when office potlucks and catered parties go wrong

by Alison Green on November 9, 2023

As we’re getting closer to the season of office potlucks, catered parties, and other meals with coworkers, let’s discuss the many ways in which they can go wrong — from alarming cuisine to cheap-ass rolls to tantrums over the chili cook-off to that one coworker who steals entire trays of brownies.

In the comment section, please share your stories of potlucks, cooking competitions, catered parties, and other office meals gone awry.

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  1. Elle*

    I just went to catered office party gone wrong! We were in a party hall where you had to bring in your own caterer. There was a card on the table that had the menu for the evening and beautiful salads were at each seat. There was a long delay after the salads were eaten and you could smell burning. Nobody came to take the salad plates away. Over an hour later different kinds of chicken wings appeared at the buffet along with deli sandwiches on cheap ass rolls. Neither were on the menu. It got to be so late I had to leave before dessert was served.

              1. Reluctant Mezzo*

                Unless you slice them open, put butter and a little garlic on them, and broil them till they *just* turn brown. It does sound like a lot of trouble, but yum!

        2. mb*

          you know, I’d love an update from “cheap ass rolls”, if they’d be willing to provide one. They seemed very adversarial and I’m wondering if they’ve mellowed at all.

          3. Erin*

            I have also wondered how Cheap Ass Rolls is doing. I hope they’re doing well, and I hope they have found a place of employment that values niche and specialty bread products.

          4. DJ Abbott*

            There was a post from a coworker of the cheap ass rolls woman. I think about a year ago. It was very interesting.

      2. I'm just here for the cats!*

        in my family we now call hawaian buns cheap ass buns. we just cant not see them and not think of that story.

    4. Raw Cookie Dough*

      A good Halloween costume (I know, missed it by *this* much) would be a cheap ass role. That would be a good way to identify other AAM readers at your company. ;-)

      2. Meri*

        Just make sure the hyphen is in the right place. Cheap ass-roll would be a much different look! (Talk about buns…)

      3. D*

        A nsfw story that happened at our annual Christmas party.

        This happened 30 years when I worked for a restaurant chain. If you’ve work in restaurants you know things can get a little wild, like living a rock star lite life. Sex, drugs and all the craziness without the money and groupies.

        Our Christmas party ends and almost the whole crew, managers included moved along to our favorite bar and many drinks were had.

        At one point in the evening, I was handed a remote by one of the line cooks. he pointed out the up and down buttons and with a grin told me to press the up button a few times. I do so and across the bar one of my foh female co-workers yell ‘who has the damned remote no’

        Readers, it was the remote for a sex toy she had been wearing all night.

        I dropped the remote like it was on fire and decided it was time to call it a night and head home

        I heard later that the batteries finally gave out right around last call.

    6. Molly*

      I love the “cheap ass rolls” letter!
      I really dislike Hawaiian rolls, regardless of brand. I don’t want sweetness in my sandwich/burger rolls.
      Given that, I took would have brought some nice, crusty, possibly whole grain rolls. And if only one person could bring each thing? I still would have brought them, but I wouldn’t be signed up for them.
      However, I suspect I would have told the witch it was me.

  2. old curmudgeon*

    This happened at a family member’s workplace a few months ago.

    A potluck was held at my family member’s office to celebrate the end of chemotherapy for a woman who was battling breast cancer. She holds a senior role in the organization, is well-liked and highly respected, and her colleagues were nearly as devastated by her diagnosis as she was. When she completed a very aggressive months-long chemo regimen, they wanted to mark the milestone in an appropriately celebratory way, so a bunch of her coworkers organized a potluck party.

    There were all the usual contributions to an office potluck – meatballs, salads, sandwiches, chips, desserts, and so on. And then there was, um, the other thing.

    One of her (male) coworkers made an authentic Italian confection to bring to the potluck, explaining that it just seemed to fit, somehow. His contribution was a platter of several dozen handmade truffles called Capezzole di Venere.

    Capezzole di Venere, for those who do not speak Italian, translates to “Nipples of Venus.”

    And in the obligatory coda to the story, the coworker who contributed Nipples of Venus to a potluck in celebration of beating breast cancer is the brother of the honoree. His sister the breast cancer survivor was fully aware ahead of his plans beforehand, and she thought it was hilarious. In addition to sharing the same parents and the same employer, they clearly also share the same irreverent and ribald sense of humor. Fortunately!

    1. Dust Bunny*

      I believe these are featured in _Amadeus_, although I think the description of them given in the movie is inaccurate (or maybe there is more than one version of them?).

      1. Random Italian*

        I don’t know about different versions, but I have also eaten “Tette di monaca” (literally “Nun’s boobs”). We like colourfully named food here in Italy.

          2. Catalin*

            I was once totally baffled at a dinner about nun’s farts, because the French-Canadian I was speaking with/translating for was trying to get me to explain this dish I had absolutely no experience with.
            Note: there is no English/American version of ‘nun’s farts’ as it was described, but it sounded like a snickerdoodle with glaze.
            (Yes, then I had to go through the repertoire of similar Anglo/American dishes. Do you have any idea how to say ‘bear claw’ or ‘elephant ears’ in French?! It gets silly fast.)

            1. rando french canadian*

              No, I’d describe a pet de soeur as a cinnamon roll, made with pie dough, and small. I make mine about 1 to 1.5 inches across. You take whatever leftover pie dough you have, roll it thinly, then spread butter, brown sugar and cinnamon on top. You roll it up like a cinnamon roll, and make slices of it.

              what do other cultures do with leftover pie dough?

              2. Glitsy Gus*

                We called those Pinwheels in my family.

                But I know folks call a lot of swirled cookies that, it’s a bit of a catch-all name.

      2. Umiel12*

        Andrew Rea made them recently on his YouTube channel, Babish Culinary Universe. He had help from Max Miller, the YouTube host of the Tasting History. I wonder if the brother had just watched that episode.

        2. GoryDetails*

          Oh, thanks for mentioning that – I hadn’t seen that one! I follow Max Miller but only sometimes peek at Babish. The episode was hilarious!

      4. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

        You beat me to the Amadeus comment! And that’s exactly what Salieri called them! :)

      5. Mister_L*

        In my native language there is a dish / type of meat called “Fledermaus”, which literally translates to “bat”. No, it’s not actually bat meat and I’ve never tried it.

        There are also some other dishes / sweets with names, that rightfully no longer pass the PC-test.

    3. Yes And*

      Given that the honoree approved this in advance, I’m coming down on the side of “Not problematic and in fact awesome.” (If the honoree had not approved in advance, that would be entirely different.)

      2. allathian*

        Yes, absolutely. As long as the honoree approved, I put this very firmly in the NBD stack.

        I’d love to see how a typical American office would react to those classic dishes of English cuisine, Bangers and Mash (sausages in an onion sauce with mashed potato), followed by Spotted Dick (suet pudding).

    4. 1-800-BrownCow*

      In my mind, I was saying “Oh no! Oh no, no, no……..Bahahaha.” Now that was good. If not for the ending, this could have gone very badly.

    6. Person with cancer*

      A curmudgeonly reply to old curmudgeon: I can almost guarantee that her colleagues were NOT nearly as devastated by her diagnosis as she was. She was the one with cancer; she’s the one who gets to think about the possibility of a recurrence every day, forever. [in other words, no one actually gets to “win” the cancer “battle” – a cliche that needs to be, uh, put out to pasture].

      I suppose I am using “almost” in the same spirit that you used “nearly as devastated” but, as someone recently diagnosed with cancer and having a family member currently behaving as if she was the one who was diagnosed … well, words matter.

      1. Hrodvitnir*

        So much sympathy for dealing with the family member (my mother was intolerable around my diagnosis), and the part about recurrence can’t be emphasised enough. Unless your cancer was in situ only, you are always at risk of recurrence, and that’s very weird to live with. I agree, that phrasing did make me wince a little.

        I must say though, as someone who is currently losing my mind about suspicious symptoms and clear CTs with a high risk of cancer recurrence that’s notoriously hard to see on CT… actually having cancer was probably more upsetting at the time to my friends and loved ones. I am unusually equinanimous about serious situations and am having a much worse time living in uncertainty than I did being like “ha, I told you my gut wasn’t right! Please get in there surgeon – and a side of poison? Sure!”

        1. RC*

          Reminds me of xkcd #931, and then the more optimistic #2386 (his wife was diagnosed with cancer and he wrote about it).

          Sending good vibes to both of you; and to quote #931, fuck cancer.

  3. Lea*

    I am so ready for this content!

    My only entry is the person who brought a half eaten thing of ice cream to a carefully planned retirement party which I will never forgive them for

    1. Elizabeth West*

      Me too, haha — when I saw the post title, I was like, “Oh boy!” :’D

      At our frequent OldExjob potlucks, people always seemed to either bring too many (cheap-ass) rolls, or not enough.

      1. EvilQueenRegina*

        We had one once where too many people signed up for pork pies because ex-boss had asked everyone to email us with what they were bringing rather than have a sign up sheet somewhere so everyone could see what had already been offered. Ex boss decided the most senior person could bring his pork pies and emailed everyone else asking them to bring something else. The next time it came up, I suggested to ex-boss that we have a proper sign up sheet instead of her coordinating emails.

          2. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

            It’s Cockney rhyming slang for “lies”– were people trying to send the boss a message?

        2. H3llifIknow*

          …what is a pork pie? Is it like … a handheld pie like a pop tart but filled with shredded pork? I honesty don’t know what they are!

          1. Thomas*

            “It consists of a filling of roughly chopped pork and pork fat, surrounded by a layer of jellied pork stock in a hot water crust pastry”

            They’re nearly always round.

            1. Artemesia*

              And they are totally a British thing — I doubt most Americans could tell you what a ‘hot water crust’ is unless they watch British baking shows and I have literally never seen a pork pie in the US and I have lived in several regions of the country

              1. Harried HR*

                It is totally a UK thing as an British Expat living in the US for over 30 years I can count on 1 hand the number of proper Pork Pies I have found in the US from NYC to LA, Miami to Denver

              2. Zinnia*

                They are also very much a Canadian and very northern New England thing as well. I grew up with the Montreal version, which is very finely minced pork and potato, with a bit of cinnamon and clove in the filling. Delicious!

              3. SeluciaMD*

                Yeah, as an American who loves to bake I had never heard of a hot water crust before GBBO. I have learned so many things watching that show!

          2. londonedit*

            Pork pies in Britain are generally a picnic or buffet food. They’re made from a hot water pastry (usually made with lard) and filled with finely chopped pork and pork fat, and then gelatine is poured in through a hole in the top of the pie so it surrounds the pork. Usually you have them cold with mustard or piccalilli or similar – they’re a staple of summer picnics and Boxing Day buffet tables. You can get big ones that you cut into wedges, or smaller one-person ones, or even mini ones.

            1. H3llifIknow*

              Well, I was with you until the gelatin. I don’t think I could get past that texture in a savory food. Although, I actually don’t like “Jello” much either come to think of it. A sensory thing I guess! Otherwise, sounds like it could be tasty!

              1. TechWorker*

                Yea as a kid the gelatine was definitely the bit I tolerated rather than enjoyed.. if it’s a thin layer it’s not too bad at all but if you get chunky jelly bits… ew :)

                1. Sharpie*

                  Whereas it was my favourite bit; I always found the actual filling a bit too seasoned. Even today, I like it when there’s a good amount of the jelly around the meat.

              1. Daubenton*

                A chunky, mustard-based vegetable pickle, including, but not limited to, cauliflower, onions, shallots, carrots, courgettes and gherkins, pickled with vinegar, ginger, garlic, coriander, mustard powder and turmeric.

            3. Seeking Second Childhood*

              I like meat pasties… will have to go look up the difference after work. If I get inspired to try making this, I’ll report back on the weekend open forum!

              1. Grandma*

                Owing to the serious shortage of mincemeat to make Thanksgiving pies (who knew?), I looked up how to make mincemeat and discovered mincemeat pie tins. They’re evidently used to make mincemeat hand pies. Best I can tell, they are a wider, shallower version of a muffin tin. Maybe I’ll do that some day.

                1. Anon in Aotearoa*

                  I make my Christmas mince pies (fruit mince) in standard muffin tins. Works fine. Best of luck!

                2. whingedrinking*

                  This comment combined with one below reminded me of the time I went to visit my parents at Christmas and my mother asked me to make the mince tarts. My family is Canadian, but my dad did his master’s in England, so he has little random Britishisms that pop up from time to time.
                  So I’m looking in the fridge for the mincemeat and can’t find it. I look again. Nope. “Mom, it’s not here.”
                  “Yes it is, it’s in the door of the fridge.”
                  I look at the label of every single container in the fridge door, and none are mincemeat. “It’s really not there.”
                  “Oh for heaven’s sake! Right here!” And with that she plucks out a jar of a thick, dark brown substance and hands it to me.
                  All I can say is it’s a good thing I was making the dessert and not her, because if she had, we would have been having Branston Pickle tarts.

          3. Cyborg Llama Horde*

            I’m not personally familiar with the British version, but based on my experience with similar Australian foodstuffs: Imagine one of those little individual serving size chicken pot pies (the kind you’d get in the freezer section of the grocery store), but the filling is closer to pulled pork, and the crust is substantive enough that you can hold it in your hand and bite into it.

          4. New England Nerd*

            I’m guessing the folks referencing the British version are correct, but I immediately thought of French meat pies (tourtière) which are filled with ground pork (usually cooked with onions and such) which you can find in New England because of the influx of French Canadians who came to work in the mills in the 19th and early 20th centuries!

            2. Calpurrnia*

              Oh that’s intriguing, I grew up in New England (it’s been 10 years since I moved away, and I still regularly refer to jimmies, frappes, and bubblers, to the consternation of people in both Virginia and California)…. and have never heard of these! Off to the Google I go to learn more :)

              1. Heyheyheygoooodbyyyyyyye*

                I learned in my NE college that frappes were the ones with ice cream and milk shakes were basically flavored milk. To West Coast me, it was fascinating to learn the new terms. Flip flops, NOT thongs, for example! Soda, not pop!

                1. lyonite*

                  Where on the West Coast do they say thongs and pop? I’ve lived in CA my whole life and only heard flip-flops and soda.

                2. Calpurrnia*

                  Yeah, to me if it has ice cream then it’s a frappe, a milkshake is along the lines of Nesquick chocolate milk. The rest of the country disagrees, although I will never forget the time my family was at a restaurant in/near Yellowstone NP and my dad asked if they had chocolate frappes… the server just immediately was like “How ’bout them Red Sox?”

                  Another time I was visiting family in Ohio and was offered a “pop”. I expected a popsicle and was so confused when they came back with a soda can…

                  I’m pretty sure my grandmother called flip-flops “thongs”, but I’ve never heard that from any younger generations…. to me a thong is something veeeeery different :P

                3. SemiAnon*

                  I grew up with thongs and pop on the west coast of Canada. The usage of thongs has decreased since, however.

                4. Heyheyheygoooodbyyyyyyye*

                  My early years were in San Francisco, then Seattle. No memory of what other terms were in use for those, but I don’t remember getting laughed at until college!

                5. SeluciaMD*

                  Funny, I think of most of those as Midwestern terms rather than west coast terms. I have a lot of family in Minnesota and Wisconsin (I’m on the east coast) and when we were kids, all the cousins would rib each other about some of the differences with very exaggerated versions of each other’s accents. (I’d say “do you want a paaaaaap” to my MW cousins and they’d reply “nah, I wanna soohdaahhhh” and laughter would ensue. What can I say? We were like 9.) But I have to admit, a frappe as anything other than a frozen coffee type beverage is new to me! I can’t say that I’ve ever been anywhere in the US where milkshake didn’t mean a blend of milk and ice cream. That’s interesting! Wonder where that particular usage came into popularity and why…..language evolution is so fascinating to me!

              1. Heyheyheygoooodbyyyyyyye*

                My early years were in San Francisco, then Seattle. No memory of what other terms were in use for those, but I don’t remember getting laughed at until college!

    2. 1-800-BrownCow*

      Haha, this reminded me of a story from my childhood. Not a work event, but growing up, the church my family attended would have tureen dinners every few months for all the members. Small town, everyone knows everyone…. So one family (grandparents, mom, and 3 kids) in the church, it was well-known that they ate out at restaurants daily for all their meals and never cooked at home. Anyway, this family always came to the tureen dinners (free meal, of course) and would often bring already open and eaten from bags of food like chips or something as their contribution, which then everyone avoided taking food from their contribution not knowing how sanitary or how old the food was. Also, everyone was also supposed to bring their own eating dishes (plates and silverware), but this family didn’t have any so they’d borrow the church kitchen’s dishes.

      So, this one time, instead of bringing their usual open bag food, they showed up with 1 can of baked beans. They grabbed a serving bowl from the church kitchen, opened the can of beans, dumped them into the bowl, and set it out on the buffet line. Didn’t bother heating up the beans first. Despite the food coming from an unopened can, everyone still avoided the unheated beans from a can.

      1. Umiel12*

        I’ve seen situations like that at the church I grew up in. It makes me wonder if someone said something to them about their “contributions.”

        1. 1-800-BrownCow*

          Oh, most likely yes. And probably in a nice Christian manner, meaning some kind of passive-aggressive comment like “Oh look, you brought potato chips again! It’s nice sometimes to have something different to eat instead all this homemade food that everyone else always brings.” I can think of a few of the church ladies who would have likely said something like that.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            Honestly, I’d probably miss the sarcasm there and assume they were actually sick of homemade food.

            1. Lily Rowan*

              The person who brought cheez doodles to an office potluck where we were supposed to be “honoring our heritage” or whatever, was a HUGE HIT.

      2. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        My aunt did that at a Christmas Eve potluck we had at the house. Brought TWO cans of baked beans, handed them to my mother, and asked my mom to put them in a crock pot for her.

        Mom was not amused.

        1. Frickityfrack*

          My aunt did that once, too! Only it was one can of green beans for almost 20 people, so it wasn’t even useful. My mom put them in the cupboard and didn’t even pretend like she was going to use them. I guess that’s better than (at the same Thanksgiving) my other aunt and her husband bringing Arby’s with them because they didn’t think they’d like any of the food.

          1. Grandma*

            And here I am test driving various vegetable sides for TG that I think people will actually eat. Who really wants a vegetable side when there’s turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy, with pies and whipped cream aplenty to follow? Next up: Sautéed Carrots with Bacon Dijon Dressing. It sounds good even for those who give cooked carrots the side-eye. Sautéed cabbage has already been scrubbed. I mean, Waldorf Salad would be good, but that’s got like 500 calories and wouldn’t leave room for the main event. -working on it

            1. No Direct Reports*

              Feel free to share the Sauteed Carrots recipe! My family will ONLY eat the turkey and various starches, so I always bring a vegetable for just me and my sister in law.

