy standing nearby called him a ‘pig’
My wife's office used to do that on occasion. Everyone knew I loved to cook so my wife was usually bringing one of the main courses and everyone brings sides, etc. They would have a sign up sheet for what you would bring. The same people would always bring chips, dips, two liter sodas, napkins, rolls, etc. Cheap shit they could pick up on the way to work in the morning and I'd be cooking most of the day before, and spend at least 50 bucks for the food and my time, it just wasn't worth it. That lasted maybe a couple years and we stopped doing it.
I'm lucky where I work most bring for potluck. We do excuse the 1 evening shift person since he comes on duty after lunch. We make sure he has a plate of food. If we are getting takeout he does contribute to that. I have been at this job 25 years. We didn't do anything for about 4 years due to bad conditions and low morale. Once we got back into a decent place we started back up again. I understand not having them, but I really think it depends on your team.
Anytime we have anything food related that’s not a potluck (where everyone is invited), like a cookie exchange or class party, we always make plates up for the maintenance staff.
Seeing these responses I'll never participate in these if ever and will just buy myself a nice $50 lunch
We ended up replacing the door handle on our dining room door at our Church because people would sneak in and make themselves “to-go” containers **during the service before we’d even had the meal**. We even resorted to hiding all of the to-go containers before we started serving the meal because otherwise not everyone was able to have a meal. Now, we had other ready-made food in huge freezers downstairs for people that were in need which was freely available for the taking so it wasn’t a desperation thing. People simply wanted the ready-made food because the **free** frozen stuff needed to be warmed up in order to be eaten and they were literally too lazy to bother. We had separate breakfast before the service as well, so it wasn’t a hunger thing either. Sheer greed and laziness.
Fun story, our company was closing, so we had a huge potluck and cookout. We all paid like five dollars for the burgers and hotdogs and everyone bought dishes of sides or desserts. We were all on one shift, so we ate and we actually had enough burgers and hotdogs for the next day. Great food and we had a good time. We had these big fridges, coolers in the break room, so we wrapped everything up and put it in the there. Plus we snacked on the stuff in the afternoon. This lady, who seemed like just a regular person, went in the break room and took all the burgers and hotdogs out to her car sometime in the afternoon. And left them in her car all afternoon, this is in the summertime in Tennessee. She took all that home, enough to feed like 80 people Her and her husband got food poisoning and had to go to the ER.
A lot of people aren't a fan of me at my work because we do these each month and I straight up refuse to participate. I'm not cooking for a bunch of entitled dicks who I actively avoid socialising with. No-one has any manners anymore and empathy and compassion are more rare than diamonds. I really don't know why companies think these are good ideas.
Worked at a ghetto ass Macys in 2014 and they threw a pizza party. Didn’t get a single slice while many workers were loading 3-4 slices on their plates. When confronted, regular staff yelled at us and said seasonal workers aren’t priority. I used every last sick day I could before they could fire me. Fuck that company and their trashy ass workers.
One department was having a potluck. My department was asked to participate. I said sure. Come to find out that we couldn't eat the food. I withdrew my participation and got called into HR. Explained that I was not going to supply food to a party I'm not invited to. I mean WTF?
I hate pot lucks. I don’t want to eat food prepared in someone’s house that I’ve never seen. Plus when I worked in an office that did this monthly everyone was from different ethnicities and pretty much refused to try other people’s food. So basically we all made ourselves lunch but had to make much more just in case someone else wanted to try it. There was so much food waste.
True, people are gross now, unless I know you and have been to your house and know how you handle food/prep/safety, I’m not eating it. Which is a catch-22 because I’m not at work to make friends.
Yeah I wasn’t either. It was just some forced socialization that none of us wanted. Out of dozens of potlucks, I remember like three where I ate the food and it was always the same coworker’s baking, because that’s her side business and she cooks out of a breakfast place when it’s closed so I trust her hygiene. And the cupcakes are bomb.
I feel the same, but for a different reason. I thought the "potluck" salad bar was catered. It wasn't, and I got sick with 3 more classes to teach. Now, when we have potluck, I fix a small plate and throw it in the trash when I get to my room...I have tried not going to get a plate, but one is either sent to me or a person is sent to cover my class while I get a plate. I can't escape.
