Office potlucks

Same happened at mine. For a while we held an alternative potluck a few days after the now catered one in the basement staff longue.

Nobody under 30 wants to eat food prepared by their co-workers. It's just gross.

Too many allergies and psychological dangers lurk in a pot luck. Do companies still have actual partys? That's quaint.

It’s a soupluck not a potluck.

Psychological dangers. Mary!

I have one today-- staff meeting + mandatory thanksgiving potluck. Oh, we did get a $12 off coupon for a Butterball brand turkey so we know the company really does care.

My old company had a baked potato with stuffings party once. There was such an outcry they had to have a fancy party a month later.

Wait what's wrong with potlucks?

Ugh they are such forced affairs, to have small talk with your coworkers who you wouldn't otherwise talk to outside of the office. And someone always brings something that doesn't get eaten and gets her feelings hurt.

My office lives for potlucks. Then again, you can put a cat turd on a plate next to a box of Triscuits and it's gonna be gone in less than an hour.

Once had a co-worker who prepared large crock of swedish meatballs with sauce.We watched her set it up in the breakroom.Stirring and putting out potato rolls,it was quite elaborate. Then someone saw her dig up her butt,an folks started nasty gossip she was the one who went in bathroom and never washed her hands.Nobody ate the swedish delicacies.

Sows at the Trough is a DL classic.

We stopped after the one year when a new hire insisted everyone must label their dishes with ingredients that could trigger allergies or otherwise interfere with dietary restrictions. Everyone was like “bitch, please” but then she took her concerns to HR! They provided fucking notecards for you to fill out in case you forgot. No one is going to do that much work to appease you in the future, Megan, so we stopped having them altogether. She then bitched about people giving her the cold shoulder and eventually left the company after less than a year.

What will the fraus do when there are no more potlucks to plan?

[R14]Organize secret santa events,making sure those they hate get the worse gift givers.

Frau's can't help themselves

We have 2 - Thanksgiving and Christmas. I brought a dish when I first started there. I noticed however, because we have a spreadsheet sign-up, that people who didn't sign up or bring anything still helped themselves to plates full of food. I didn't know this was an option! Now I don't participate. Don't bring and don't eat. On those days I make a point of leaving the office to have lunch.

[quote] No one is going to do that much work to appease you in the future, Megan, so we stopped having them altogether. She then bitched about people giving her the cold shoulder and eventually left the company after less than a year.

Why would you stop having Christmas parties altogether because of someone who left the company before the next Christmas party?

My office is trying something different this year. They're having lunch catered by a local BBQ place. I think eating BBQ for Christmas sounds weird.

Some of my coworkers pick their noses, so no.

The opportunities for mass poisoning were too hard to resist

I have copies of my recipe for Tuna Noodle Casserole for everyone.

As if the US food supply isn't toxic enough, the idea of eating homemade food is even more nauseating. Especially when u see these people and all their filthy everyday habits.

No thank you.

No one wants to be forced to socialize with their co-irkers in their free time. My office is having a fancy catered holiday party at the boss's house, but no one is getting a raise this year or bonuses. I'll skip the party, thanks.

Just don't eat food from anyone who has children. They will all "help" with their disgusting kid-ichor hands and contaminate everything.

My office occasionally has potlucks, which I loathe. They were banned for years, after some idiot brought left over seafood salad, from a family picnic, which caused widespread food poisoning. People were vomiting and shitting all over the office, and ambulances were lined up outside the building. We even made the news! I long for those good old days.

I love potlucks.

The potlucks in my office consist of ordering in a main food - usually pizza, and then sides of bags of chips, and about a million desserts. Why is everyone's go to sign up item desserts? Cookies, homemade cake balls, brownies, mini cupcakes, I can go on and on. Sometimes it's obvious when it's made from a box mix of whatever it is they're bringing in. People love to call a box of Duncan Hines "my famous xyz." lol.

I have to say, now that I work from home, I really do miss the 'carry-in days' of old. The people in my first department all loved me, and would always insist I stop by to sample the food. The ladies (and some gents) in that department really took the food pretty seriously.All over the department (it was a big one) there crockpots full of creamy macaroni and cheese, Swedish meatballs and such. And because my company is diverse, it was wonderful sampling the dishes people were most proud of: African American, Italian, Greek, etc.

We're having our annual Holiday pot luck.

I too, am leery of eating homemade food brought in by co-workers so I avoid it and stick to store bought or deli made items. Yeah, I know I'm taking my chances with that, too, but still.

I always bring in a couple of buckets of fried chicken from the local casino restaurant. I don't even want to eat my own cooking so why would I subject others to it?

I have a joy luck potluck

Della, do you even refrain from partaking in the cheese and the head?

Um...no and yes, r31.

I get it - Head Cheese, Right?

Potlucks can be deadly.

[quote] I get it - Head Cheese, Right?

No, dumb dumb! Cheesehead! Duh.