              1. goddessoftransitory*

                Yes indeed! That sounds delish!

                I think I finally may have found a green bean casserole recipe that isn’t “well…nostalgia” or too deconstructed/precious. It’s got a sour cream sauce to replace the cream of mushroom soup!

                1. whingedrinking*

                  Oh man, the green bean casserole…my family is both very white and very Canadian. My brother, who lives in the States, is engaged to a lovely woman who also happens to be Black.
                  So at his first American Thanksgiving with her family, my brother is served a giant spoonful of something completely unfamiliar and, in an effort to impress his fiancee’s family, eats all of it. He later tells his fiancee, “Everything was delicious except that weird stuff with the green beans. Why would anyone mix beans and mushroom soup?”
                  Well, it turns out that her aunt insisted that white people eat green bean casserole at Thanksgiving and they had to have some so my brother would feel welcome, so she’d looked up a recipe online. Needless to say, it was never a tradition in our family, and I can’t remember ever hearing about it being one from any other Canadian I know.

                2. SeluciaMD*

                  My dad makes a mean green bean casserole from scratch that has essentially a cream sauce with sauteed shallots, garlic and mushrooms and some white cheddar and it is BOMB. It puts all other green bean casseroles to shame.

                  My parents have been divorced for almost 30 years but they knew each other growing up so my dad still has good relationships with my mom’s family. He also doesn’t have much extended family of his own so he will come to Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house (mom’s sister) every few years (everyone gets along fine). He is not allowed to come without making like a trough of this casserole because its so delicious everyone wants to make sure they can have plenty with dinner AND take some home with their leftovers. It tickles him to no end. :)

            3. Honor Harrington*

              Those carrots sound tasty!

              Every August, I buy 3 dozen ears of good corn at the farmers market, cut it off the cob and freeze it for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner, so that we will have the best tasting corn for a side dish. Lots of work, but it tastes so much better than either canned or store-frozen.

        2. Christmas Cactus*

          I used to participate in a church “gourmet group” which usually had the meal divvied up between four or five couples from rotating larger group. One couple got a reputation for being very late (it was not rude in her homeland) so the word was “don’t let her pick the appetizer” if you were hosting that month. One time she did end up with the apps. The couple arrived almost an hour late and then had to make the Greek fried cheese in the hosts’ small kitchen. While we were waiting, most of the rest of us got blotto on the ouzo cocktail. Another time she had the dessert at my house. The dish had to be baked while we ate (move stuff from my oven where I stored it for the dinner!) because she claimed it needed to be piping hot and then topped with freshly whipped cream. She only brought a pint container of whipping cream so I had to get out a bowl and my mixer and clear kithcen space for her to work while we waited patiently for dessert. Then there was time they offered to host a big group event at their house. I was in charge of the event so I arrived a half hour early to set up. She had not even started to get her home ready. It needed vaccuming as there were tufts of hair from their collies everywhere. The kitchen had dishes for days stacked in the sink and was the least sanitary home kitchen I have encountered. I had to warn my husband not to eat the food she prepared as food poisoning was likely.

          1. BatManDan*

            When I hear stories of people whose homes / lifestyles are untidy enough to be remarkable to the rest of us, I always wonder what reactions THEY have to OUR homes / spaces. Do they go home and say things like “they must not have much to do / lead a boring life, their space was so CLEAN” or “they must suffer from a mental-health condition; they cleaned the kitchen as SOON as dinner was finished.” Do we stand out to them? Or do they just not register it at all?

      3. PhyllisB*

        I remember one church dinner where someone brought a stuffed baked potato from a fast food place. One baked potato.

    4. Jasmine*

      At a party for something I can’t remember a woman brought a beautiful home made cake…. With one slice missing. A small sign on a toothpick was stuck in the cake: “Larry was here”. ( Larry being the bakers hubby. )

    1. Keeley Jones, The Independent Wonan*

      We went on a Grand Canyon rafting trip this summer and one of the nights there were Hawaiian rolls with dinner. My 9 year old ate about 10 of them. All I could think was “I’m glad my son doesn’t like Cheap Ass Rolls!”

      1. Brad*

        As a Canadian I had never heard of Hawaiian roles before this letter. A few months ago there was a display that our local grocery story would be carrying them and I excitedly texted my wife that we were going have “Ask a Manager rolls” with dinner!

        1. Dust Bunny*

          Thank you, now I will forever think of these as Ask A Manager Rolls. In the event I am ever asked to contribute to a community cookbook, hands-down I’m contributing a Hawaiian rolls recipe as Ask A Manager Rolls to cement it in American vernacular culinary history.

          1. Not Your Sweetheart*

            If the AMA community ever had an in-person gathering, we would have no shortage of “infamous” foods! Hopefully, some will only share a name, and not the circumstances (like the cookies attached to the dog). We’d have: Cheap Ass Rolls, Counterfeit Cranberries, Joe’s Guacamole, and more!

                3. Heyheyheygoooodbyyyyyyye*

                  Loved those books! I wanted to live their lives and I had a large crush on Jim.

                4. goddessoftransitory*

                  Have you read Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt books? They’re super takeoffs on the “girl detective” genre–Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is the first one.

            2. BellyButton*

              OMG that would be the best. I once hosted a party that consisted of foods mentioned in Beastie Boys’ music. Eggs and omelets, White Castle, Brass Monkey (drink made with orange juice and malt liquor), etc etc etc.

              1. Karstmama*

                I’ve hosted a party with a Jimmy Buffet theme including having shrimp, sponge cake, cheeseburgers, margaritas, etc!

              2. Hlao-roo*

                From the 2017 “I will confront you by Wednesday of this week” and other holiday stories post (story #10):

                I work in academia, and at the last place I worked, we used to plan a small holiday party for some of the students who majored in our field and were graduating in December. One colleague was usually in charge of the food (because she was a control freak who didn’t trust anyone else to prepare it hygenically, but that’s another story). One particular year, she refused to tell anyone what she was bringing and insisted it would be ‘a surprise,’ but also insisted that no one else bring a single scrap of food.

                The ‘surprise’ turned out to be her fat, overfed dog dressed up in a Santa Claus hat and a harness that was covered with hanging cookies—that had been banging against her fur and were also licked and sometimes half-chewed by the dog where she could reach them. My colleague was expecting everybody to worship her dog and happily eat the cookies. Instead, everyone else went, ‘Um…okay,’ and drifted off to the holiday party upstairs that had actual, clean, non-dog-tainted food.

                My colleague was bewildered.

                I’ll drop the link in a reply because the other stories are worth a read too.

            5. Queen of the World*

              As someone who normally avoids all community food-centered gatherings, I would absolutely make an exception for an AMA potluck! That sounds awesome!!

          2. Seeking Second Childhood*

            This exchange has given me a much better attitude towards my day. Thank you for the good humor!

        2. Dulcinea47*

          A friend of mine in college who was from Hawaii used to bring these back for us (dormmates) in the early 1990s… they weren’t available all over like they are now. So the cheap ass rolls were actually a fancy treat for me. (they’re also not cheap, compared to other store bought rolls.)

          1. Constance Lloyd*

            For what it’s worth, in the original Cheap Ass Rolls, King’s Hawaiian were the good rolls brought by the letter writer, and the cheap ass rolls were brought by someone else who clearly had it in for LW.

        3. Artemesia*

          I don’t understand their appeal; they taste sweet which IMHO is gross in dinner rolls. Maybe they pare well with spam.

            1. StarTrek Nutcase*

              Not so strange but most seem to enjoy commenting when surprised a particular has many fans – like the pork pes discussed here.

          2. Michelle*

            They have some called “savory butter” now that don’t have the sweet taste to them! I tried them last Thanksgiving and they were actually pretty good. Of course I’ll call them Ask A Manager rolls now.

          3. Seeking Second Childhood*

            Try frosting them lightly and eating them with fruit as dessert.

            Covid supply chain issues spawned a few unusual food ideas like WWII rationing did… that was one of my experiments that I’ll repeat. (And admit to.)

              1. SeluciaMD*

                I like them with the ham and swiss sliders you bake in the oven like a slab in a 9×13 pan with that butter sauce poured over the top. Because yep, the sweet rolls are a nice complement to the ham, sharp cheese and salty, buttery sauce. SO GOOD. I also liked them with my grandma’s ham salad back in the day. Think they do work especially well with ham/pork.

      2. ZugTheMegasaurus*

        Totally off-topic, but you reminded me of something I did when I was about 9. My mom owned a small business. There was a 1-day conference in a beautiful area near Yosemite (just a few hours’ drive) and she decided to turn it into a little mini-vacation with me and my aunt; basically we’d spend a couple days in the park before/after the conference and she’d call the whole thing a business trip.

        We stayed in this really nice hotel that was sort of lodge-inspired but which I remember having way fancier finishing than an actual lodge. The place was packed and every morning they had an enormous breakfast buffet with every kind of breakfast item you could want.

        My mom and I had arrived before my aunt, so the first day we were on our own at breakfast. As we got to the dining room, my mom realized she’d forgotten something up in our room. I was an extremely well-behaved and trustworthy child, so she gave me a plate and told me to serve myself whatever I wanted and she’d be right back.

        I decided I wanted bacon. It was under a huge metal cloche and must have been several pounds’ worth. I took it ALL. It was the only thing on my plate and was mounded up a good 6 inches (at least). My mom was absolutely mortified, took the plate from me, and went to apologize to the staff. I was absolutely baffled about what I had done wrong – I mean, it was there for people to eat, right?

        1. SeluciaMD*

          I used to work at a Shoney’s when I was a teenager (if you aren’t familiar they are a US restaurant chain best known for their breakfast buffet). Every so often my mom and brother (who is 7 years younger than me) would come in for breakfast on a Saturday and sit in my section if I was waiting tables. Every single time my brother would start off with two plates: one with some eggs, fruit, hashbrowns, whatever….and one completed mounded up with bacon. He loved that bacon. Sometimes he’d get a chaser plate of bacon when he was done with that because the bacon was delicious and plentiful. (I think this was in part because he was just starting to go through puberty so he was in that place where he seemed like a bottomless pit with food.) When I quit that job he was mad at me for MONTHS. The managers had done some shady stuff (which is part of why I quit) so I was not about to go back there ever again, and my mom (of course) didn’t want to go there anymore either. At that time, I think my brother’s loyalties were with his stomach. Took him ages to forgive me for depriving him access to his trough of bacon.

          So just know, you were not alone in that impulse! (And FWIW, I think you were well within your rights to claim that bacon. The hotel could always make more.)

          1. LifeBeforeCorona*

            Years ago we drove to Florida and every morning we started with their buffet. It was our main meal of the day and we wouldn’t be hungry again until late afternoon. It was so good and plentiful that I thought I dreamed it.

  5. forrest*

    The time I said, “Oh, are we having a fuddle?” and it turns out that’s a dialect word from where I grew up and everyone looked like I’d just sexually harassed them. :-/

    1. Will Work for Chocolate*

      How are you going to tell this story and not tell us what a “fuddle” actually is?

          1. A Poster Has No Name*

            That was my take, as well. If my office still had potlucks I’d make it my mission to bring this into the lexicon, but alas.

        2. forrest*

          Midlands, mainly! I’ve heard it in Nottingham, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, but I never heard it in North Yorkshire or Lancashire.

            1. Letters*

              Snap! Born and bred in Yorkshire, lived in London for too many years, never heard this one. It does sound a bit …rude

            2. Maddie*

              I first came across the concept of a fuddle in Bradford, so it’s definitely a West Yorkshire thing, don’t think I ever heard the term further north though.

          2. Sharpie*

            Having recently moved to the Midlands, I will be able to translate for my Kentish parents if this ever comes up that their church is going to hold one of these.

            Dialect words are amazing and sadly dying out. :(

        3. Ellis Bell*

          When I worked in Lancashire, the term was “Jacob’s Join In”. No one was ever able to tell me who Jacob was.

        4. londonedit*

          I think it’s very specifically regional – where I grew up (south-west) I can’t remember there being a potluck culture at all, and I’d definitely never heard ‘fuddle’ until I met people from the Midlands/North. I don’t think there’s a specific Westcountry name for it!

        5. Not the fruit*

          In New Zealand, potlucks have traditionally been referred to as “bring a plate” and there are many stories of new immigrants who, not unreasonably, interpret that literally.

    2. Maddie*

      I love a fuddle! It was a surprise when I moved cities and nobody knew what it meant, thankfully, I have since introduced many friends to the joy of fuddling :)

    3. Dust Bunny*

      I had to google this to find out where it was from–I lived in Pennsylvania for a few years when I was small and picked up a couple of Pennsylvania Dutch-derived words that pop up and derail conversations every once in awhile.

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        My mother’s workplace (UK) always did fuddles, for which everyone would contribute a dish, but often it was cakes or desserts.

      2. Richard Hershberger*

        My father is from Bedford, Pa. One word he used was “schleckerstuff,” meaning candy, or junk food generally. So far as I can tell, it is not used in modern German. I have occasionally asked native German speakers if they know what it means. They will listen carefully to the work, analyze it in their heads, and come up with something along the lines of “sweet stuff.” This suggests that my father came by it honestly, but I have never heard anyone else use it.

        1. Marieke*

          Slik is the word in the dialect of Groningen for candy ( groningen is the most northern part of the netherlands on the border with germany) so I totally suspect it to be a north west German dialect word because it comes just awfully close!

        2. PCYogini*

          As a child growing up in Pennsylvania Dutch country, I was criticized for eating “schleck,” such as cake, cookies, candy, etc. I’ve not heard it used anywhere outside of PA.

        3. Lenora Rose*

          Families often have their own language terms, as well as local idioms and regional dialects and all that. It can sometimes be a surprise what isn’t universal, or at least regional.

          1. Michelle*

            My family seems to be particularly bad about this. We have a lot of inside jokes, and occasionally one of my younger kids will be shocked to learn their friends have never heard what they assumed to be a common expression, but is really just a joke we’ve been telling since before they were born.

            1. Selena's nan*

              a friend could never order her fav eggs (sunny side up) while out because in her family they were only known as pompom eggs

          2. goddessoftransitory*

            Heh, I make clafoutis (pronounced “clah-foo-tay,” approximately) for Christmas dinner, and when I told my sister about it she immediately deemed it “claw-footy.” Now when we talk about fancy desserts we sound like we’re baking four and twenty blackbirds in a pie.

            1. Sharpie*

              The four and twenty blackbirds recipe absolutely requires a pocketful of rye if the endeavour is to be in any way successful.

        4. Aneurin*

          That sounds like a partial Anglicisation of “Schleckzeug” (literally “lick stuff”, figuratively “sweets/candy”) which is a word I used as a child living in Bern – it seems to be in use in Switzerland if not Germany.

        5. Veryanon*

          I’m from Central PA originally, and when we’d have a mishmash of leftovers for dinner, my mother always referred to it as “snits and nip” as in Mom, what are we having for dinner? Snits and nip. I’m sure it’s some kind of Anglicized PA Dutch term, but I’ve never found out what it actually means.

        6. Who, Me?*

          I speak German very well (people in Germany think I’m one of them when I talk), and had to carefully analyze this word to figure it out as well.

          To be honest, IMHO this is a Yiddish word (the languages in their various dialects are closely related).

          Unrelated: The word fuddle does NOT mean is “shtuppen” in Yiddish. (Forgive me, Alison, I’ll be good!) Germans laugh when they hear that, it sounds oldfashioned and funny to them.

      3. 1-800-BrownCow*

        I’m now living in PA Dutch Country, not originally from the area though. So yes, I get a chuckle at some of the words and terms I hear on occasion.

    4. Salty Lamp*

      I have never heard of a Fuddle before but as I read it I recalled the scene in Extras where Maggie is trying to do dirty talk and says “I’m fudding my self stupid and I’m bloody loving it” “Fudding, it’s a word..”

      1. Arts Akimbo*

        I immediately thought of that episode, too! Poor Maggie, she got the word from Kate Winslet and all.

      2. Not Australian*

        Well, some people use ‘fud’ as a variation of ‘food’ … e.g. on a shopping list, ‘cat fud’ etc.

    5. Pangolin*

      My partner, who is from Lancashire, is always most put out when people call it a pot luck rather than a Jacob’s Join!

    6. Lady_Lessa*

      In the Southern US, the term is “covered dish” and I heard a tale of a person bringing a covered dish, but had nothing in it.

      While I use “pot luck”, my mind still translates it into “covered dish”

      1. PhyllisB*

        Another Southern term is Dinner on the Ground. It’s been many years since dinner was served on a tablecloth on the ground, but many churches still use the term.

      2. Soup in Arms*

        Where I started working right after college they called it a “pitch-in.” This is the southern part of Midwest US. First time I heard it I was so confused since we had used “potluck” my entire life.

    7. Cease and D6*

      For Canadians who love history, ‘fuddle’ is sometimes a jokey replacement for a notable expletive that begins with an ‘f’. This is because in 1971, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the sitting prime minister, was filmed in the House of Commons clearly but inaudibly saying ‘f*** you’ to another member of the house. When interviewed about it later, he claimed he had merely been saying ‘fuddle duddle’

      1. slashgirl*

        I always thought that happened in the later 70s cus I “remember” it, but I guess it was just hearing my family talk about it, given that I was about, oh, 12 days old when he said it. lol

  6. Amber Rose*

    Last year we organized our annual potluck super last minute, and it somehow came together except we forgot plates. There were no plates anywhere in the building. People got creative but oh man, I was so embarrassed.

    A couple years before that my boss tried to make some kind of stew but the potatoes didn’t cook and she messed up the recipe, and then because it was inedible she tried to flush it down the toilet and the starch turned to glue and basically destroyed the plumbing for the day.

    One of my coworkers is a former chef, and no matter what food we bring in he tears it apart like Gordon Ramsey. He absolutely means nothing by it, he’s the nicest guy just very critical of food, and his commentary is like the highlight of organizing these lunches for me. One of our newer employees got super offended last year though and required some talking down.

      1. Amber Rose*

        The stew like, congealed into a gluey mess, and it seemed like it flushed but then the next person who tried to flush could not. It had solidified somewhere down in the pipes.

        The emergency plumber was very not impressed with us.