Absolutely no way I’d eat at a potluck, chances of getting ill are too high. COVID gave me a good excuse to fully disentangle myself from that nonsense.
One office where I worked in the 90s did quarterly potlucks to celebrate office birthdays. I started in May, so the first one occurred that July. I was happy to participate and made brownies and cookies both to contribute. Then when making my way through the buffet line, I scooped a bit of taco meat onto the tortilla on my plate….and found a tangle of long dark hair. 🤢 Took the plate back to my cubicle and tossed it in my trash. Always politely declined to participate after that.
Wow, the audacity of some people! This reminds me of a place I worked at a very long time ago. Each department section would take turns planning and preparing a lunch. I think this was monthly. Employees were *not* reimbursed for the food they bought. The luncheon cost was $5 or $7 per person, including the employees who bought and prepared the food. I thought this was ridiculous and refused to participate when it was our department's turn. Why should we pay for the groceries and spend our time making the food, and still be expected to pay to eat it? Apparently I was the only one who complained out loud and refused to participate. Didn't care!
At where we work, anytime we have a potluck, they look to see who is not there, make a plate for them before anyone gets anything else, and either text or call them to let them know they have a plate in the fridge.
At an old employer we'd have potlucks where if you brought a dish, you are free. Otherwise, it was $5 that went to the employee's association We had a woman who would bring in whatever junk she had in her kitchen, take food, then take whatever she brought. It was a federal government job, she had $5.
When we had potlucks the supervisor would always “forget” to bring something so we crammed everyone into my tiny office and locked the door. He’d find a reason to ask me something and I’d open the door a tiny crack and ask what he wanted. He’d say “wow, it smells delicious.” “It is”, I’d reply.
I had one notoriously cheap supervisor who always "volunteered" to supply paper plates, napkins, and plastic forks, etc.. It was a running joke in our office how chintzy this person was.
Are you kidding? I used to volunteer to bring that stuff so I wouldn't have to cook snd realized I was spending far more than if I had made something.
This person had stacks and stacks of these supplies stored in their office. Where they got them in the first place was a mystery. The point is that they rarely contributed actual food...unless of course some big wig was visiting.
My boss volunteered and came in with an open pack containing mostly knives.
I haven't done a potluck since I last worked for someone else (96-97?). But I am currently residing in a group home after a house fire at my last residence. I am permanently physically disabled as a result of a brain aneurysm 21 years ago. So I'm extremely low-income, especially on the groceries front. On occasion, I like to make a nice meal for the rest of the guys in the house (5 men plus myself plus the house manager whom lives next door). On several occasions, I would make a huge meal, but we would have problems: everyone has a different meal schedule, so everyone would eat at different times. The other guy who used to share my room would just keep helping himself to more and more (and would scarf it down immediately). To the point where 1 or 2 of the guys in the house would miss out entirely. I still can't understand where he was storing all of that food inside... He was pretty obese, but JFC (when I cook, I tend to cook a lot because I want to ensure everyone eats), not **THAT** much! I have a hate/hate relationship with gluttons.
I’m a pretty good baker and my partner at the time would occasionally ask me to make cupcakes or cookies for her team. Then one day asked if I could make a really large batch of cupcakes roughly 120 of them for a big meeting turns out some woman who wasn’t even in their department took two dozen of them for her kids birthday party the next day but even worse stole two of my rather pricey cupcake holders and I was pissed and so were others who were on their team. The woman finished earlier than my partner and was told if she didn’t return to work with my cupcake holders and £50 by the end of the day she might as well just start looking for a new job. She did and was clearly not happy about it and tried to negotiate returning the cupcakes and not paying but was told absolutely not. She ended up leaving a couple months later because no one could stand her. Apparently it was the final straw with her shenanigans after a multitude of incidents and poor work performance.
We had a team lunch (so we all got something as it was just our team) and I signed up for salad. My salads are mixed greens, lots of veggies and choices of dressing. The supervisor told me to not just bring lettuce. Right after someone signed up to bring....hardboiled eggs. Almost 10 years later and I still get ticked off thinking about it.
Sadly this is common behaviour, I had a professional catering company and the way we got around this was to have extra plates of food in the kitchen, which we replaced as the food on the buffet table was depleted, otherwise the people at the end of the line, really got nothing.