If we ever stopped the Christmas potluck, we’d have to lay off Ginny in Billing. Its the only work she does all year. She has at least 10 different spreadsheets coded by department and who’s bringing what. I ignore her emails so she ends up barreling through the office telling me that she put me down for chips & dip. Sure Ginny, I’ll get right on it.

My office caters a lunch, which is very nice, other places I worked maybe ordered pizza or did nothing. I never worked somewhere that had potlucks. I agree, I’m not sure I’d want to eat food my coworkers prepared at home and brought in. That’s for family gatherings, or close friends a la Friendsgiving. This random assortment of cube dwellers, secretaries and managers are not within my food-sharing comfort zone.

They’re probably banning them for the obvious liability risk. Less likely to get botulism from a catered meal. Most businesses won’t try to pass off yesterday’s left-out seafood salad, or won’t stay in business if they do.

Neither do many people over 30 R3.

R2 Why is it “gross”. Are you such delicate snowflakes that food prepared by a coworker offends you, but it’s perfectly ok if it’s by an underpaid and possibly undocumented worker?

I like adding a little laxative into my crockpot of meatballs. The fatties all gorge on everything so they never figure out which dish gave them the trotts. Its hysterical to watch them run to the bathroom all afternoon.

Back in the 1990s when I was teaching, other teachers had already stopped eating food brought to them by parents, because they couldn't trust that the parents didn't put crap in the food.

A few years ago there was some enormous fistfight of a thread here with people screaming at the top of their lungs that no one ever put anything bad in homemade food as a prank and only psychopaths would refuse to eat at a potluck.

The few times I've sent food to someone (usually a classroom) for an event, I've had it sent by the bakery that made it. A company that makes its living off of selling food is going to be far less likely to deliberately put tiny filaments o' tungsten in their jelly rolls because of an emotional disorder.

Many years ago, I worked in the Protocol Office at a base. The fights the casserole harpies used to get in were monumental. These potlucks were called "mandatory fun".

I had to keep them from killing each other. My office was the confessional for each of them to discuss how much they hated Ginny's tuna casserole. So, they assigned her to bring napkins. Poor Ginny.

Didn’t we kill off Ginny from Billing years ago?

[quote]Didn’t we kill off Ginny from Billing years ago?

Yes, and it was ruled a justifiable homicide.

^^^ Who will perform Turkey Lurkey?

We had an annual salad potluck for our holiday gathering, where they provided bags of lettuce and everyone brought in a separate salad topping (veggies, nuts, cheese, etc.) and we could build our own salads. Healthy and very little food prep involved.

Until this year, when the office fattie sent a mass email response to the invite that she was concerned about the recent e. coli outbreak and said we shouldn't have salad this year. So now it's getting catered. Bitch eats the greasiest fried food, for every single meal. E. coli would probably be an improvement for her digestive system.

If she hadn't, someone else would have, R46. Everyone has been talking about it for weeks.

Bagged lettuce is the new gluten!

Some bitch was eating a SALAD at lunch the other day. I was like, keep your secondhand ebola away from MY food, thank you!

SHUSHPISHIOUSH SHEAFOOD SHALAD!!!

R24’s comment about kids reminds me of a colleague who brought a cold cut platter one year. Typical ham/turkey/pimento loaf/pastrami/etc... all individually rolled up and held with toothpics (we’re talking serious food handling here). And halfway through the festivities she starts to complain about some obscure contageous disease that had her kids sick for the last few days.

I'm old. When I worked in an office, the worst that could happen at a potluck was that you might not like some cabbage casserole. I don't know how I'd feel today. I used to make cakes from scratch, and people DEVOURED them. The thought of people sitting around sneering "Ewww...he made that AT HOME...ewww" makes me want to smash someone's face in a crockpot.

I would bring bags of chips and premade dips now. Fuck all'y'all. Or I'd stay home.

I’ve seen too many coworkers exit the bathroom without washing their hands. No thanks.

Smoooches, r34.

What r52 said. And I'm allergic to cats so I don't know if they've prepared food on a countertop that they allow their cat to be on

Again, you take your chances that you won't be sickened by the food supply as a whole and by restaurant food handlers/preparers, but still, I don't want to eat something outta your home where little Madison and Aiden helped prepare it.

Bad enough we have the odd summer office BBQ with undercooked hamburger grilled by people you shouldn’t offend. That could be another thread avtually.

Not many companies catering in anymore, change in the tax laws.

Day old room temp seafood salad. Unbelievable.

Ginny in Billing got the runs fron my seafood surprise.

R25, PLEASE produce the news article.

It’s always the people who don’t bring food are the same people who rush to be the first to fill their plates.

I love the office potluck. Its perfect for getting revenge on those who stole my ideas and passed them off as their own during the year. A little Montezuma’s revenge time. Oops, I don’t know how that ex-lax got into my meatballs.

R59 - and they're the first to go back for seconds.

....and they take a plate home. They brought not ONE protein! Not one.