        1. StarTrek Nutcase*

          I can empathize. I cooked a huge pot of black eyed peas and drained them in the sink leaving minimal liquid in the pot. I quickly discovered cooking cooked bean liquid will clog a drain especially if faucet isn’t also running warm water. That was an expensive lesson.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      That’s not actually very nice. Gordon Ramsey tears apart food for people who have asked him to come find out why their restaurants are failing–they’re not civilian potluck participants. If he’s going to critique, it really should be at the request of the food contributor only.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        Right? He does mean something by it. He means to insult and tear down peoples food. That’s some real “Mean Girls” stuff. Being a chef doesnt make it any less awful. Rude af!

        2. wordswords*

          Seriously! I believe you that he’s a nice guy and you have fun with it, Amber Rose, and maybe he tries to keep his commentary restricted to the people who do find it fun or something. But if anybody did that to something I brought, I’d be really hurt and angry, and it would absolutely kill any desire to take part in any potluck he was going to be at.

          1. Fluffy Fish*

            The poor person that needed talking down – it’s the potluck equivalent of “it’ just a joke” and putting the onus on the person who is rightfully offended vs the guy that needs to keep his mouth shut.

            1. Amber Rose*

              It wasn’t the potluck though. It was a catered BBQ lunch. I promise, my super nice coworker only critiques professionally cooked food. Also he’s not insulting, just kinda blunt.

              1. Expelliarmus*

                If that’s the case, then that’s fine, but in your initial post, you did say “no matter what food we bring in” after mentioning a potluck, so I can see why other people assumed your coworker unnecessarily roasts meals that his coworker makes.

      2. Charlotte Lucas*

        Agreed!

        I worked with a former pastry chef, and she was always very gracious about everyone’s contributions. And made amazing cheesecake!

      3. Malarkey01*

        Also Gordon Ramsey does that for entertainment on TV and with people who signed up with that expectation. I know someone who has worked in his restaurants ten years and he absolutely does NOT do that off camera. He’s considered a good mentor and someone who really values teamwork, collaboration, and educating new chefs.

        1. UKDancer*

          Yes I know someone who worked with him and said he was a lovely chap off camera. Tearing people’s food apart is a thing he does at their request. To tear someone’s food apart at a potluck if they haven’t asked for feedback is mean

        3. Ally McBeal*

          He doesn’t do it on the kid-centered shows either. He’s such a kind guy with those little Junior MasterChefs or whatever they’re called.

      4. Amber Rose*

        Sorry, I should have been more clear. He only has critique of catered food. He never says anything about the potluck stuff, and always contributes something delicious.

      5. Miss V*

        Not a work event, but at my partner’s request I made a batch of cookies for us to take to a party. One of the guys attending fancies himself something of a food critic, and isn’t shy about sharing his opinions, wether you asked for it or not.

        He picked up one of the cookies, and declared that if I used a cookie dough scoop, they would have all turned out more uniform. Now, they weren’t of such varying sizes that the batch didn’t cook evenly, he just thought they could be more aesthetically pleasing.

        I walked over, took the cookie out of his hand, and told him that if my cookies were unacceptable he didn’t have to eat any.

        Since then he hasn’t stopped critiquing, but he has stopped criticizing me.

        Guess the cookies weren’t that bad.

        1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          This is not the Great British Bakeoff! “Perfectly uniform” is not generally a requirement for homemade cookies.

      6. Platypus*

        Exactly, “he’s the nicest guy..” just a jerk about food because he thinks he’s better than other people. People who are just trying to share food with others.

    4. Bast*

      If I had someone critiquing my food that hard, I’d be the one bringing plates and soda. It would give me such anxiety.

      1. Caroline*

        I would be saying something, very loudly, that involved sex and travel.

        I would also ask why this self-important ex-chef is no longer a chef and did he just not have what it takes?

    5. Richard Hershberger*

      Manila file folders make good substitutes for paper plates. If your office does not use them anymore, so much the better. Check the back of the supply closet.

    6. LCH*

      yeah.. if i knew no matter what i brought in, it would be fully criticized and demeaned, i would stop participating.

      1. Jen in Oregon*

        I would be telling Gordon Wannabe to keep my damn tater tot casserole out of his effin mouth…

        1. JSPA*

          You’re fine. Really!

          People here are supposed to read comments with the willingness to stretch a smidgen to see where other posters are coming from.

          Not explain that you’re wrong, that your enjoyable friend whom they have never met is a horrible person and bully, and that by extention, you are horrible for sticking up for him, I guess?

          Sure, we can’t excuse predatory or dangerous behavior by saying “he’s just like that,” but eccentricity and having a bit of a bee in one’s bonnet are not predatory, nor dangerous. There is no harm at all in hearing that someone finds the soup bland and the beans oversalted; not even if you grew up on a constant diet of bland soup and salt-lick-flavored beans.

    8. I'm just here for the cats!*

      I want to know more about the chef criticizing the food. Is it like all in good fun and people ask him to do this or is he being really hurtful?
      Like I could see silly things like the cookies aren’t shaped right, or the potatoes are too chunky in a silly way like mimicking Gordon Ramsey. But it sounds like thats not how he is doing it and that’s not ok, especially if someone didn’t ask him to do this for their dish.

          1. Platypus*

            Probably because that person maybe loved that food and didn’t need some self-proclaimed master chef saying mean things.

            Sorry, Amber Rose, I know your comment was probably just a side comment and you aren’t even the one who is criticizing food, but I think you can see how people feel about having food, even catered food, around them criticized because it can just bring up a lot of emotions for people.

        2. Rachel*

          You are really under fire here and I know that sucks.

          I’m going to explain why this is off putting even if it’s catered: if I am somebody enjoying the dish and somebody else is tearing it down, it’s unpleasant. If I am the person paying for the dish and somebody tears it down, it’s entitled.

          If I am somebody who grew up with, or is currently experiencing food insecurity, tearing down the dish is hitting a nerve.

          Like most things, this is know your audience. If you and this dude want to go out to eat on your own time and dime and criticize food, by all means, have a ball.

          At a work function the chances of it landing poorly are just too high to be smart, even if it is catered

          1. Cyndi*

            Not about food at all, but last month I was really excited to see a cheesy old movie I unironically love on the big screen at a local indie theater! Unfortunately I wasn’t aware that it’s a movie most people watch to laugh at the cheesiness, and I had a pretty bad time watching it in a theater full of strangers.

            1. Princess Sparklepony*

              People watching it to laugh at it are secretly big fans of the film but not strong enough to say they like it! It’s not cool to like something schmaltzy.

              I say this as a huge fan of What A Girl Wants. I love that movie. It’s cheesy as all get out. And I’m cool with that.

              It’s Now, Voyager that I’ve never understood the appeal of. And anything with Claudette Colbert.

    9. EvilQueenRegina*

      We had one once where no one had brought cups/glasses for drinking.

      I was very pleased that my Secret Santa present that year was a wine glass.

    10. Michelle Smith*

      Yikes on bikes. They were right to be offended; what he’s doing is offensive, whether you personally found it entertaining or not.

    11. Dulcinea47*

      I would be offended too, I never claimed to be a professional chef and I make things based on what I know other people like and will eat. The way you “win” the potluck is by having all of your dish eaten before everything else (and not b/c you made tiny portions.) Not by professional level reviews.

    12. Lady Ann*

      I have an acquaintance who used to have a part time job as a taste tester or something, and it took us awhile to convince him that he didn’t need to critique every dish that everyone brought to a party. It was not pleasant to interact with him.

    13. Alisaurus*

      One of my former jobs had a legendary story about the person who tried to flush a whole bowl of watermelon chunks and backed up the plumbing… apparently it happened after work hours when this employee was cleaning up, so everyone else came in the next day to that. (Small office, only a couple single-occupancy bathrooms.)

      2. Garblesnark*

        Did they not know about trash or compost? Or outside? If it’s watermelon you can just put it outside.

    14. Misty_Meaner*

      We have a German restaurant here where I live call “Amber Rose”. Completely off topic but when I saw your handle, I wanted you to know!

      2. Jackalope*

        I was actually taught at one point that that was the correct way to deal with liquid type foods you were getting rid of (soup, milk, etc.). No idea about the watermelon, though.

      3. Observer*

        Why in the bloody hell would anyone FLUSH the food? That’s insanity.

        If it’s not going to plug the plumbing, it’s a lot easier than putting it in the garbage.

    16. Hrodvitnir*

      Wow. I would absolutely tell Mr Ramsey where to stick it, by god. Hopefully in an office appropriate way, but wth?

      Also people whose first instinct is to stick things down the toilet: staaaaahp. I did laugh though.

    17. ZugTheMegasaurus*

      My parents had a friend who was a fun guy, life of the party, but OMG he was the snobbiest snob that ever snobbed. He had extensive opinions on EVERYTHING food or drink related, always ordered the most expensive things on the menu, and nothing was ever good enough (unless it came from him). It ended up with my mom deliberately fixing dishes that contained ingredients he’d turned his nose up at to see if he could even tell (and he usually couldn’t).

    18. Raida*

      That doesn’t sound like a nice person.
      That sounds like a person who’s more interested in hearing their own voice when they’re nerding out than being considerate.

      I’d argue that ‘being considerate’ is a pretty standard expectation to call someone ‘nice’

      and I’d expect a manager to tell him to stop bitching over lunch.

      If he did that to my food I’d tell him “You don’t have to eat it.” also “Shut up. I didn’t buy a ticket to your food review show.”

      1. Overit*

        If I were Gordon Wannabe’s manager, he would be firmly disinvited from all food events. We would be having a discussion about respect and basic manners.
        It does not matter that the food is catered. By criticizing the food, he is also criticising those who chose it, ordered it, paid for it, enjoyed it. it is incredibly rude, disrespectful, arrogant and entitled.

  7. SGPB*

    I once saw someone place a large metal dish in the microwave in prep for the potluck and then waltz out of the breakroom. I managed to stop the thing before it exploded but that sure was scary!

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      How does someone get to be a grown adult capable of holding down a job without knowing you don’t put metal in the microwave? That was quite literally the first rule of microwave safety we taught my kid when he was about five. (Second was “don’t walk out of the kitchen when something is in the microwave”, in case of accidentally pressing a button one too many times and getting ten minutes instead of one. So your co-worker violated both!)

      1. WeirdChemist*

        I had a coworker who frequently brought in leftover pizza wrapped in foil for lunch. His first month back from paternity leave I had to stop him from accidentally microwaving the foil SO MANY TIMES. Although I think I can chalk that one up to sleep deprivation…

      2. Dulcinea47*

        Not exactly a grown adult, but I have a vivid memory of a college dorm mate putting tinfoil in the microwave. Another friend said, “Didn’t your mother teach you anything?!” His response: “My mother puts tinfoil in the microwave!!”
        (they had a maid who apparently did everything including the microwaving for them. Dude also had laundry troubles. If you pack it too full the powdered detergent won’t dissolve.)

        1. Zombeyonce*

          Our house came with a convection microwave that can cook with metal in it, it even has a metal tray that the food sits on inside. I didn’t know these existed until we moved here but I imagine my kids might be confused about metal and microwaves when they’re older.

      3. Cyndi*

        Sometimes your brain shorts out! I’ve known my whole life not to microwave metal but just last week I mixed a splash of milk into some leftover mac and cheese, popped the bowl in the microwave to reheat, and then looked around and went “Wait, where’d I put the fork down?” First and only time in thirty years I’ve put metal in the microwave, and thankfully nothing went wrong. It sounds like it was premeditated from SGPB’s coworker, though.

        1. TrixieJeep*

          Me, too! Never in my whole life, until…there were some extra Chik-fil-A sandwiches at work. In little foil bags. I went to my office & popped one in my microwave. Didn’t take long for me to realize my mistake, but I could not believe my stupidity.

          1. Alisaurus*

            My coworker did that! He popped it in the microwave, started chatting, and then we heard pops and saw it sparking. I think he covered the distance to the microwave in a single bound.

      4. Turquoisecow*

        I somehow made it to college, I once picked up a tinfoil-wrapped whopper and brought it back to my dorm. It was cold and windy out so the burger wasn’t really hot so I thought I’d heat it in the microwave. Opened the wrapper and stuck it in the microwave. A tiny bit of flame appeared on the wrapper, I freaked out, stopped the microwave, and took it out, then used a paper towel to finish the burger.

        Telling the story afterward, everyone was like “omg you don’t put tinfoil in a microwave!”

        My mom always took the food out of tin containers from like restaurants and put them on plates, but I assumed that was just for like, serving purposes or it would heat better. I honestly don’t remember anyone ever explicitly telling me not to put metal in. Will definitely tell my kid, though!

      5. Worldwalker*

        When both microwaves and I were much newer, I once put a baggie of leftovers tied with a twist-tie into the office microwave. The resulting fireworks (arcing) were impressive. I didn’t destroy the microwave, but you only make that mistake once.

        1. learnedthehardway*

          When I was a student, I did that by accident with some hamburger / ground beef. I’d bought it at a butcher rather than the usual grocery store, and didn’t realize the tie on the bag had metal in it. I guess the butcher shop didn’t use trays for meat – probably more environmental of them.

          First and last time I did that!!

        2. BubbleTea*

          I inherited a microwave recipe book from when microwaves were new, and it had recipes specifically instructing you on how to arrange the foil to suitably arc the sparks and channel the heat. I don’t remember the details and no longer have the book, sadly, but it definitely encouraged metal in the microwave. o_o

      6. Michelle*

        Unfortunately, some parents prefer to mock their children for not knowing how to do things rather than teaching them. Then, when the kid grows up and moves out and realizes they are hopelessly incompetent at basic tasks, that parent insists, “It’s obvious, I shouldn’t have to teach you!”

        I ruined many clothes, blew up a microwave, set a toaster on fire, and flooded the dishwasher (twice!) trying to teach myself the things my mother insisted were “obvious.”

        1. New Mom (of 1 3/9)*

          I’m a youngest child and sincerely think that my parents just forgot to teach me some stuff. I learned all of the microwave stuff the hard way and am still a terrible laundress.

        2. Sharpie*

          We had the toaster fire, though in our case it was because their was a loose part of the inside that kept the bread from poppyup all the way, which kept it cooking until the bread caught fire. Dumped the whole thing into the sink, as being the nearest heatproof surface.

          That toaster went out with the rubbish/recycling that week (our local council at the time also picked up small electrical items if you put them out with the rubbish).

      7. Kathleen*

        We had a colleague in his late 20s, who had recently moved here from a country where the norm is for women to cook, and men live with their mothers until they marry. He was unmarried, so cooking for himself for the first time. We had to stop him from eating chicken that was still raw in the middle, he thought it was like steak. I can definitely imagine him putting metal in the microwave.

        1. Baby Yoda*

          French au pere in the 90s put whole eggs (in shells) in our microwave. That was the first of many exciting household adventures.

          1. TheAG*

            We did that once when we were kids (and we had a babysitter there). In our defense, it was the 70s and microwaves were brand new…no one knew it was going to be an issue…
            It’s a major issue lol

          2. Michelle*

            I also did this in my early 20s. My husband told me you could cook eggs in the microwave. He assumed I knew to crack them first, but (as I mentioned above), I didn’t know anything about anything. I didn’t really understand how microwaves worked. The entire door blew off the microwave — luckily I was on the other side of the kitchen, especially since I was heavily pregnant at the time.

        2. whingedrinking*

          I used to live in a huge house with half a dozen roommates at a go, and at one point there was a middle-aged guy who’d just gotten divorced and a first-year undergrad away from his family for the first time. They’d bonded because they were from the same culture, but unfortunately neither of them had much experience with looking after themselves.
          The older guy tended to survive on frozen pizza. One day the oven was broken, so he tried using the broiler to cook it. This didn’t produce the desired result. The younger guy popped up and made a suggestion.
          And that’s why I came home to find two dudes cleaning pepperoni off the bottom of the oven and an upside-down pizza melted into the oven racks.

      8. MigraineMonth*

        Not everyone grows up with microwaves. One of my friends used one for the first time in her life at her a job, when she microwaved a hotdog.

        For 10 minutes.

        1. Cedrus Libani*

          On what was probably the second time I’d ever used a microwave, I was reheating a dinner roll but didn’t know how long to cook it, so I asked my mom. “8 to 10” she said. So I put it in, set the timer for 10 minutes, and walked away.

          She meant seconds. We never did get the smell of flambéed dinner roll out of that microwave. It reeked for another year or two until we finally got rid of it.

          1. BubbleTea*

            Similar issue for me when I asked my mum what to cook scrambled eggs in and she said a glass casserole dish. I’d read Swallows and Amazons so I knew you cooked scrambled eggs over an open fire. Put the casserole dish on the gas stove top. Minutes later there was scrambled egg on the ceiling and glass all over the kitchen.

            2. goddessoftransitory*

              I set a ceramic baking dish, for lack of space, on top of a stove burner I thought was off. It was not, as I found out when it cracked in half a minute later.

        2. lyonite*

          This reminds me of my very sheltered college roommate, who mentioned in passing once that she didn’t like Campbell’s soup because it was so salty. The concept of condensed soup was totally new to her.

        3. Our Lady of Shining Eels*

          Yep. I’m 38, and we didn’t get our first microwave until I graduated high school.

          It lives in the garage.

      9. Kit*

        Former coworker pulled the second one on me. He tried to microwave a Hot Pocket, apparently entered the time wrong, and set the microwave on fire. Since the microwave was in a small area off to the side, we didn’t notice right away. Filled the room with smoke and completely destroyed the microwave.

        That was the day I learned we didn’t have fire alarms in our part of the building. I worked with flammable materials and had multiple fire cabinets.

        Icing on the cake? We were in the basement so we didn’t have a way to air out the space. Closest they could come up with was turning the air up to circulate it more, so not only was I stuck working in a smoky room, it was freezing.

        I don’t miss that job.

      10. MusicWithRocksIn*

        I once caught my brother putting a frozen pizza in the oven with the cardboard round still on the bottom of it. He is so smart and very street smart/handy so it blew my mind that I had to explain to him that cardboard is flammable and we don’t put flammable things in the oven.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          I have had to tell so many people that if they buy a half-baked pizza (to finish at home when they’re ready to eat) they have to take it OUT OF THE BOX before putting it in the 325 degree oven.

      11. GasketGirl*

        I know to not put metal in the microwave, but I remember one time putting a piece of apple pie in to warm it up. I was using a paper plate that was left over from NYE and didn’t even think that the pretty holographic pattern would cause a spark, but it definitely did! Stopped it quick enough, but whoo boy, that was some excitement.