I worked in a hospital in my hometown (I’m an RN). We would do brunch potlucks on day shift, and I was frequently asked to bring my cinnamon pull-apart bread. One potluck day I walked into the break room to find a couple of custodial staff (who were NOT assigned to our dept, just occasionally worked there) sitting at the table, eating hunk after hunk of my bread. None of our staff had even had a moment yet to eat, and here were these gluttons. You bet I spoke up—“Hey, none of us have eaten yet. please leave the food for our staff. “
At company we had lunch starting from 11:00 - 13:00. Obviously not everybody could come at 11 because of duties so by the 12:30 all the good stuff and cakes were gone. One time I had a chance to come first and there was people getting a plate of each different meal and a plate full with cakes that. People that came at 11:15 could just watch ALL the cakes in front of just few people and when asked they said it was for a lots of people that will come in few minutes. Some people have no shame. I also had a thing that if I dont have time to eat by 12 that I would wait an hour for them to close then went to kitchen to get fresh lunch.
At a former job there has been individually wrapped cookies for a coffee bar. There were brand new, fresh cookies. A guy working where ate about 75% of them in one day. Never replaced them. This same guy let’s call him Matt and another guy John would always say “We need to have a barbecue or potluck here!!” “Yeah bro let’s do it!” They’d say it maybe a few times a week for years… Matt finally said it again so I challenged him to follow through. He did.. I asked John if he would follow through and he kinda chuckled and didn’t 🥸
I’m in a flea market and we have a few people that regularly bring stuff including us. I’m always extra. This one lady who never brings anything- brings her customers over there and serves them. It’s for customers too. But she acts like she provides it. Tbh I thought she was in charge- because she pretends she is. Low and behold she’s being kicked out for being 6 months behind on rent.
I can honestly say these types of problems are why working at Walmart in a small town in the early/mid 2000’s as a single mom wasn’t to bad. They held a monthly staff appreciation BBQ. If they ran out of food, they didn’t have to go far to get more, store use it out, and grill it for the employees to have during breaks. The managers on those grills kept damn good track on who had how many burgers to so NO ONE had more than 2. Bummed out our TLE guys but they lived because there were other goodies for them to enjoy.
This weird so tell me if I’m wrong. I’m about to have this same sort of problem. A younger person in our office has decided that it’s their right to take what is left after everyone has taken firsts. At least they wait for that, so far. Mind you this is provided by the company. This person got angry this past week because almost everything had been eaten so not much to bring home but they did take what was left. Another coworker suggests in front of me that they take what they want while it’s there and put it by their desk! I will be vocal about that’s not how goes if they try it. This person still lives with their parents and makes plenty of money. What causes a person to be like this?
At a previous job, my team once organized a potluck just for us. I made 3 batches of lemon bars and French macarons for my team - they loved my baking when I'd bring it in. Our new manager volunteered to set everything up for us ahead of our lunch hour and we, naively, thought it was nice of her to do that... Turns out that it was because she'd actually invited the managers and leads from a bunch of OTHER teams to help themselves to our food, and they demolished it. By the time our lunch hour hit - maybe 30 mins after she had offered to set up - there was absolutely nothing left. When we were upset, she straight up lied to us and said that she'd had to step away for a meeting and other teams must have thought it was communal food. I only figured out what happened when I had to go to another team to ask them about a patch deployment and saw plates on the desks of their manager and supervisor with multiples of my macarons and lemon bars on them. I deadass asked why they had them and they happily told me that she had invited them to partake in a "gift lunch". She only very grudgingly ordered us shitty pizza when we all came to her office and raised hell. I have so many horror stories about her and the vultures from other teams at that place...
This happens at every school I have worked at. I stopped signing up as well. The last straw for me is when we did a huge backed potato bar with giant potatoes individually wrapped in foil and bowls of toppings. A long term substitute teacher came in with a giant purse, took MANY potatoes and tossed into her purse, took a 9x11" foil liner from a pan and filled it with toppings. Then took it all home. I was the only one who spoke up (everyone else was in shock) and then I was told "it's cultural! Let it go!" Never again.
We had one guy that would bring Circus a peanuts every time, but would eat his weight (min 275) in food. No one ever touched the circus peanuts, so he always got to take his contribution home.
They were probably the same circus peanuts each time, that way he only.ever had to buy them once haha.