What do you want as your protein?

[quote] Then again, you can put a cat turd on a plate next to a box of Triscuits and it's gonna be gone in less than an hour.

Ordinarily yes, but one year we had this adorable Indian boy working here whose mother made samosas and nobody touched them.

The dear woman even delivered them right before the party so they'd be hot and fresh. People were pushing and shoving to get some tired old Costco macaroni salad but nobody wanted a samosa, so I took one to be polite and discovered it was amazingly good. I love Indian food and this was one of the best samosas I'd ever had. I quickly took two more before I urged people to try them.

Of course, once people tasted how good they were the vultures attacked the plate like Grant taking Richmond.

Unfortunately the cute Indian got a better job and left before I had a chance to get mom's recipe

r63, this is DL.

I always binge on the lutefisk.

R64, where were you located?

[quote]once people tasted how good they were the vultures attacked the plate like Grant taking Richmond

Heh.

His mother sounds sweet, and I absolutely adore samosas, so I would have been leading the charge on Mt. Samosa myself.

We once had a woman bring in sushi, norimaki style with only vegetables so it could sit out on a table, and people freaked out like she'd brought actual poison. We even had a little argument about how seaweed was indeed edible and wouldn't kill you and sushi was delicious. I felt so badly for her, she'd put in a lot of work and the sushi was really good, but the hicks wouldn't look twice at it.

Not really a potluck, but this time of year we're getting a lot of goodies from vendors and some people are bringing plates and boxes of cookies and sweets. They go on the large table in the communal are of our department. Very nice.

Which brings me to my daily whine.

I'm fine with sharing, it's good to share. I'm even okay with people loading up plates before everyone's had a chance; if you've worked here long enough you know not to be shy.

BUT...

Why does nobody ever take the last piece of anything?

I know why. It's because when you take the last of something, it then becomes your responsibility to dispose of the container/plate/tin that the treats came in. And THAT would be too much work, since, you know, the trash can is all of two feet away. Those lazy fucks will even go so far as to break the last cookie in half and leave the other half for someone else to deal with.

It seems like every day at 4:45, I'm eating the last chocolate covered pretzel, lone Ferrero Rocher bon bon, or sole pfeffernüsse, tossing the plate and wiping up the crumbs because, once they've stuffed their gluttonous faces, everyone in my department becomes oblivious to a single anything still on the table.

[quote]sole pfeffernüsse

One to remember.

R18 The BBQ joints in KC blow it out the doors during holidays with office catering and office outings

YUM!

Nasty. People let their kids and animals run around their kitchens so I won’t take my chances anymore. A few years ago I did a cheesey potatoes for Thanksgiving and people ate all of it but it’s not worth the effort anymore, when I don’t care about these people at all.

I don't think it's really about the hygiene of the food or the quality. People don't want homemade food because too many are stuck in the first-grade mentality, the phase where they developed aversions to all but the most familiar foods. Look at what most people eat day to day. Packaged food. Prepared frozen meals. Fast food. Most never eat anything but. Face it: The vast majority of people only like the exact food they're used to having, prepared exactly the way they're used to having it, looking exactly the way they're used to seeing it. I know a guy who eats McD's hamburgers EVERY day and will not try any other hamburger, ever, declaring them all weird and disgusting.

Since I accepted this fact, I don't bother bringing homemade pies to family gatherings, or homemade anything to potlucks. A cheap box of Dunkin' Donuts and everyone is happy as a pig in shit, especially me since I didn't have to expend much time, effort, or money on people with baby tastes.

My cheeze wiz surprise gave half the office the shits last Friday. Ho ho ho!

I had a very upset stomach after our recent potluck. I thought of you bitches. Clearly some of my damn coworkers don't understand food hygiene.

I hated the old office potlucks. It was indeed frau drama central. The fights our "social committee" got into were epic. Insults, meltdowns, hurt feelings, grudges that lasted for years--it was something else. I started at the company in my 20s and all these 40-something or older fraus were in charge of the potluck. They fought about everything, and it was usually two strong personalities who differed on their respective approaches that led to the the fights and people taking sides.

It really would cause so much upheaval in the office. People wouldn't get shit done at work the two weeks leading up to the potluck because of all the drama. I went to my manager, whom I loved, and told her she ought to consider canceling it moving forward. She said she'd thought about it, but the drama that would ensue in canceling would be far worse than the two weeks of bitter tears the potluck caused, plus she'd be the target then for ruining the "fun." Ha! She was probably right.

The food was always gross, too. One woman was a cat lady, and sometimes her food would have cat prints in it, not to mention cat hair. No one would eat her stuff. She was very nice, but finally she stopped bringing homemade food and signed up for bringing paper plates or cups.

I'm so glad they don't do these where I work now. I don't miss them at all. In fact, when I got more seniority and more vacation, I'd deliberately take a vacation day to skip it. I heard it used to piss off the frau brigade who were big on "attendance" at the food day.