        1. Kayem*

          Yeah, I learned fairly quickly that the coffee mug with the pretty metallic lettering should never go in the microwave.

          I do have some containers with metal that I microwave, BUT those containers are specifically made to be microwaved despite the metal inserts. They use removable silicone shells so it’s actually safe. The metal inserts give a surprisingly good sear to brussels sprouts.

      12. Catgirl*

        I tried and failed to stop my coworker with a PhD in chemistry from microwaving food wrapped in tinfoil.

      13. Sharpie*

        It was not a potluck not anything like but you reminded me of an incident that occurred while I was serving in the army… At the time, I was the only female soldier in the single accommodation block on what was a really tiny camp, I had the first floor (second floor to you American folks) pretty much to myself apart from the General’s driver and o e other guy who I never saw, who both had rooms at the other end of the building.

        It’s about ten o’clock on a Friday, I’m ready for bed when the accommodation block fire alarm goes off. I head out into the corridor and there’s nobody else around. There’s smoke but nothing to indicate fire.

        I head downstairs, just in case. There’s nobody downstairs, either, and I know of at least four guys who should be around, so they’re probably outside waiting for the fire brigade. Still no sign of any fire, just smoke.

        I head outside. There’s smoke pouring out of a window, fanned by one of my colleagues. No fire, just a whole.lot of smoke.

        Apparently he’d put a microwave meal in. For half an hour, when the package said three minutes. And of course things had either blown up or straight out caught fire, though it was quickly extinguished. The whole kitchen had to be redecorated and all the appliances replaced.

      14. goddessoftransitory*

        Lord, how many AAM roundups involved somebody putting popcorn in the microwave for an hour…

    2. sara*

      Not a potluck story, but I used to work in a small office with a little kitchen area right outside my door. We had a microwave and a toaster oven. People were constantly trying to melt cheese in the toaster oven and it would drip down onto the element and flame. The office manager, instead of unplugging the toaster oven or doing anything else productive, would run laps around the office shouting “The microwave is on fire! Who has food in the microwave?” So the actual culprit, who was using the toaster oven, would have no idea anything was wrong.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Ugh, at Exjob, it was someone always putting microwave popcorn in and walking away. Commence the burning popcorn smell wafting through the office for the rest of the day. Don’t walk away from the microwave, people!

        1. LurkersRUs*

          We have a stove in our break room. One of our researchers decided to boil eggs for lunch one day. She put the pan on the stove with the eggs in the water, turned on the burner, and walked away. The water eventually boiled off and the eggs exploded.

          I wasn’t in the office when it happened but it was apparently a gigantic mess.

          1. Christmas Cactus*

            I worked in a cubicle just feet outside an office kitchen and the smells wafted out. (Burned popcorn, anyone?) Someone who had clearly never worked in an office setting before cooked fish in the microwave. The odor was gross and permeated half the floor until mid-afternoon. We knew who the culprit was as she was seen putting it in or taking it out. The next morning a memo was sent to all staff reminding them not to use the microwave to heat food that had a strong odor while cooking.

            1. MagicEyes*

              I’ve told the story here before about the time my (now ex-) coworker burned fish in the microwave. :-( That was the worst thing I have ever smelled. She was not a good coworker for many reasons, and this was just the tip of the iceberg.

        3. Lucy P*

          We had someone put their lunch in the microwave for 50 minutes (by accident) instead of 5. They walked out of the room and then became so engrossed in the book that they were reading that they forgot about the time until the whole area was filled with smoke and the scent of burned plastic.

      2. Jam Today*

        I worked in a tech company years ago which had a huge institutional ego problem, as in ‘we only hire the best and brightest etc.’ and we got both our regular toaster and toaster oven taken away from us, the former because someone tried to make a grilled cheese in it apparently not understanding the thermoplastic nature of cheese and setting the (vertical) toaster on fire when it melted onto the heating element (as above) and the latter for putting a slice of pizza wrapped in plastic wrap and melting the plastic, filling the kitchen with petroleum-product-based smoke and fumes.

        So, just in case you ever feel a creeping inferiority complex around someone who went to Harvard or MIT…don’t.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I worked at a tech company with an institutional ego problem that put on a huge conference twice a year. A week before that conference, popcorn was removed from all break rooms, presumably to prevent a repeat of the burned-popcorn-mass-evacuation of ’09.

          Naturally, everyone just learned to stockpile a few bags of microwavable popcorn in their desks, because surely *they* would never burn popcorn.

        2. Calpurrnia*

          I went to MIT, and would need at least two hands to count the number of times my dorm got to stand outside in the snow because of fire alarms from people failing at cooking.

          Setting the microwave for 10:00 instead of 1:00, leaving their fork on the plate when they put it in the microwave, trying to make grilled cheese in a toaster, putting a foil-wrapped pop tart in the microwave, leaving pasta boiling on the stove until the water boiled dry and the pasta started smoking (confession: that was me)… or my personal favorite, my suitemate who set their electric rice cooker on top of the hot stove that my other suitemate had forgotten to turn off after cooking, and not noticing until the bottom melted.

          You can be real good at calculus and an absolute idiot in the kitchen.

          1. Cyndi*

            For two years I went to U Chicago, which has a big annual scavenger hunt where dorms compete against each other, and this always happened more often than usual during Scav week. We figured it was inter-dorm sabotage, since of course you couldn’t work on entries while the building was evacuated, but in hindsight I wonder if some of it wasn’t caused by people trying to get creative with food-based entries.

          2. Azure Jane Lunatic*

            A conversation I once had with a colleague:

            Me: … and don’t do dumb things with fire.
            Him: Just what constitutes ‘dumb’ here?
            Me: You work [at a Silicon Valley tech company and went to MIT and Stanford], you can figure it out.
            Him: I mean, is a hairspray or non-dairy creamer flamethrower ‘dumb’?
            Me: *sigh*
            Me: OK, fine. Don’t do dumb or overly clever things with fire or the fire pit.

        3. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

          Not work related, but in college, the honors floor set the fire alarms in the building off- twice, both times in the middle of the night- by throwing water balloons down the hallway. We non-honors students, who were asleep at the time, were none too pleased.

    3. CHRISTOPHER FRANKLIN*

      Ha! In grad school, a friend of mine and I stumbled on a physicist who was about to microwave a pork and bagel sandwich on a metal plate. We had to explain that there wasn’t one right element in all of this.

    4. MigraineMonth*

      I worked at a restaurant with a microwave convection oven, and it felt wrong every single time I put a tin-foil tray in there.

    5. Kayem*

      When I was in my very early 20s, I used to microwave CDs for fun. These were AOL CDs or any that failed burning (which was frequent back then). You had to be quick because they would spark across the surface and etch this interesting complex pattern in just a few seconds.

      Though I will absolutely not tell my niece and nephew how cool it looks. I don’t need to get in trouble because they microwaved their dad’s CDs.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Microwaving marshmallows is just as entertaining, more environmentally sound. Plus tasty food science that demonstrates how a microwave can affect textures.

        (PS use wooden toothpicks to assemble Mr. Stapuff.)

      2. ampersand*

        I did this same thing. My boyfriend at the time introduced me to it, and it was very cool. That said, I cannot in good faith recommend microwaving a CD.

    6. goddessoftransitory*

      YIKES ON BIKES!

      Oh my God, that could have started a fire! *freaks out, seriously WHO DOES THAT*

  8. I edit everything*

    Dang it! Why’d this post have to come up on a day when I’d vowed to buckle down on my current editing project?

    1. A Girl Named Fred*

      I have to order catering today for a couple meetings later this month, so now I’m triple-checking all of my notes to make sure I don’t end up on this list next time!

  9. Exhausted Electricity*

    Several of my coworkers are painfully lactose intolerant. I also work with an extremely diverse group of people so anything cheese and meat related isn’t optimal due to religious reasons.

    I compiled a list of catering places of
    a similar price range but with more non-dairy options and asked the admin to please consider literally any options as pizza excludes 30% of the office.

    She refused. It is always pizza for company lunches and catering, even with holidays.

    The Fart Wars have begun. A coordinated crop dusting attack of lactose intolerant people with just enough lactaid in themselves to not create a mess will walk passed her desk in the tiny welcome area.

    1. Bronze Betty*

      OK, the thought of Fart Wars has made my day (most notably since I do not have to be anywhere near these wars).

      1. Carol the happy elf*

        We had a Reborn Vegan, “Sid”, who ordered catering from his vegan cousin’s restaurant, years ago. They were just introducing gluten-free options, and peanut allergies were well-known, but pea-flour wasn’t known as an allergen, nor was bean flour. That day, they made meatless dishes with brown rice and lentils, mixed with a soy sauce for meaty richness. The sides were baked beans, green bean casserole, and chia pudding ice cream for dessert.

        Full disclosure- I wasn’t sure of the ice cream, so I had the vegan cake with the fake cream cheese frosting.

        Chia makes the digestive tract nice and “lube-y”, so the bean overload can FedEx-Lax right outta there.

        They also had asparagus spears wrapped in fake slivered ham, (so urine smells like mating yack piss, according to Phil, who studied ancient medicine in Asia)

        This was for early lunch on a Friday. By the end of day, three people had needed to leave with some humiliating urgency, and the rest of us were pretty high-octane. It was early December in the northeast, and I drove home with all my windows down, but Tricia and Barry had to ride the bus, and poor Danny (who loved the food, so he ate three full plates) rode the subway.

        The only thing worse than Fart Wars is Fart Peace!

        1. 1-800-BrownCow*

          Ok, so I just read this to my coworker and we are dying from laughter over here!!! So far, this one win’s for me!.

        4. Caledonian Crow*

          This description is so hilarious and evocative that I had tears running down my face from all the laughter I had to suppress while reading.

          You are a genius with words! Can we be friends?

        5. Anonymous 77777*

          Oh no. I live in fear of lesser-known food allergy interactions like pea flour. Potluck season means brace for impact.

          Since it wasn’t mentioned on the list above, PSA that cricket flour can trigger shellfish allergies!

            1. Kayem*

              It’s probably because there’s similar proteins in their exoskeletons. Kind of like how someone allergic to cashews or pistachios can also be allergic to mango and papaya.

              1. sparkle emoji*

                Or how banana, kiwi, or avocado allergies can also make people react to latex. Always interesting how allergies work.

            2. Hlao-roo*

              Crickets and shellfish have some of the same proteins, so someone who is allergic to Protein X in lobsters will also be allergic to Protein X in crickets. I don’t think that ground bits of lobster shells are being put into cricket flour (although it is possible that some location processes both crickets and shellfish and there’s cross-contamination in some cases).

            3. Data Nerd*

              Shellfish allergy checking in! Crickets–and funnily enough, dust mites–are anthropods like shrimp and lobster and trigger the same reaction. Imagine if you will how very often I have to vacuum my bed

              1. Sharpie*

                …I’m surprised shellfish share anything, you’d think they’d keep it to themselves.

                I’ll show myself out…

        6. Harried HR*

          OMG…I’m dying of laughter at the visuals my co-workers are looking at me like I’m demented

        7. goddessoftransitory*

          OMG. This is the kind of meal I would expect to see in a Shirley Jackson-type short story about a fed up woman getting revenge on a local women’s club!

    5. Southern Girl*

      Vegan here. Pizza without cheese is easy to order and delicious. You just have to get the non vegan and non lactose intolerant to keep their hands off it!

      1. Ace in the Hole*

        Vegetarian here. I like a lot of vegan food, but cheese-less pizza is neither filling nor appetizing. It’s usually just… toasted bread with red sauce and mediocre diced vegetables. Better than nothing, but honestly still a bit insulting when there are so many better options for the same price.

        1. not my usual name*

          Spak brothers, pittsburgh, has vegan “cheese” (and veggie sausage and veg-pepperoni) pizza that’s essentially indistinguishable from their (good) non-vegan pizza. Also, vegan cheesesteak. Not as into the seitan wings, though they have those too.

        2. Princess Sparklepony*

          Toasted bread with red sauce – that doesn’t sound so bad. The vegetables might mess it up though.

      2. MusicWithRocksIn*

        My kingdom for someone who can order pizza for groups with sense! At my office they always have to get an exactly equal amount of: Pepperoni, Hawaiian, BBQ Chicken and Everything (including mushrooms). The Pepperoni goes pretty much instantly leaving a bunch of people to decide if they would rather pick off pineapple or mushrooms. There is always a ton of leftovers but also still hungry people, and the vegitarians/vegans are totally without options. At least get something that is veggie only or cheese.

        1. sparkle emoji*

          The highest number of pizzas for any topping type should be cheese. Almost everyone who will eat pizza will tolerate a cheese slice. This is the hill I will die on.

          1. UKDancer*

            Definitely I love pepperoni but it doesn’t love me back and tends to transit my system fast and somewhat urgently. So at social events I stick to cheese pizza because I don’t enjoy gastric upset.

            My company is wise to the fact my colleagues have a major cheese habit so orders a lot more cheese pizza than anything else. Likewise if it’s a sandwich lunch we get more cheese and pickle than anything else because it’s popular.

          2. goddessoftransitory*

            This! If only people would just get another cheese instead of debating endlessly over who wants chicken and if they can have the marinade or…

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          It’s so hard! Where I work the gluten free crust, for instance, is NOT dairy free/vegan, whereas the regular crust is, but contains tons of high-gluten flours. It can be really hard to convince people that they can’t just combine the “not regular” things into one dish.

    6. Atalanta*

      I’m glad I work from home because this had me in hysterics. Hopefully biological warfare got the point across.

      1. Body of a Heavy Reader*

        Perhaps just request that a few of the pizzas be made without cheese? It’s an easy compromise that should solve most of the problems.

        1. king of the pond*

          Or vegan cheese — if I understand correctly, it would have no dairy, definitely solving the lactose issue and probably solving the religious issue.

          1. kalli*

            I’m not sure what you may not be understanding correctly but unfortunately whether coconut, soy or nut-based, not all vegan cheese is created equal – some is made in the same factory as the brand’s non-vegan equivalent and comes with ‘may contain milk’ messaging, thus ruling out people with severe dairy allergies and people keeping kosher. The dedicated vegan brands don’t tend to make any dairy products (although some cannot rule out cross-contamination from ingredients they source from other manufacturers) but may not be certified kosher or made under kosher conditions, so people keeping very strictly to kosher may still not be included

            Pizza without cheese might be fine but the melted cheese serves a structural purpose in keeping the toppings on the pizza, so the cheeseless pizzas tend to lose more toppings in transit and during eating. Some people do prefer to melt their own cheese on or enjoy cheeseless pizzas (I do!) but it is still not the same experience as getting your pizza straight from the box, lifting a slice out with the stringy cheese melting off the edges, and perhaps losing a couple of pieces of topping that were sliced or at the edges.
            Vegan cheese also does not guarantee the pizza is actually dairy free – some traditional Italian tomato sauces contain milk (to cut the acidity of tomatoes) and it’s becoming relatively common to have pizzas that have a white sauce of some kind instead of tomato, like yiros pizzas (garlic sauce). The toppings may not be kosher either – some deli meats used in pizza toppings (ham, salami etc.) can have dairy added to them for taste and texture. If someone is concerned enough to be checking the pizza place may not necessarily have the information to hand or assume meat is meat and not even realise that there isn’t a part of a pig named sausage.

            As with everything team-building and work-social, variety such that everyone is explicitly included at least some of the time, and accommodated where possible when needed, is better than the same thing all the time.

            2. Cyborg Llama Horde*

              Also, some vegan cheeses are REALLY GROSS. I *think* they’ve been getting better (though I mostly avoid them due to early bad experiences), but the worse one had a very unpleasant aftertaste that lingered in my mouth for something like four hours afterwards, despite eating a meal of other food, and brushing my teeth.

              1. UKDancer*

                Yes they vary. Ocado substituted vegan feta on my order once. I used it in the recipe i was making and it was foul and had an awful aftertaste. I have had decent vegan cheese a couple of times but it’s often not great.

          2. Sparkle Llama*

            Yes, either would work. It is becoming quite common for good pizza places to offer vegan cheese, but no cheese is also great and some people prefer it.

            1. Arts Akimbo*

              Is this admin a sentient computer program, like in the Matrix? “One of these lunches has a future in our office, Mr. Anderson. The other does not.”

          4. Platypus*

            I love a LOT of vegan things, but vegan cheese is one of the worst things I’ve ever ever eaten. Why do substitutes when you can just eat other foods that aren’t made to have animal products in them?

            1. ampersand*

              Well, for times when you miss pizza and just really want some pizza but can’t eat cheese for whatever reason. (There are a couple of okay brands out there, thankfully, though most are terrible.)

              I otherwise agree–it’s usually best to eat foods that aren’t poor substitutions of better-tasting foods. :)

        2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

          if the person ordering were going to compromise they could literally order from the suggestions made. They had a list with a specific request of Not Pizza. Yet Pizza is being ordered. The orderer doesn’t care so isn’t going to compromise.

    8. Leia Oregano*

      I am somewhat severely lactose intolerant and this is amazing. I’m known in my office for ALWAYS having lactaid with me, and all anyone needs to do is ask because I’m happy to share to keep the stomach cramps away. We had a charcuterie-themed potluck yesterday as the farewell party for a much-loved and long-serving staff member, and I definitely gave out a lactaid or two in the aftermath. (fortunately, the charcuterie potluck went off without a hitch and my now-former coworker was touched.)

    11. Lenora Rose*

      I never understand this absolute refusal to consider alternatives. Sure, pizza is “easy” — but so are other things, and you came with a pre-compiled list, which cuts down on the effort. And Pizza can be cheap, but again, so can other things. And as soon as anyone says “I can’t eat anything here” you have to start taking it seriously.

      Like, there’s a pizza lunch tomorrow, if I recall the week correctly (I didn’t throw into the pot for it and am not joining in). But our last several group lunches or events were all *different*, not pizza every time.

      Last week, we did a “taco in a bag”. Take a personal-sized bag of doritos. Slit the side open. Fill bag with a scoop of taco meat/vegetarian alternative (the only item requiring more prep than chopping), lettuce, salsa, sour cream, cheese , and onions – with all items scooped in individually by servers so anyone can skip anything they can’t handle or can’t mix. Add some cups of popcorn and cookies or half-donuts on the side, you have a meal. It’s relatively low prep, the serving job is needed but lightweight — and the next time, we’ll do something else still, so the few people whose dietary needs are still an issue can maybe get involved.