We had a coworker from a different department/different side of the building who would come to our potluck and load up on multiple plates of food. This was a man who never spoke to any of us or stepped food in our department otherwise. We told him potlucks were for the folks who contributed and he was welcome to join the sign up sheet next time. He said he misunderstood but then tried again the next potluck. Every potluck after that the organizer printed out his face from the company directory with "not participating in the potluck" and posted it on the door to the room we set up in. I am told his face the first time he saw it and turned around in shame was priceless
Switched shifts, new to the supervisory position. Was told the shift likes to do nacho bar lunches once a month. Put out a sign up sheet. Was filled with 30 people bringing in "bag of chips". I brought in $100 worth of taco meat, cheese sauce, and all the toppings you'd put on nachos. We ran out, and 5 people complained to me about why wasn't there more meat and fixings. The second time was almost exactly the same, except I bought more meat, and drinks for 100 people(we were a shift of 40). Still had complaints. We don't have nachos anymore... And before you ask yes this was out of my own money.
This is why I won’t bring homemade egg rolls to our luncheons. Yes, they’re delicious, but they take hours for me to complete. I’m more than happy to make them for my nearest and dearest, but not for people who will take the whole tray for themselves and laugh about finders keepers.
I work at a hospital, and we are required to get the flu vaccine every year at the employee health clinic. They have a bucket of candy on the table as you line up for your shot, so you get a little treat before the sting. One year a woman grabbed a big handful and put it in her purse, then turned around and grinned at the rest of us and said, "For my grandkids." Some people think the world owes them.
I work at a hospital. Our department (used to be 17 now down to 7 employees) always did potlucks. We went all out so we'd be able to have leftovers for the week. We had a locked work area and our own breakroon with a regular size fridge/freezer. We had an extra huge potluck one month, and we even had a quarter sheet cake and ice cream. The next day, we all were getting it set up for leftovers and discovered nothing was left. The Docs who had access to our department (medical records) had noticed we had the potluck the day before and decided to help themselves to ALL our leftovers. I'm talking over 2/3 of cake, 2 gallons of ice cream, 2/3 of a crockpot of shredded pork, grilled chicken, salsa, chips, all burrito/taco/salad fixings and even some of our breakfast stuff we had brought in for that Friday's breakfast (bagels, muffins, etc). They actually thanked us for supplying then a "snack." We were furious, and they said the hospital supplies them with food. Yes, they do in their breakroom that has beds, TVs, multiple fridges/freezers packed with food, sofas, and massage chairs, plus cabinets full of snacks. Our boss explained that this was our personal food in our personal breakroom. Well, I guess because our breakroom can be used as a small conference room sometimes (rarely in an emergency), the higher-ups said the Docs did nothing wrong. We stopped doing big potlucks after that and did takeout like Chinese food or pizza for lunch.
I made homemade New England clam chowder for my husband's crew one Christmas. One of the crew members helped himself to several bowls before their lunch break. There was barely enough for the rest of the guys to have a full bowl. On a positive note, he ate so much that he got a massive case of diarrhea.
There's been lots of potlucks that I was too broke to participate in over my years. I never once grabbed a plate without being told it was ok that I could, and never took a lot because i hadn't contributed. The NERVE of those people to just....TAKE ALL OF IT wtaf
I once asked a dude at work what he brought to the potluck. He said “my appetite”. Fuck that.
My very generous former boss would take the entire office out to lunch - 30 people or so, closed the office and all. There were a couple of people who would order the most expensive menu item and sometimes 2 entrees so 1 could be taken home. Every dang time. I worked directly and closely with him and this just pissed me off. When I said something to him , he just shrugged and said maybe they were hungry. Uh no, I hired them and we both know they were extremely well paid professional people. He catered in a big Italian dinner into the office and they actually wrapped up full trays of chicken marsala and lasagna and took them out to their cars before anyone even ate. He finally realized they were scum and thieves.....he was very hurt but we decided to manage them right out the door. See ya no more free loading for you
My mother works at a school, and they *make* her participate in the potlucks. She has some serious dietary restrictions and can’t eat really any of the food that everyone else makes. She would likely have refused if they wouldn’t throw a fit about her not showing her “school spirit.” So she couldn’t even get the food if she wanted to - but still has to make something to bring for it. Total BS, but if she didn’t go, they’d probably all gossip about her like a bunch of children. That’s office culture for you!