      1. NotRealAnonForThis*

        For tacos in a bag, Fritos are a good non-milk based option should anyone ever need that information :)

      2. JSPA*

        aka “walking taco,” close cousin to the “frito pie.” Both served in the bag. Memories of childhood!

    12. Sssssssssssssss*

      I have a kid who cannot eat dairy at all. He’s allergic and no Lactaid is gonna fix that. What does this overly rigid person do for allergies?

      (I very much dislike such rigid thinking in these kinds of ppl.)

      1. Observer*

        What does this overly rigid person do for allergies?

        What makes you think that she does ANYTHING for allergies? The only good thing here is that you *know* that you cannot depend on her. So at least you don’t take the risk of expecting something you can eat.

        Hopefully, she doesn’t have the power to call someone out for “not being a team player..”

  10. CheesePlease*

    This isn’t something that went wrong as much as it is a funny misunderstanding.

    A few years ago (pre-covid) our office had a “Chili Cook-off”. It was understood by most people to mean typical American chili stew, with beans and/or ground meat etc. However, one employee understood it to mean spicy food, and brought in spicy “chili” chicken wings. They were delicious! but did not win the competition haha. Everyone still talks about their wings years later.

    2. Frickityfrack*

      The last time one of my employers had a chili cook-off, the winner made turkey chili (which some people tried to say wasn’t *really* chili) and their only seasoning was a McCormick’s spice pack. Oh my god, the uproar. How dare the winner not have a secret family combination of spices passed down from great-great grandma since 18-dickety-2 (or whatever)?! I was a vegetarian, so I didn’t try any of them, but I thought it was hilarious that people put all this time and energy into their seasoning and lost to a $1.99 mass-produced packet.

      1. H3llifIknow*

        Our company had a chili cook off. I decided to make essentially chicken tortilla soup (if you’ve had Max and Erma’s –tastes just like theirs, very cheesy etc…) except I did put white beans in because…chili. It won. The beef chili makers …well had a lot of beef with that because they didn’t think it qualified, but nobody had defined chili as having beef.

        1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          I once participated in a (non-work) chili cookoff where there were only two vegetarian entries, so by unanimous consent the third-place vegetarian trophy was awarded to the guy who brought margaritas. It was unquestionably vegetarian, and nobody had defined “chili”. Plus most of us had had a margarita when doing the voting.

        2. MusicWithRocksIn*

          Oh my god I LOVE Max and Erma’s chicken tortilla soup! I’ve been trying to make a copycat for years- could you tell me where you got the recipe? I can never get it quite right, and now there aren’t any Max and Erma’s left in my state!

      2. Ally McBeal*

        There was a similar AAM thread a year or two ago, and my favorite comment was from someone whose office had had a chili cookoff; someone secretly stole a scoop of everyone else’s chili, put it in their crock pot… and was voted the winner.

        1. Frickityfrack*

          Oh my god, I forgot about that! That person is my hero. What an absolutely insane thing to do.

      3. CV*

        This made me laugh! My partner can get precious about his chili; I should try the spice packet someday. The kids’ll love the MSG in it and I will be best parent for a day LOL

      4. JustaTech*

        For several years my office has had a chili contest. Normally I wouldn’t enter, as I can’t eat spicy food, but as a long suffering member of the social committee, I was told that I *had* to bring a chili.
        So the first year I made my normal, not-spicy chili and while it all got eaten I came in quite low on the rankings. I didn’t expect to do well, as it was a mild chili, but I’m a pretty good cook so that hurt a bit.
        The second year I was stone cold dead last.

        So the third year rolls around and again I am told that I really must provide something. I’m whinging about it to my friends when my friend who is the king of malicious compliance says “Make a curry! It’s a stew of beans and spices, same thing, right?”

        Readers, he was so right. I made a nice (mild) vegan curry and while it didn’t win (not that I expected it to) it was *very* popular and I soothed my ego by choosing to not play the game.
        And the social committee has not demanded that I enter the contest again.

    3. UsuallyLurks*

      This is the kind of situation that calls for a “Most Unusual” prize. When I was a kid my mom hosted an apple pie contest, and the prize for “Most Unusual Apple Pie” went to … the pecan pie that was the only pie one guy knew how to bake. (I’m pretty sure this was a “contest” with the same number of prizes as entrants….)

  11. LadyAmalthea*

    I hate bananas to the point where the smell of a ripe banana peel makes me nauseous and I can’t stand having it in a trash can next to me. All of my coworkers knew this and had made gentle fun of me for this.

    When I was leaving my job of 15 years, my boss held a breakfast for me. what was the only food his partner brought for the breakfast? Banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery because she was sure she remembered I loved it. I had to wait an hour through the breakfast before I could run out and grab a roll.

    1. Ole Pammy's Getting What She Wants*

      oh my gosh, i cannot even imagine eating that for breakfast and i LOVE banana pudding

    2. Fluffy Fish*

      Solidarity! I too am an adamant banana hater. A former boss use to pack a banana every Wednesday and sneak the peel into my trash can.

    5. Bananas are poisonous!*

      Yes!! The smell makes me sick too. My coworker used to eat one every day in her office when we were working very closely together. When she saw me appear in her doirway, she would take her half-eaten banana and put it in a drawer so I wouldn’t have to smell it. And my husband has to eat babanas only in the kitchen and put the peels into a plastic bag in the freezer so I don’t smell them.

    6. LCH*

      i got stuck in a car on a road trip when i was little with bananas. it smelled so bad. i don’t hate eating the actual fruit, but i don’t love banana scent or flavored stuff. ugh, just thinking about the scent makes me nauseous.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        High school Advanced Placement Chemistry class had a lab where they synthesized esters.

        Apparently banana ester is a great introduction to the process. Unfortunately they did this lab in middle of winter, and the reek hung around for a week. Every year. I still like real banana but the artificial flavor still smells like a high school.

      2. RegBarclay*

        Hah, I have a similar thing with grapes! Actual grapes are fine and delicious, but grape-flavored anything (candy, jelly, etc) is an absolute no-go. Due to a grape fruit roll up and stomach flu as a kid.

        1. Junior Assistant Peon*

          I always wondered why grape candy, soda, etc tastes nothing like actual grapes. The mystery was finally solved when I tasted a Concord grape as an adult.

      3. Clisby*

        I’m the same way. In general, I don’t like fruit (unless you’re including things like tomatoes, squash, and peppers) but I’m OK with bananas. I’ve never found any banana-flavored food I could stomach.

          1. Liminality*

            This is completely random, but do know and can you tell me Where one can buy banana Nerds? It’s a long story, but I’ve been looking for Years without success. Thanks in advance?

            1. Proofin' Amy*

              Economy Candy (famous NYC candy store on the Lower East Side) seems to sell a wide assortment of Nerds; I was just there. I don’t see any banana-specific options on their website, but a bunch of the options include a yellow flavor which I’m assuming is banana (I’ve never heard of lemon-flavored Nerds)?

              1. Liminality*

                You’d be surprised. I have personally held in my hands a box of lemon flavored Nerds.
                Near as I can tell they just don’t make them (banana) anymore.
                I’m trying to recreate a childhood memory for my brother, but the banana nerds seem to be a phantom.

                1. Seeking Second Childhood*

                  Maybe look at off brand stuff: I just saw something on a web search called “bananarama”— maybe its similar.

                  Could be a hard search… apparently there’s a cannabis product brand using.the name.

    7. mango chiffon*

      Always feel a sense of camaraderie when I meet another banana hater since everyone else seems to love them. I would’ve been so upset to see that.

      1. LadyVet*

        The coffee guy right outside my office building always tries to give me a banana when I tip him, and I keep telling him thank you, but I don’t like bananas.

        Every time.

    8. Weaponized Pumpkin*

      I even like bananas, but there is something about the smell of a peel in the trash that is super gross.

      1. JustaTech*

        I only like bananas when they’re really green, so pretty much everyone else’s peel is just the Worst.
        The good thing is that our compost bins are covered and all the way at the other end of the floor, and no one has ever complained when I asked them to throw out their banana peels in the compost bin, not even the people who liked to needle me.

    9. Language Lover*

      Ah. My people! Banana haters unite.

      I hate how they’re included in so many smoothies or as a healthy substitute in so many things (like pancakes.) I can taste it. I can always taste it.

      1. Miette*

        So much banana-hate solidarity. I feel truly seen lol. I too hate that they are so ubiquitous. And don’t get me started on how annoying all the banana bread recipes during Covid lockdown I had to scroll through on Instagram like wtf learn how to bake ANYTHING ELSE

      2. Distracted Procrastinator*

        I don’t mind eating a banana every once in a while, but I absolutely can’t stand them in a smoothie. It makes the entire smoothie taste entirely like bananas and nothing else. Just banana. it’s overwhelming and not great.

      3. sparkle emoji*

        Or “one ingredient banana ice cream” that’s just frozen bananas thrown in a blender? I’m sure it’s great if you like bananas but that is not ice cream, do not lie to me.

    10. didi*

      My husband years ago had a dental procedure and for some unknown reason, they sprayed banana-flavored antiseptic or numbing agent into his mouth. He didn’t used to care about bananas one way or another before this incident, but after it, he LOATHED them.

    11. Calpurrnia*

      I am not a banana hater, but I have the same reaction to oranges. They smell so strongly and awful that someone peeling an orange on the other side of the room makes me want to throw up, and then they leave the peels in the trash can just stinking up the place. And people make cleaning products that smell like it, for some ungodly reason! I’d rather smell bleach!

      Much sympathy on the “bad reaction to smelly fruit others think is innocuous” front.

    12. Princess Sparklepony*

      People rave about Magnolia’s banana pudding. I do not get it. Their layer cakes on the other hand – perfection. The cupcakes are so so.

      1. Azure Jane Lunatic*

        I’m allergic to bananas and somehow the hospital that did my hysterectomy managed to forget this. They gave me the bright red allergy bracelet! Yet somehow there was a banana on my meal tray. And a muffin with walnuts (my other documented allergy at the time).

  12. Lisa*

    When I worked for a doctor’s office in the early 90s, we had lunches catered just about every day by drug reps. We had one certain drug rep who had a huge budget (company rhymes with Kaiser) and he would bring enough for our lunch PLUS extra for us to nosh on for the rest of the week if we were so inclined.

    EXCEPT our lab tech always seemed to conveniently have her husband and teenage sons “visit” her at lunchtime on “Kaiser” days, and they would help themselves to HEAPING plates of lunch, so much that our extra was totally gone by the end of lunch. Our office manager had to finally cut off their mooching of our mooching lol and make an “employees only” rule.

      1. La Triviata*

        One of our employees was famous for her barbecued rib – she’d take off the morning to prepare them. An ex-employee would always find out and turn up and eat more than his share. He was generally well liked, and she always made more than enough, so it wasn’t an issue. I don’t eat meat as a rule, but I did like her baked beans (made without meat) so I didn’t end up starving.

    3. Fishsticks*

      Based on what I have heard from the parents of teenage boys, the mom was probably hoping it would help lower her grocery bills, haha

        1. Ally McBeal*

          I recently watched the Amazon documentary on Jason Kelce… between him and his brother, I shudder to think of their family’s grocery bill when they were teens and already well on their way to successful football careers.

          1. RuledByCats*

            My brother was a student athletic therapist for a varsity football team. He and the offensive line would go out for dinner to the buffet place near the university once or maybe twice a month. The buffet owners told them, just at the start of the second semester, that they were welcome to eat there but they would only be allowed to hit the buffet twice a night. They also liked to go to a seafood place for fish & chips; one night a week was unlimited chips and they’d do one extra piece of fish for like a buck. Two guys decided there was a fish record to be made and/or broken; they waited until near close and then went for it. I don’t recall the winning number (it was wild though) and the entire staff was cheering for one or the other, including the manager, who bought the table a round as the kitchen closed and told them in the nicest possible way that this would never happen again. I think the entire crew regularly went to both places for their entire playing terms and were on first name basis with just about every long term employee.

        2. Cedrus Libani*

          When I was in growth spurt mode, my parents would take me to buffets, make sure any pets and small children were safely out of the way, then stand back to watch the show. I’m fairly sure I single-handedly made the local brunch buffet cancel their “16 and under eat for 99 cents” promotion…I was eight, but that was also the growth spurt where I outgrew my mom, so I was either 5’9″ or headed that direction at a near-visible rate.

      2. Kelly L.*

        Many years ago my old department hosted about 10 guests for a weekend, which was an annual thing, but that one particular year everyone was on a strict diet. So I ordered the usual amount of catering, and no one would eat! The chair had teenage sons at the time, so I can happily report that not a morsel went to waste!

      3. whingedrinking*

        As part of my grade 12 comparative civilisations class, we visited a mosque to learn about Islam, and they fed us after. I was genuinely impressed by the extent of their hospitality – there was actual food left over from a meal with multiple teenage boys present.

    4. Princess Sparklepony*

      I have drug pens from “Kaiser” from when I temped there 30 plus years ago. Those pens are workhorses. They spared no expense on promotional items.

  13. HugeTractsofLand*

    A school I worked at catered an all-staff lunch from a hugely popular local chain. Their chicken was legendary; everyone LOVED this place. The admin who planned things must have been patting themselves on the back. However, the catering trays arrived WITHOUT any of the signature spicy green dipping sauce. That was the day we all learned that we didn’t love the chicken…we loved the sauce. I’ll never forget the sad mounds of dry chicken left over after lunch. I (and plenty of others) took those leftovers home, but dipping sauce from a bottle just wasn’t the same.

  14. Nanc*

    I’m pretty sure I’ve told this story here before but here goes. I make an awesome bread pudding, if I do say so myself. The reason it’s so awesome is I make it using pound cake. At a long ago job I took it to the first holiday potluck I attended at this particular job. I brought along copies of the recipe because hey, someone always asks for it. The wicked witch of the finance department (I’ve worked with many lovely finance departments-she drove off so many employees in her department, including three finance directors in the five years I worked there, but that’s another story) raised a stink about how it was NOT bread pudding–it had no bread! And there is no such thing as cake pudding, what was I trying to pull? She accused me of trying to invent something and it just shouldn’t be done, especially at a potluck where if you sign up for a dessert, you must bring a traditional potluck dessert, not something made up! In the days ahead she filed a complaint with HR as after reading the recipe closely she discovered I used a boxed pound cake mix and recommended a specific generic brand that, in my opinion, made a fantastic pound cake. The HR director danced around a strong suggestion that in future I not bring a bread pudding made with pound cake–this was a city government and there were unions involved and finance witch spend a great deal of time being counseled but never crossed a line to anything fireable. So next year, I brought a bread pudding made with chocolate croissants. There was a hissy fit of epic proportions but every crumb of my bread pudding was gone be the end of the potluck.

      2. Charlotte Lucas*

        I am having trouble even processing this thought. And I have worked with some very unreasonable people.

    2. thatoneoverthere*

      I can’t imagine complaining to HR because someone make a bread pudding out of pound cake.

      Also do you still had said recipe? Bc now I want to make it!

      1. Lainey L. L-C*

        Why would HR even handle the complaint and wouldn’t instead tell the complaintant this isn’t an HR kind-of thing and they need to stop it?

    3. Ole Pammy's Getting What She Wants*

      this is incredible and i have to try making bread pudding with pound cake sometime! In the other direction, my partner loves to buy whole wheat/rye/seeded bitter breads; I love making bread pudding with these ends and cinnamon/nutmeg/Chinese five spice and chia/flax seeds. the sweetness helps make those butts quite a bit more palatable, lol.

      1. Not Your Sweetheart*

        One kitchen job I worked, I was in charge of making desserts. The black and white bread pudding was always a hit. The “white” was stale breads, of several varieties. The “black” was chocolate cake. Then I added chocolate and white chocolate chips and toasted pecans. It was really good!

          1. Be Gneiss*

            I can’t believe they “made up” an entirely non-standard bread pudding. The audacity! HR will hear of this.

    4. Stella70*

      My most heartful and sincere apologies you experienced such terrible treatment, Nanc.

      Now, cough up that recipe.

    6. Bast*

      If she doesn’t like it she can just… not eat it? The idea of “made up food” is also odd, and filing a complaint about it? I’m thinking of how many ways there are to make some pretty basic dishes ie: lasagna. Lasagna is popular, a potluck favorite, but can be made in many, many different ways. How do you police which one is the “right” way?

      1. Inkognyto*

        was it edible, yes, it tasted good. It’s done right. It’s cooking and it’s food.

        if it wasn’t edible, keep working at it, cooking is not a finite thing.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Reminds me of the “authenticity” debate that excludes a lot of immigrant food. It’s food, it doesn’t need a passport or a pedigree.

          1. Garblesnark*

            One time I worked somewhere that had an “Italian” potluck.

            I made these really incredible Italian green beans with heaps of bacon that I simmered for like four hours.

            I was mocked because green beans, apparently, were not at all Italian, but Chef Boyardee absolutely was.

            Anyway my family really enjoyed those green beans.

      2. Tin Cormorant*

        All food is made up. People mix things together and if they taste good, other people make them too. A recipe being made for years by one family doesn’t make it any less real than a recipe made for decades by a larger group that she’s more familiar with.

        And isn’t the point of a potluck that people can show off their homemade dishes that they’ve tweaked and perfected to just the way they like them? If we wanted “official” things, we’d just have a catered meal from a restaurant.

    7. A Girl Named Fred*

      I thought this was going to end with nobody getting to eat your bread pudding there ever again, but I CACKLED when you doubled down the next year! Celebratory fist-bump for past you!

    11. londonedit*

      I don’t come from a potluck culture and I’d therefore have absolutely no idea what a ‘traditional potluck dessert’ was!

      Also, surely making anything with cake instead of bread makes it better? It’s like when my mum makes bread and butter pudding with panettone or hot cross buns – way better than just using ordinary bread!

      1. A Poster Has No Name*

        I do come from a potluck culture and I have no idea what a “traditional” potluck dessert is. Yeah, there are things we see often but if it’s tasty it belongs in a potluck.

        I’m petty AF, though, so I’d be organizing coworkers in future years to bring as many new things as possible and/or more standard things made with different ingredients.

        1. Miss Muffet*

          Obviously it’s green jello with pineapples in it
          … or is the green jello considered a salad dish?
          (Lutheran here, where potlucks are basically equivalent to communion) :)

          1. wonderl@nd*

            No, the green jello has to have shredded carrots in it (evangelical/lutheran/episcipol here).
            AND, if it has veggies, it’s a salad :)

            1. GoryDetails*

              (Lapsed) Episcopalian checking in – yes, the green-Jell-o salad with carrrots (and pineapple?) was very much A Thing. Mom would make it, so there’s a nostalgia factor there, but I never liked it. [My only tolerable Jell-O flavor was “red”; any of the red ones were good. But they couldn’t have anything else embedded in them.]

            2. Honor Harrington*

              Red jello, however, has applies, celery, nuts, and melted cinnamon red hots.

              My mom used to love that stuff. Blech!

          2. SemiAnon*

            Jello based dishes are a side/salad dish, not a dessert. Probably because they descend from aspics.

            For a traditional potluck dessert, I’m guessing squares/bars/brownies/loafs – the dessert parallel to a casserole, that can be made ahead of time, cut into pieces of arbitrary size, and eaten by hand.

            I have fond memories of a very multi-cultural Lutheran congregation whose potlucks did not feature jello, but did involve dishes like Spanish paella and Guyanese curry with homemade roti.

          3. Collinstown*

            Green jello is only to be made with fresh avocado slices and canned grapefruit slices. Served on a leaf of iceberg lettuce with a mayonnaise / lemon juice dressing.

      3. Ripley*

        There is no such thing as a “traditional potluck dessert.” I’ve been to many, many potlucks and really, there is no such thing.

      4. Ace in the Hole*

        Not sure what a “traditional potluck dessert” is either, but I can’t imagine something made from pound cake turning out anything like what I consider to be bread pudding. To me, “bread pudding” is unsweetened or only slightly sweet, chewy, something like a denser and moister version of french toast with raisins and nuts mixed in. Something that makes a good breakfast food or filling snack.

        Starting with sweet breads like panettone or hot cross buns makes a sweeter, more dessert-like pudding, but it’s not too different from a standard version. Using pound cake as a base would make it extremely sweet and very mushy – which might be good, but it’s not at all the same dish!

        The angry coworker was being ridiculous though. Who cares if someone calls their potluck dish a different name than you’d expect? Completely inappropriate to get huffy over it… much less complaining to HR (!!)

      5. MigraineMonth*

        I think it was Ireland that decided Subway bread doesn’t meet their legal definition of bread. So Subway sandwiches there are served on honey wheat or multigrain cake.

        1. Letters*

          Yup, just googled this. It’s to do with VAT (Value Added Tax) – there’s no VAT on staple foods like bread in Ireland, but bread has to have sugar content that is 2% or less of the weight of the flour used. Subway bread has 10% sugar to flour weight, so is considered ‘confectionary’. I notice Subway Ireland still call it bread on their website – presumably they can do that so long as they charge VAT to customers.

          1. Artemesia*

            I have never liked Subway sandwiches — I find them stomach turning — now I have a clue as to why. I love good bread. We are in Paris now and the bread is just so wonderful. In the US lots of bread is gross and has sugar in it — but 10% seems excessive even for America’s sweet tooth.

      6. Distracted Procrastinator*

        “Traditional pot luck dessert” is obviously Better than Sex Cake renamed something innocuous (like Better Than Anything Cake) and the maker has to whisper it’s “real” name to people so they feel like they have avoided any visits with HR but still get to giggle about being edgy at work.

        Also cupcakes and a tray of cookies from the grocery store.

    12. Needing Something Other than Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving*

      Not to be that person, but any chance you can gift us with the recipe for your delicious bread pudding?

      1. Nanc*

        I have to dig it out. I’ve been a remote worker for 20 years now so no work potlucks. I’ll pop it in the comments tomorrow.

    13. BellyButton*

      She filed a complaint! LOL! I love that brought bread pudding next time, so deliciously petty! LOL

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Speaking from the US pudding definition …

        Trifle in my family is assembled in the bowl. Cake, simple milk/egg/vanilla pudding, whip cream, and occasionally a drizzle of sherry. Wait for flavors to mingle.

        Bread pudding is cooked together.

        1. londonedit*

          Trifle in Britain is a layer of cake/Swiss roll/boudoir biscuits with fruit jelly (Jello) or jam, topped with a layer of thick custard, topped with a layer of cream. You can also soak the cake pieces in sherry for a sherry trifle.

            1. Regular Reader*

              Sponge like finger shaped biscuits, topped with sugar.
              You don’t have to jelly/jello in the trifle, I personally hate the texture it creates. I
              make mine with cake layer/ chopped up tinned peaches or fresh fruit such as raspberries /layer of thick custard/ topped with whipped cream layer.
              Cake can be soaked in sherry or fruit juice or a combination.

            1. LadyVet*

              I was waiting for someone to mention this!

              “What’s not to like? Custard? Good! Jam? Good! Meat? GOOD!”

          3. Seeking Second Childhood*

            Sounds like what my grandmother made…but I dwas a kid and didn’t realize the layering was more than presentation.

            (My grandmother was born in the US, but her parents & some siblings were from the West Midlands.)

          4. Media Monkey*

            and scotch trifle has no jelly (i make mine with amaretti biscuits – an ancient family receipe handed down from my gran’s M&S cookbook)

      2. Artemesia*

        A triffle is not baked. Bread pudding has the custard ingredients added to the ‘bread’ raw and the whole thing is then baked. I used to make it with my kids then grandkids when they were 2 years old. Still too young to be doing a lot of measuring but loved to tear up the bread and break the eggs. and sprinkle in the raisins. A triffle is assembled from the various ingredients after they are already cooked.

        2. sparkle emoji*

          You could make a honey-based custard for it, that actually sounds really good… now I want to make cheap ass bread pudding

    17. pally*

      So don’t bring the dish folks love, because-tradition?
      One can just pass this dessert by if it is not to their liking.

      Honest to Pete, this must come from some kind of sadistic streak that makes someone take a tactic like this.

    18. t-vex*

      Since you already offered to share the recipe with you coworkers… would you share it with us as well? Non-bread bread pudding sounds delicious!

    20. Alisaurus*

      I too join the chorus of requests for this recipe.

      And I love the way you came back the next year! It sounds (and clearly was) delicious too. Also, aren’t croissants technically bread?

    23. Alisaurus*

      I would also love this recipe.

      Also I love the idea of the comeback pudding the next year! Although I consider croissants to be a type of bread… clearly this woman and I do not see eye-to-eye (but I would accept pound cake bread pudding, so I already knew that).

      1. Alisaurus*

        Ah! Either my browser is having issues or my brain is. lol I couldn’t find my earlier reply and then added this, but now it seems I double-commented.

      3. Artemesia*

        pound cake seems like the wrong idea for bread pudding to me BUT you get to bring what you want to a potluck — and apparently this stuff was delicious — so who cares what it is called?

    24. Tammy 2*

      This is amazing! I’d love the recipe, too.

      I once made bread pudding with liege-style waffles. Fortunately it was for a family gathering so no one reported me to the authorities for breach of recipe contract.

    25. Flidais*

      I mean, you’ve obviously violated a very, very sacred rule. You described something delicious and didn’t give us the recipe. I will report you to HR!

    26. AngryOctopus*

      Love it! I made bread pudding with glazed donuts once. It was delicious. The Dunkin ladies were confused that I wanted 18 plain glazed donuts though. But I did explain what I was doing!

      Also I don’t know why I love the idea of one unhinged person telling you that it wasn’t BREAD pudding because you used CAKE and you have RUINED TRADITIONAL DESSERTS HOW DARE YOU, but it’s just so funny!

    27. Lucy P*

      Oh my! Bread pudding is one of my favorite desserts. Just made some this weekend, forgot to add the eggs, but it still came out great.

      My grandmother used to use leftover donuts for bread pudding, including the filled ones. Pound cake sounds like it would be amazing.

    28. Nameless*

      The funniest part of this is that cabinet pudding is a version of bread pudding that uses cake instead of bread, so her complaint is basically nonsense.

    29. starkradio*

      Argh how frustrating yet amusing, and Nanc, please may we have the recipe for this not-bread pudding, because it sounds amazing!

    31. GasketGirl*

      My mom always talked about the bread pudding that her grandma would make. It was made up of whatever leftover bread-like objects were available: donuts, cake, rolls (not the Cheap Ass kind), just whatever was basically to the point of being stale and benefitted from the custard. It was a good way to use it up so things didn’t go to waste.

    33. Artemesia*

      Reinforces my believe that HR tends to recruit the absolutely least competent and dullest twits in the labor pool. what possible reaction to a complaint that someone didn’t make a bread pudding for the potluck out of bread besides hysterical laughter?

    34. Nanc*

      BREAD PUDDING RECIPE
      Well finding this recipe was a whole lot of fun–turns out my sister had the cookbook it came from.
      From The Settlement Cook Book, 1976 edition.
      Bread Pudding
      2 eggs
      2 cups milk
      1/2 cup sugar
      nutmeg or cinnamon
      [no amounts given, I wing it, sometimes it’s a teaspoon, sometimes it’s a half teaspoon of each, sometimes I just grate or shake the container until it seems like it’s enough]
      4 cups dried bread or cake
      [I was gobsmacked when my sister read this–I was right all along, finance witch! FYI I made the pound cake from the generic brand mix carried by Lucky Supermarkets in California. I’m sure any pound cake mix would do, look for one that uses sugar and not corn syrup]
      1/4 cup raisins
      [I use dried cherries or cranberries as raisins are the Devil’s pet bunny’s turds]
      Almonds
      [doesn’t specify amount or type. I usually use toasted pecans or walnuts]
      Beat the eggs, add milk, sugar, and gratings of nutmeg or cinnamon if desired; pour liquid over the bread [cake] in a pudding dish. [I use my mom’s old Pyrex 2 quart covered round baking dish], let stand until thoroughly soaked. Add raisins and almonds, if desired. Bake 20 minutes or until firm in a moderate oven, 350 F [it doesn’t say to preheat the oven but I always do]. Serve with milk, jelly or any pudding sauce.
      Random notes: I usually make the pound cake a few days ahead. Once it’s completely cool I cut it into cubes, spread it on a cookie sheet and set it in the oven to dry out–no heat in the oven, just the easiest place so they don’t clutter up the counter. When I made it with chocolate croissants it was before they were a thing, I just happened to live around the corner of a little bakery that made a dozen or so each day. They were kind enough to bake me a batch and then cubed them and let dry out in their kitchen before I picked them up.
      The recipe does not mention greasing or spraying the pudding/baking dish.
      The Settlement Cook Book was a gift from my sister when I first moved out on my own. I could cook but it’s a great book because it has measurement conversions, substitution suggestions, great charts and explanations of cuts of meat, tips on how to pick out produce, explanations of cheese (including what melts easiest) and all sorts of other cooking and entertaining tips. The recipes in my edition are definitely a bit dated but I still use the book and have adapted over the years.

      2. You want stories, I got stories*

        Thank you Nanc, I can neither confirm nor deny I may have been stalking your name all day for this recipe.

  15. Reality Check*

    Not me, but a coworker. On his way to the office Christmas pot luck with an enormous container of shrimp and grits. Enough for 30 people. On the way over he took a corner too sharp and/or had to slam on the brakes. (I forget which exactly) At least a gallon of shrimp and grits dumped all inside the car. He never could get the seafood smell out afterwards.

    2. No Direct Reports*

      We had the same thing happen before last year’s chili cookoff – one of the guys had the crockpot on the floor of his back seat, took a corner too fast and spilled chili all over the place. His car still sort of smells like chili and its been a year!

      1. Expelliarmus*

        This wasn’t office-related, but a couple of years ago there was an event at my brother’s school where people brought soup that was served in bowls made by art students (or something like that), and some of our soup spilled in the car and MAN, it took a few months to get that smell out!

      2. dahope*

        This exact thing happened to me years ago. Even though I had rubber floor mats, I never could get that beef chili smell out of my 1994 Buick (luckily I drove it until its last breath, so resale value was not a concern). Combining a winter potluck and icy/snowy driving conditions is a recipe for disaster.

    3. anonymouse*

      I did that with a cake.
      A cake I’d carved into Snoopy on his dog house.
      His red icing dog house, his black nose and ears, my beige interior and a small part of my soul were destroyed that day.

    4. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I know that smell all too well although it was from bouillabaisse. That Honda went almost 200k miles and still there was a whiff on damp days.

    5. Clisby*

      At least the attendees were spared the shrimp & grits.

      Yes, I’m a born and bred South Carolinian, and I have despised grits since I was a child.

    6. Hell Kitchen*

      Green chile sausage gravy for biscuits and gravy. In the side vent/speaker of my car door. Still some remnants there today, probably 10 years later.

    7. Random Biter*

      Erm….driving home with my Mom after my cousin’s wedding. Mom was driving, I had the remains of the 3 tier wedding cake on a tray in my lap. Spider descends from the windshield right in front of me. Wedding cake and spider end up smooshed into the windshield, dash, and wherever chunks of cake and frosting could fly. I regret nothing.

      1. Cyndi*

        I destroyed an entire bookcase once, while trying to kill a large bug in my living room. I don’t remember exactly what I did that made it collapse (there was a softball bat and some screaming involved, and the bookcase was a flimsy flat pack deal) but my downstairs neighbor understandably wasn’t pleased by any part of it.

    8. cardigarden*

      Not quite spilling inside the car but: our cookbook of collected family recipes, on the entry for my great aunt’s shrimp cocktail, contains the specific instruction to leave the tray on the top of your car and then drive away because she did that all. the. time.

    9. Kayem*

      This was me last month with a large roast turkey. I did my best to clean the upholstery and thought I’d be clever and spritz some mint oil mixed with rubbing alcohol around to help deodorize, but now my car smells like a holiday potluck. If I get a bonus this year, I’m going to get it professionally cleaned.

      Though I’m grateful it wasn’t seafood.

    10. Charlotte Lucas*

      It was tres leches cake leak for me. Luckily, I have vinyl upholstery and was able to clean it all up, but it was touch and go for a bit.

      Always transport tres leches cake in another, bigger pan or tray.

    11. Zombeyonce*

      This is why my husband gently and lovingly buckles food into seats with a seatbelt whenever we take food anywhere.

      1. Azure Jane Lunatic*

        We get takeout from a specific place for Christmas Eve (my partner’s family traditionally had a Chinese dinner after midnight mass, our current household finds that mass is optional unless Uncle Father Bob is presiding) and our instructions on retrieving it involve the seatbelt and a towel since it tends to leak.

  16. Justme, The OG*

    Minor thing but catered lunch where the non-standard meals (like for people with allergies or sensitivities) were served well after everyone else had finished their food.

      1. Justme, The OG*

        Minor in comparison to some of the stories. I had ordered a vegetarian meal and instead ate the vegetables off of the chicken that was originally served to me.

    3. londonedit*

      I’ve had so many experiences of catered events where the ‘special’ meals either didn’t come out until well after everyone else’s, or where the veggie/vegan options have been co-opted by the meat-eaters as extra side dishes, to the point where there wasn’t enough for the actual vegetarians. The best ones are when the caterers invite everyone who’s veggie/vegan/gluten-free to come up first, so they can make sure they get the food they can eat before everyone else has a go.

      Similar thing happened pre-Covid when we had a summer party at work – the food was in the form of platters of deli stuff, and you went up and picked up a platter to share as a small group, plus bread and condiments and whatnot. There were vegetarian and vegan platters too, but somehow or another this got lost in translation and the first load of tables to go up assumed that there were meat platters *and* cheese/veggie platters, so took one of each. By the time this came to light, the veggie platters were gone and everyone had tucked in to the food they’d brought back to their groups. The vegetarians in the group were reduced to going from table to table asking whether they could have some of the food from the veggie selection – eventually someone made a run to Pret for some vegetarian sandwiches!

        1. londonedit*

          Yeah, I can’t really blame the people who took the food, because they genuinely thought it was an ‘and’ thing rather than an ‘either/or’ – but it definitely should have been more clearly communicated!

          1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

            Is it really a work meal if the majority of people don’t feel bad/awkward at some point?

      2. La Triviata*

        We have a couple of VIPs who are strict vegetarians so for any meeting they attend, vegetarian meals are ordered for them, staff are notified that they are specifically for them, so no one touches them. On occasion, after the VIPs have enjoyed their meals, some of us may snag an extra vegetarian meal, but they never go hungry.

        1. t-vex*

          Our admin is really good about hiding the special-diet meals so only us special-diet eaters have access to them. Much appreciated.

      3. Frieda*

        Went to a workplace catered lunch on a Friday where there was a specific effort to provide some non-meat (… fish) sandwiches in case there were some practicing Catholics who were giving up meat on Fridays, but no vegetarian food.

        In this specific group there were no Catholics who were giving up meat on Fridays but there were vegetarians, me among them. Note that vegetarian sandwiches would have served both the non-existent first group and the second group. I politely declined a sandwich with the meat peeled off and instead got myself a granola bar from my office, and got scolded later for not being understanding enough.

      4. Annika Hansen*

        As a vegetarian, I try to make it to the front of the line. I have had my veggie meal taken before I get to the food a few times. Just a few weeks ago, a meat eater was going to grab the last veggie sandwich right when I asked if anyone minded if I went to the head of the line to make sure I had something to eat. There was no malicious intent from the meat eater. The veggie sandwich just sounded good.

        Some caterers will put the person’s name on the box which works if it is an individual item.

        1. Worldwalker*

          It sounds like they should order a lot more veggie sandwiches. I’m an omnivore, but I’ve had so many terrible meat-containing sandwiches (dried-out sliced turkey is a building material, not a food!) that I’d go for the veggie option in a heartbeat if it wasn’t taking it from someone who didn’t have the option to eat the dried-out turkey.

          1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

            This is where I apply the 80:20 rule. As soon as one (1) vegetarian is to be catered for, 80% of the dishes should be vegetarian, and meat should be very obvious (eg an actual ham or side of salmon).

            1. londonedit*

              Absolutely. So many people still think vegetarians are an oddity and surely no one would want to eat ‘vegetarian food’…and then people see the hummus and falafel wraps, or the veggie pizza, or the halloumi skewers, and they think ooh yum that looks nice, I’ll have one of those. Not even thinking about the fact that those might be the only options for the people who don’t eat meat.

        2. BubbleTea*

          I went to a large, expensive conference and had specifically asked for a vegan lunch. I tried to collect my lunch bag a bit early, when they had been set out but before the pre-lunch session (that I’d left due to a headache) had finished. They wouldn’t let me. I went away in search of a quiet space (unsuccessful) and when I got back, all the vegan food was gone. I’m not ashamed to admit I cried.

      5. MigraineMonth*

        No lie, I originally went vegetarian because I attended a kids’ summer camp where vegetarians got to get their food first (because otherwise omnivores would eat it all).

    4. Nebula*

      Oh my God, it’s always ages before or ages after everyone else with that kind of thing, I swear. At a previous job, we had an annual conference with a big fancy dinner, and I, as a vegan at the time, and my colleague who kept kosher always commiserated together over this.

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        I get the old story that a catered meal like that will provide something special (like fish or chicken instead of beef) if you ask, but they wait until the others are served so everyone at the table doesn’t jump on board.
        but why they don’t bring each table’s meals out at the same time makes no sense.
        Bob from accounting, “oh, that veggie lasagna looks good. Can I have that instead?”
        “I’m sorry, sir, no. You needed to order that option ahead. “

        1. Lady Ann*

          This is interesting, I once went to a fancy wedding where the only food option was rare prime rib. I don’t care for rare beef so I ate the potatoes and veggies and figured I’d live. When the waitstaff were clearing the plates, they noticed I hadn’t touched my beef and offered to bring me something else. I thought it was pretty stupid – so I’m going to just be starting my meal when everyone else’s plates were already being cleared? – and said no. I wonder if that was maybe what was going on.

    5. M. Magpie*

      I’m in the NE of England, and for my spouse’s potluck, I did sausage rolls by hand. I sent four trays: Traditional, vegan (mushroom based), GF (those I three for myself), and super spicy. I don’t know why I thought I bc should compete with Gregg’s, but I did.

    6. VivKeill*

      That’s so sad – at a prior job, the vegetarians and allergy meals were always served first and they checked them against a list to make sure they didn’t have any omnivores crash the line and take up special food; it’s not hard to make sure everyone gets food they can eat.

  17. You Can't Pronounce It*

    Well, the chili one is good timing. I’m organizing one for my office for next week as a fundraiser for our holiday family we are adopting. I just had to send out an email today changing the date due to information provided this morning about things going on in the building the day we originally planned it.

  18. Arcade Kitten 3000*

    Our last “Friendsgiving” was terrible. The people who signed up for things didn’t bring anything and some just forgot that they weren’t going to be in the office. So for an office of 50 we had one rotisserie chicken, some random lunch meat (!), the tiniest bowl of mashed potatoes, my ton of cranberry sauce (that I foolishly made) and a bag of cookies.

    This year will be catered but we have to pay $10. I fine with it.

    2. king of the pond*

      > some just forgot that they weren’t going to be in the office

      This is why my company has it the Friday before, when no one is traveling. My company also buys the turkey (which is from a great local restaurant, it’s expensive but absolutely mouthwateringly delectable) so even if some potluck disaster happens, we all get some great turkey.

    3. EvilQueenRegina*

      We had one planned once one Christmas, but the weekend before, it snowed, lots of people were WFH, and it was decided to cancel the potluck. Then on the day it should have been, someone had the bright idea to reinstate it for the next day. With the short notice, and the fact that there was still enough snow that quite a lot of people were still WFH, it ended up pretty much the same kind of amounts as you describe.

    4. Ace in the Hole*

      One time I was preparing for a thanksgiving potluck where we didn’t do a sign-up sheet, just requested all food be vegetarian and assigned people to bring either main course or dessert. I saw the local supermarket had a steep sale on winter squash. Being tight on money I thought that would be perfect – I know some great recipes for winter squash! Apparently I was not the only one to have this idea. Every single person brought a squash dish.

      We had glazed oven-roasted squash, butternut squash raviolli, stuffed baked squash, and creamy squash soup. There was curried pumpkin, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin pudding. Mashed squash-and-parsnips, honeynut squash greton, and spaghetti squash alfredo. EVERYTHING was squash. The only cucubrit-free foods at the party were dinner rolls and drinks.

      Individually each of the dishes was lovely. But all at once…. oy. A decade later we still crack jokes about the squash-pocalypse.

      6. Rob aka Mediancat*

        I would have been the guy bringing in the cranberry sauce. I positively loathe squash.

  19. Green around the gills*

    Alas, my story is less than fun.

    I went on a training day for retail managers in the city – we all had our travel paid for, and a day doing training, bonding, and team-building.

    For lunch we were served a cold buffet of pre-cooked beige – sausage rolls, pork pies, crisps and dips etc. We were all young and hungry so we dug in! And about four hours later I got on the Underground to go home and felt… not right.

    Friends, it was the worst food poisoning I have ever experienced, and I had a two-hour trip to get across London and back to my home town while unable to hold anything down. I pity the people who came across my during the journey, but not as much as I pitied myself.

    It wasn’t the reason I left that job, but it definitely didn’t hurt.

  20. Tina*

    The Chief Legal Officer at my former company was also the self-appointed Chief Food Rationer. We had a bizarre ritual where the C-Suite would order a massive spread for their long, recurring meetings with the Board of Directors, and no one was allowed near the kitchen until the meeting wrapped up. The CLO would then announce that everyone could come through in a tiered hierarchy. VP employees next, then Directors and Managers, then lowly peons like myself. You had to enter at one end of the room and exit the other end, where he would stand waiting to comment on how much you took. (I once watched him scold our IT support staff for attempting to bring back half a pizza for their group, but he felt sorry for me as a very junior employee and always tried to insist that I take more, but one can only eat so much cold pasta and brownies). You were always expected to murmur a subservient word of thanks to him and hold up your plate for inspection, as if he was the magnanimous priest of the Cheesecake Factory Shrine and had spent his own money on all of it. He would box up and consolidate most of it himself and would talk about how great it was for days later in a very self-satisfied way, repeatedly offering more to people in his good graces and taking up 99% of the office fridges with the assorted mish-mash of cold cuts, pasta, and rock-hard desserts until we were able to sneakily throw it out or consume it all.

    1. Single Parent Barbie*

      Were all the poor orphans singing “Food Glorious Food” ? Did IT go up and ask “please sir can I have some more” I am picturing a work house.

      1. Tina*

        No singing, but people made what was essentially a little half-bow to him and held up the food they intended to take with both hands for inspection. We stopped short at lighting the room with candles and wearing robes.

      2. Ellis Bell*

        Oh you beat me to it. Would not have been able to resist saying “Please sir, I want some more.”

    2. Seeking Second Childhood*

      That goes way beyond logical portion control. He should have just order pre-packed boxes if he was going to get that anxious!

    3. Don't Send Your Kids to Hudson University*

      “the magnanimous priest of the Cheesecake Factory Shrine”

      What a beautiful use of words, Tina. I hear a story like this and just have to wonder what on earth is going on in someone’s life to possess them to act like this. Thank goodness he seemed to be motivated by some weird sense of justice, rather than hoarding all of the leftovers for himself.

      1. Tina*

        Thank you. :D Unfortunately I think it was arguably worse than just hoarding all the leftovers for himself, because he was one of those “work perks in lieu of cost of living raises” type people. If we got a new flavor of Keurig pod he expected everyone to act excited and grateful for it, and we were expected to essentially grovel for our 1-2% yearly cost of living adjustment. Meanwhile he was making seven figures a year and drive a big shiny Porsche.

    4. Christmas Cactus*

      I was a very long term temp (14 months) in a place I despised but I had to pay my bills. There was a departmental meeting with a catered lunch. I was told I could not attend the lunch meeting since I was not an employee, even thought there was little meeting and mostly lunch.
      I ate my own miserable sandwich while I got stuck watchig the phones. After folks returned and the leftovers went into the kichen, some person, really trying to be kind, told me it was ok for me now to “get some leftovers”. I snapped back something along the lines that if I was not good enough for the meeting, I was not going to take their leftovers. So satifying.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        That seems like a pretty adversarial approach to your employer obeying the law. Legally, they can’t treat contractors the same as their employees, but you still could have had a free lunch.

        1. BubbleTea*

          If attending a single lunch meeting would be the deciding factor for employee status, they should probably have been an employee.

        2. Charlotte Lucas*

          They were a temp. This was a terrible company policy, and it’s fair to be unhappy about being treated like that.

    6. Artemesia*

      Decent management would of course make sure the meeting for which the food was ordered was well served but then if giving out leftovers would give priority to people at the bottom of the ladder not the top. The VPs can afford their own food — the peons often can’t afford the kind of treats served to the C Suite or Board.

  21. Robyn*

    I’m not sure if this exactly qualifies as “catered” but I was in a new senior role meeting a new important client for the first time. It was the VP’s birthday, so I offered to bring fancy cupcakes to the meeting. I picked up a dozen and since it was a lovely summer day, I decided to walk the mile from the bakery to the client’s office. I get there, meet everyone, shake hands, then go to present the fancy cupcakes and… apparently I had been swinging my arms while walking because they looked like they had been shaken vigorously. Half of them were upside down. All of them had their frosting smeared everywhere. None of them looked fancy. “Uhhh… happy birthday?” I said. Then they sat in the middle of the table looking sad and uneaten for the rest of our two hour meeting. And that VP never met with me again.

    1. Jules*

      Those people must have no sense of adventure. Cupcakes are cupcakes, whether they’re upside down, smashed or whatever. Just eat (and enjoy the heck out of) them, people!

    2. Raida*

      I would have just pulled them all out of their pans, cut them all into four, and put out a plate of cake & icing

  22. Bend & Snap*

    I make a killer Texas chili and took it to a work potluck. I set it on a kitchen table with some other food and plugged the crock pot in. Sometime later, the top of the table broke off of the base and all the food hit the ground…including my new crock pot full of scalding hot chili. So not only was I unable to contribute to the potluck, I burned myself cleaning up that huge mess and was out a new crock pot.

    My current company caters everything which is way better.

    1. Eleanor*

      This just makes me think of Kevin from The Office and his chili disater… both sound equally tragic.

  23. Stephen!*

    I’ve told this here before, but it still amuses me:

    At former workplace: On a Wednesday, my direct supervisor told me that she was buying lunch for me and her other direct reports as a holiday party. Sounds good! Then she tells me it’s a secret and if anyone asks, to say it’s a meeting. Okaaaay, little weird but whatevs- free food.

    Thursday, as planned, we all go to her office. There’s food, but we’re all crammed into her office, the door is closed, and she mentions that her boss doesn’t know that we’re having this party and she doesn’t want him to find out. Errr, okay? She tells us that we’re doing a great job (yay!) no matter what anyone else might say (wait, what?) and to eat and enjoy. It’s awkward.

    At one point, there’s a knock on the door and my boss sidles up to the door and sticks her head out. It’s the person who handles payroll and she is clearly confused why she can’t come in the office, but nevertheless she tells boss that she has processed the paperwork for the raises and just needs my boss to sign off on them. So now we’re all wondering who is getting a raise. (Spoiler: It wasn’t me!) My boss is clearly regretting trying to hold stealth meeting/party and more or less kicks us all out after that.

    Nice thought, poor execution!

    2. Elsewise*

      I once saw a (joking) suggestion online to sow social chaos by approaching a random person at a party and saying “just so you know, I don’t have a problem with you being here.” I feel like your boss went to that school of management.

      1. desdemona*

        I’ve had this happen to me!!

        I went to a community event, and a person I had NEVER met or seen before came up to me and started talking about how brave I was for showing up despite everything, they were on my side, supported me, etc.

        When they finally took a breath, I said “I’m sorry, I don’t think I am who you think I am”. They tried to laugh it off and introduced themselves, but I was now VERY concerned that I had an evil twin who was hated by the other people at the event, and I wandered off to anxiously report this interaction to my friends.

        1. DenimChicken*

          This happened to me at a wedding! I happen to look like someone the bride had a falling out with and couldn’t figure out why I was getting side-eyed until the bride’s brother came over to confront me. “Wow [name of other redhead who looks like me], can’t believe you showed up,” he said. I then had to explain that I was a completely different person who also happens to be tall and have red hair.

    3. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      Had an art class where the professor held a little end of term party. At a tiny Methodist college with very strict rules about alcohol. The class of maybe a dozen students crammed into her tiny office adjacent to a huge art studio so that we could sip our little plastic cups of sherry.

      1. Princess Sparklepony*

        A friend of mine had a professor give a little party. This was in college and a senior level class, so everyone was older. He served beer in dixie cups – the size you use for mouthwash….

    4. Just Here for the Llama Grooming*

      Former job, big law firm, lots and lots and lots of catered lunches. One partner, famous for his appetite, his bullying ways, and his ultra-control-freak nature, decided that the firm’s conference center staff hadn’t set up the chafing dishes to his liking.

      So they needed to be moved to the other side of the buffet setup.
      Which only he could do properly.
      While the little cans of denatured alcohol were lit. As in, flaming and open.
      A can dropped on the carpet.

      By some miracle (lightning speed move to fire extinguisher by conference center staff), no one was injured and the carpet damage minimal.

      Conference center used only electric chafing dishes thereafter.

  24. Eleanor*

    At my first job out of grad school, I worked in an office within a university. Out office parties would be to go out for lunch somewhere nearby, with food covered. Sometimes, people (including my manager) would have a drink or two, but then our manager also expected us to go back and work after lunch? Not the disaster, but something I just found strange. Why not let everyone just go home early?

    Anyway, one year, we went to a restaurant that was more “family style”. Lots of dishes were ordered that we all took from. A day or two after the party, many people in office came down with a stomach bug. The only two people who didn’t were myself and someone who was vegan, which led us to quickly realize that the appetizer of roasted corn with goat cheese probably gave everyone food poisoning. I hate goat cheese and the vegan obviously doesn’t eat cheese, so we were thankfully spared!

      2. Worldwalker*

        This past weekend, I discovered goat cheese with wild blueberries on a catered charcuterie board. I was good; I didn’t eat *all* of it! But now I’m addicted. My project for this weekend: seeking a local source. Or at least a local source of the proper blueberries so I can make my own.

        2. Miss C.*

          Trader Joe’s sells these little logs of goat cheese with blueberries, and I think a version with cranberries as well. They’re delicious.

    2. Ghoster*

      Not really sure what’s so weird about returning to work after a catered lunch out, it’s very common.

        1. Eleanor*

          Exactly, if the manager is going to drink and set the tone for others to do so, why expect us to work after lunch?

          She had a very “butts in seats” mentality and wouldn’t let people work from home. This really bothered me, since 98% of my job was being on a computer talking to no one, most people’s commutes in were at least an hour each way, so remote work would have been really helpful… And sometimes, she’d work from home. I guess I’m still a bit bitter about all that and I had to slip something about it into my story!

  25. LTR FTW*

    We were having an office party for our team and decided to order wings. The restaurant bragged on their site about having the world’s hottest wings (ghost pepper or something similar) so we figured we should DEFINITELY get a dozen of those. People found out and were so full of bravado, we decided we needed a second order so that we wouldn’t run out.

    Party rolled around and everyone dove into the mega hot wings… and they were legitimately insanely hot. Nobody could eat more than one wing. I literally had one bite and my mouth was in pain for hours (and I can usually eat pretty spicy food). We had someone run out and get bread, milk, yogurt… anything at all to chase these things down and tamper down the spice. Nothing helped. People were in AGONY. Grown men were crying.

    We never even opened the second container of wings. Every single person on the team had massive regrets. Eventually the burning pain in our mouths died down… but we all went home dreading the inevitable second phase of hurting we knew was coming once everything made its way through our digestive systems.

    Let’s just say we never ordered wings again.

    1. BellyButton*

      I recently learned a trick– sugar! Instead of water, bread or milk, take a spoonful of sugar and hold it in your mouth. It actually works!

      We had a similar thing happen, you know that world’s hottest chip that eventually got pulled from shelves? Someone had the bright idea to buy a bunch and after some drinks people tried them. It was not good.

      1. Fishsticks*

        Yeah, I would have been the one asking politely if we could have just ONE order of perfectly normal buffalo wings…

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          I’d be hogging the carrots and celery sticks with the blue cheese dressing. You can have all the wings.

    3. Siege*

      I’m normally a pretty slow eater, but I will forever remember with fondness the time I went out to lunch with my college boyfriend and a roommate of his. We went to a mission-style burrito joint and they got very competitive (d*ck-measury) about getting ALL the hot sauces. The habanero, AND the hot sauce, AND did they have anything hotter, and blah blah blah here’s a ruler, whip ’em out.

      I still treasure that I was finished with my burrito, which I ate as slowly as I usually eat anything, a full 45 minutes before they were done, because I actually COULD eat my burrito. It was hilarious (to me).

    4. Kayem*

      This wasn’t at work, at a Friendsgiving potluck put on by a friend, which included friends, coworkers, and extended family. That year, I went bananas making jams, jellies, and preserves. Like, there was over 40 different varieties. One of the things I made was a cranberry apple butter, so I planned to bring some big jars of it that I had made. And then I thought it would be a great idea to bring a crate filled with an assortment of all the different kinds I made and let people take whatever they wanted.

      One of the jams I made was called Spooky Scary Scorpions, which was made of half ghost peppers and half scorpion peppers. My friend took a jar for herself and people were trying it out. I had barely taste tested it because just a tiny drop burned my tongue for quite a while and I cautioned people to start small. This was despite all the sugar added, which cuts way down on the heat.

      My friend’s teenage nephew decided there was no reason to be cautious because he eats spicy food all the time and can handle it, unlike us old people. Despite multiple people warning him, he slathered a ton on a piece of toast and took a huge bite.

      We all watched as the heat kicked in. His eyes got wide, he got very quiet, his face turned red, and he started sweating profusely. Friend was alarmed and tried to get him some milk or anything to help, but he absolutely refused because his reputation was on the line! Somehow, he ate the whole slice of toast, but he was in agony the whole time and I didn’t see him for the rest of the party.

      1. Emma*

        Oh, teenage boys…

        This one is a fairly gross story, be warned:

        I had a pack of chicken once that was absolutely gone by the time I opened it. It was still in date, so I wrapped it in two plastic bags (the smell was unbearable) and walked back to the shop I’d bought it from to return it.

        I explained the situation to the teenager at the till, who got his manager. In conversation with the manager he asked if it was ok to take the chicken out of the bags, and I warned him about the smell. The young lad was listening the whole time, and asked if he could smell the chicken, because he hadn’t encountered bad chicken before and thought it would be useful to know what it smelled like. Sensible enough… except that he picked up the pack, held it right up to his face, and INHALED.

        Poor kid staggered out to the back of the shop, retching, while the manager and I just stood there and stared in shock.

    5. And thanks for the coffee*

      You had me at “grown men were crying.” Sometimes it’s best to eat boring food.

    6. Meh*

      The best thing for counteracting spice like that is actually pineapple or citrus, surprisingly enough.

  26. HailRobonia*

    At a Thanksgiving party in my old office we had a HUGE cheese & fruit plate that had a giant mound of whole figs. Several people in the office had never seen a whole fig before – one asked “what’s this” someone else said “it’s a fig” “a what” “a fig. you know, a fig.” “what’s a fig?” others joined in (possibly emboldened by the wine that was available) “A fig is a fig is a fig!” “are you figging kidding me, you don’t know what a fig is?”

    Finally someone shouted “I don’t give a flying fig!” which prompted someone to throw a fig. It became a game of dodge fig. Luckily the skirmish was restricted to figs, which are easy to clean up (and I have no problem with wiping off a stray fig and eating it – no sense in wasting it).

    One colleague evidently collected a lot of them and over the next few months people would find figs mysteriously appearing on their keyboards, in their desk drawers, in their mail boxes…

    9. Washi*

      Many years ago I was one of a cohort of 20 Americorps volunteers. The nonprofit I worked for had a yearly fancy catered event for the donors and board members, and it was mandatory to go, circulate, and talk about your service…but not eat the food. The first year I worked there, there was no food provided at all for staff to eat while at this 3 hour dinnertime event. After some negative feedback, the second year there were a couple containers of stuff like Safeway cookies in a storage room so if you got hungry you could sneak out and have a clandestine snack but we were sternly warned against lingering in what was basically a closet.

      This was my first job and honestly at the time the reasoning “we know you are all paid poverty wages and therefore will eat too much of the nice food” seemed normal. It’s only now I realize how bananas it is that the organization would not just fork over another ~$500 once a year to actually have food for everyone.

    10. ??*

      maybe it wasn’t really a fig. I have a fig tree, and figs go bad really fast. there’s no way a fig would last a month, or survive being thrown around-they are very soft fruit.
      even refrigerated they might last a week.

      3. Artemesia*

        This. They are delicious but they are worse than avacados in fragility — they are ripe for 30 seconds and must be eaten them and they are easily bruised or destroyed. I have bought them to serve with balsamic honey sauce and goat cheese on a Friday and found them past their prime on Saturday when I want to serve them.

  27. Irish Teacher*

    Not exactly a party or anything, but I once worked in a school that had a tradition that each Friday, a member of staff would bring in a cake. In theory, it was meant to be something you baked, but in practice, this wasn’t at all strict and people were happy so long as they got some treats.

    Anyway, the deputy principal didn’t bake, so he decided to bring in a chocolate fountain (ye can probably see where this is going) and a load of strawberries and marshmallows. A couple of us helped him cut up the strawberries and put the marshmallows and strawberries on sticks.

    Then he turned it on to test it and chocolate went everywhere, down his shirt on the carpeted floor… He ended up having to go home to change and a sign saying “do not turn on” was placed in front of the fountain.

    We still dipped the marshmallows and strawberries in the chocolate and ate and enjoyed them though!

  28. Anon no longer in that state*

    Many years ago I was working in the marketing department of a startup company. I was the only female employee.

    That meant that I was assigned to plan the company Christmas party despite my pointing out that I had never planned a party larger than 4 people.

    I got a lot of help from the owner’s wife, I got food poisoning from a sample tray at the caterer’s storefront, and I got let go shortly after I was too sick to attend the party I had planned.

    Sure felt like I was being punished for “not wanting to go to the party”. But believe me after all the time I put into that shindig, I WANTED to go.

  29. BellyButton*

    I WFH so no longer have to suffer through these things. But I shared the story of cheap-as$ rolls among my friends and family, so now, no matter what kind of rolls or bread we are going to serve, someone calls them cheap-ass rolls. In group texts about what people are bringing, someone always says they will bring the “good rolls” and no one better show up with “cheap-as$ rolls”.

    AAM classic!

    1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      I was just telling that story to coworkers this morning.
      They called shenanigans.
      I assured them it wasn’t even in the top 20 of the most outrageous, out of touch moments.
      And then Alison posted this. I can’t wait to share the link!

        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          I’d tell them to click on the “what what?” option in the navigation column!
          off the top of my head:
          -Leap year birthday
          -Coworker has been getting rides for ten years
          -that recent one with the boss calling the psychic
          -the “ideas man” corporate visionary
          -my employee was not obsequious enough the third time the company screwed up her pay check
          -my best employee quit to go to her college graduation
          -the employee I demoted work she did before I hired a stranger off the street who told me my employee sucked

          1. Artemesia*

            Duck club is plausible; leap year birthday remains for me the most unbelievable example of managerial incompetence just as ‘give my brother a kidney’ remains the most unbelievable example of managerial abuse of authority.

    2. Butterfly Counter*

      Our last holiday pot luck was pre-pandemic, but I remember my boss bringing in what looked like regular gray-ish dinner rolls. Had I known the term, I might have made the joke back then. However, it turned out they were rolls homemade by his wife based on a family recipe that were legitimately the best bread I’ve ever eaten in my life.

      So don’t judge a cheap-ass roll by it’s appearance!

  30. Mrs. Not-Loving-It*

    My husband used to work for a theatre company which had an imfamous fruitcake. Back in the 70s the props person left on bad terms after a production of A Christmas Carol. There were a variety of real consumable foods used in the show and the holiday party was directly after closing, so leftovers were added to the potluck roster. Including The Fruitcake. It was very hard and just looked weird. But without the props guy no one could say for certain if it was real food or a mass of deceptive foam and spackle. So was born a hilarious feud. To this day everyone who works there picks a side in The Fight. There are even t-shirts! They still have the original fruitcake (it’s kept in a special box) and every holiday party they make it the centerpiece and hold a vote to see which side in winning that year. For the record my husband and I are both Team Real Cake.

      1. Tin Cormorant*

        Ah, the third side. “Yes, it’s a real fruitcake. No, it’s not edible.”

        I’m hoping there isn’t a fourth group that thinks it’s a fake but wants to eat it anyway.

    5. NotBatman*

      My theater company had the Debatably-Real Bone! On the side of real, it had a weird texture and smelled bad. On the side of fake, it was 10+ years old and too large to be from a chicken dinner or a pet store. I will never know the truth.

    6. Shy Platypus*

      How is it possible that nobody took a bite that night? Or juste cut a piece? I mean this is how I’ll never get a nice workplace mystery I guess, I’d be too curious to accept not knowing.

    7. Emma*

      My partner’s company did a production of Night of the Living Dead: Live recently, which required a jelly brain which was eaten on stage by several actors. The prop person made one for each night, it was very realistic-looking on stage, and apparently while it tasted of nothing, the texture was *vile*. Of course, everyone tried it after the show!

  31. Somewhere in Texas*

    I went through a huge phase where I would make a dip out of chopped up candied jalapenos and cream cheese. A little spicy, a little creamy and a great dip. I brought it to a work potluck once and in the hubbub the dip got separated from its chips and someone thought it was potato salad.

    Oof, that was not great– too much spice and not enough different flavors to be palatable all by its lonesome.

      1. Ace in the Hole*

        You can do something similar with cream cheese and hot pepper jelly: brick of cream cheese on a plate, pour hot pepper jelly on top, done! Decorative and tasty (and will not be mistaken for potato salad). Plus people can spread their preferred ratio of cream cheese vs pepper jelly.

  32. I'm celiac and I hate it*

    I’ve been to two different (small) conferences where they either did not ask about dietary requirements ahead of time or ignored dietary requirements.

    The first was a quarterly meeting of people in a professional development program. Same group of less than 50 people each quarter for 2 years, so dietary requirements should have already been on file since we were asked about them at the start of the program. The lunch for the second-to-last meeting was Panera sandwiches. I’m celiac, so the only thing I could eat was the chips. Thankfully some of the people at my table swapped with me/gave me their chips.

    The second was a program for updating compliance regulations for employers in our region. For this conference the organizers had not bothered to ask about dietary requirements ahead of time. The breakfast on the second morning was fresh fruit salad (e.g., grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe, etc.) and breakfast sandwiches (think Egg McMuffins, sausage biscuits, that sort of thing). Fresh fruit is all well and good, but it’s not exactly enough to make a meal out of if you don’t want to be rude and take a giant plate full, and even then I need some protein at the start of my day. Thankfully I had leftovers from dinner the night before (not catered by the conference) that I was able to eat instead.

    1. Catherine*

      Ugh, sorry to hear about that. I’m also Coeliac and though things have gotten better since I was diagnosed (31 years now) there’s still issues for sure. Like the weird focus on giving fruit, which I’m not a big fan off, presumably so no one has to try too hard for dessert.

      At a work Christmas do offsite where we could select the menu beforehand, and as always I had mentioned my requirements to the organiser, I arrived to find I could have the starter (which I’m pretty sure was potato-based) so they gave me a plate of sliced melon. Then dessert was fruit salad, which was also largely melon. As I said above I’m not a big fruit fan, so that was literally the most melon I’d had in years, let alone in one meal. Avoided Christmas parties at that venue, but other venues have been used since which were much better. In fact at last year’s Christmas party others were envious of the GF dessert option as it was different to the other pre-selected options, so that was nice.

    2. Nannerdoodle*

      Oh my goodness. Those remind me of some fun I had last year. I also can’t eat gluten. We had lunch and learns for my department multiple times per week for the entire month of December. For some unknown reasons, the person ordering lunch ordered Panera most of the time. For a lot of them, it was the individual boxes of sandwiches (which meant I couldn’t eat them). For some she did the larger options with salads, but always picked the ones I couldn’t eat! And I was supposed to be able to eat at all of them.

      The holiday party was equally as ridiculous. Except for that, it was that catering didn’t label what ingredients were in anything. So it was all a crapshoot of what was edible for me. It was at a really fancy country club too.

      At least everyone on my team is really good about labeling things or making things I can eat.

  33. JP*

    A vendor brought us some bagels and cream cheese on a Friday. They were set out in the communal food area. No one cleaned them up at the end of the day. They sat out all weekend. I encountered them Monday morning and decided to have a bagel with cream cheese, assuming they had been brought in that morning. I went home a couple hours later and was out sick the next two days.

    1. Cardboard Marmalade*

      NOOOOOOOO.

      but also, I’m impressed you were able to eat a bagel that had sat out all weekend, you must have strong teeth!

  34. Gem*

    Not a party, but an office retreat at a religious center (Christian-affiliated). The vegetarian lunch option was a grilled cheese with bacon in it. The dinner was a cold, congealed, plasticky personal cheese pizza, no sides.

    I ate a vending machine protein bar for both meals.

    1. king of the pond*

      > The vegetarian lunch option was a grilled cheese with bacon in it.

      How… how do you mess that up???

      1. Michelle Smith*

        Yeah, the “vegetarian” meal at a repass I went to recently was fried fish. I know some meat eaters get confused because some pescatarians do call themselves vegetarian. But pork? I’ve never seen ANYone get that confused lmao.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I’m a pescatarian and I use the term “fishy vegetarian” because otherwise people assume I eat poultry (even when I specifically say I don’t). Apparently there are people who don’t eat red meat and there are vegetarians and anything in between is confusing.

      2. Dulcinea47*

        easy, just be midwestern. there are still tons of people here who canNOT figure out what “do not eat flesh of formerly living animal” means.

        2. Dr. KMnO4*

          Reminds me of the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (set in Chicago):

          Main character introduces her boyfriend to her aunt while at a family party, and mentions that he’s vegetarian. The aunt is confused. Main character clarifies that he doesn’t eat meat.

          Aunt loudly says, “He don’t eat meat?!” Cue record scratch and the entire room going silent and staring.

          Aunt then says, “It’s okay, I’ll make lamb.”

          *Facepalm*

          1. Dulcinea47*

            that’s just like my conversations with my mom when I first became a vegetarian, yep. She didn’t really cook much when I was at home, and suddenly she wants to make me a meatloaf??

            1. MigraineMonth*

              I was once asked if I could just pick the chicken out of the chicken noodle soup I’d been served.

          2. Pescadero*

            That is actually a very interesting linguistic thing…

            Meat originally just meant solid food, as opposed to drink – and was still used with that meaning until about 1900… and before that “meat” basically meant “dinner”.

            See the Middle English “grene-mete” (vegetables) and “whit-mete” (dairy products).

      3. JP*

        I am continually shocked by how difficult the idea of vegetarianism and veganism are for people to wrap their heads around. I’ve encountered multiple people who think that vegetarians will eat chicken. Most of the time, though, it’s people who don’t understand the difference between being vegetarian and being vegan. Which I understand a bit more, but it still gets tiresome to explain, because people want to argue with you about it and I’m like I just don’t want to eat meat can you stop.

        1. king of the pond*

          I can sort of see them confusing some religious meat requirements (beef and/or pork are out but chicken is fine) with vegetarianism but… yeah, exactly. Stop arguing and listen to the person with the food restrictions!

        2. Ace in the Hole*

          Yeah, it’s strange to me as well. I understand people who don’t know because it’s just unfamiliar to them. Most people I’ve talked to do understand the difference once I explain it – I tell them that vegetarian means nothing you had to kill an animal to get, vegan means nothing that came from an animal at all even if you didn’t have to kill it.

          But there’s some people who refuse to accept it no matter what. They just want to argue. Listen, I’m not trying to take your meat away… why should you care if I don’t eat it? Enjoy your steak and let me enjoy my tofu, we can both be happy!

      4. Ace in the Hole*

        “It’s not meat, it’s bacon!”

        Some people think “meat” means only a specific subset of meats. For example a lot of people don’t think of fish as meat, or think only red meat counts, or place animal products like bacon and lard in the mental category for “seasonings/flavorings” instead of “meat.”

        This is why if vegetarians aren’t common in your community you need to either get a full ingredients list or be VERY specific about your requirements. For example, “I can’t eat anything that came from an animal except for milk and eggs – not even gelatin. Does this have any animal products in it?”

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          Even before I became a vegetarian, bacon in grilled cheese would have been unacceptable to me. It is no longer grilled cheese once you start adding non-cheese fillings.

          (I am a grilled cheese purist.)

  35. normal rachel*

    For Thanksgiving, we all brought in foods from our families/cultural traditions. The (rather chauvinist) head of sales brought in meatballs that he made all by himself from his Nonna’s recipe. He insisted that cheese was the only binder for the meat. That’s pretty unusual for a meatball recipe, but he was insistent that they were gluten free — he made them himself! So my severely Celiac, newly onboarded self trusted him. A couple of hours later, I was on the floor of the bathroom vomiting. Definitely not gluten free.

    I gently followed up with him the next day to ask again about the recipe. That’s when I learned that actually, his wife made them. He wasn’t sure about the recipe but he assumed they didn’t have breadcrumbs because he “didn’t remember seeing any.” I said again that most meatballs do have breadcrumbs, and he admitted that they were probably made “the regular way.” Not apologetic or embarrassed at all.

    That’s the last time I ate potluck food, aside from things made specially gluten free for me by my kind friends who didn’t like seeing me vomit. Anthony in Sales was out the door a few months later — apparently he was a pretty big slacker at work, too.

    1. Raida*

      We’ve had very clear rules in my office for several years: If you put a claim on the food in regards to what it does or does not contain, you *better* be right.
      There’s no clear consequences for this, but it’s just threatening enough in tone that everyone takes it seriously.

    2. WS*

      I have made gluten-free meatballs for a celiac friend but boy was I careful about them! And they did not quite look like regular meatballs.

    3. Nannerdoodle*

      That’s why at this point, if someone insists that something that looks totally normal is gluten free, I let them know that if they’re wrong, I will be puking/crop dusting in their office when the consequences come later.

  36. BecauseHigherEd*

    I used to work at a privately owned ESL school. The owner had a simple breakfast made for the teachers every morning (eggs, toast, apples, very simple) and some little pre-made lunches were available at midday. It was a very nice gesture for a job that can be very taxing and that doesn’t pay very much.

    But then. We started to get emails asking teachers to “only take one lunch per person.” Then we started to get emails saying, “Please do not take lunches home at the end of the day.” Then it was, “Please recognize that the lunches are for teachers to eat during the lunch break. They are not intended to feed your family at home.” Eventually they stopped buying pre-made lunches and buying sandwich ingredients (ex. loaves of bread, deli meat) so the teachers would actually have to sit in the break room and make their own stack of sandwiches if they were that desperate to take free food home.

    1. Turtlewings*

      Oh, that’s a much nicer solution than discontinuing the free lunches entirely! Sometimes we CAN have nice things. :)

  37. Liza*

    A few jobs ago, I was the manager of a front line team in a theme park/hospitality adjacent business. We were given a budget of $500 a month from our corporate office for morale/team building, and a lot of the times, that meant food. (Before people come in and say we should have been giving raises instead of pizza parties, I totally agree, and it was something I fought really hard for…but at the end of the day, I wasn’t the person that dictated labor budgets and didn’t have the power to make final decisions).

    One time, I decided, as a fun Halloween treat, to get a coffin of donuts from VooDoo Donuts- it was 50 or so donuts displayed in a literal 3-4 foot pinewood coffin. It was a nightmare to carry to my car from the shop, and from my car to our work locations- I got so many odd looks haha. The team LOVED it- the donuts were delicious, and the coffin was super fun and unique…but immediately started causing massive fights. A few different people decided that the coffin was up for grabs, and insisting that it would be going home with them. I had to step in and say that the coffin wasn’t going home with anyone, which prompted several kidnap attempts, as well as people running to other leaders on the team, trying to get permission despite the fact that I already said no. It culminated in a screaming fight between a couple of my employees (a known troublemaker and, surprisingly, one of my quietest employees) which I had to break up. I then promptly removed the coffin from the common break area where it was clearly causing problems, moved it to the leadership office, and wrote “PROPERTY OF ‘BUSINESS’ – DO NOT REMOVE” in big bold letters on the side. It lived there for several months, and at one point we used it to hold various paper supplies. I intended to eventually raffle it off to an employee in a fair way to get it out of our office, but then the pandemic shut our business down…I have no idea where that coffin ended up, but I’m assuming someone on the crew brought in to break the business space down saw their opportunity and ferreted it away haha

  38. name changed for discretion*

    I am in charge of, among other things, planning twice-yearly parties for my student employees. As part of these, we’ll have cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory – a real treat for college students on a limited budget! The first time I did this, I had *no sense* of what the price of a whole cheesecake would be. I scheduled the order through a delivery company (because the restaurant itself wouldn’t deliver) and thought to myself, “Wow! That’s an actually reasonable price for 4 cheesecakes! I’m very surprised!”

    The day of the party, the delivery arrived right on time. With 4 slices of cheesecake. The description on the delivery company’s website hadn’t indicated whether the cheesecake was a slice or a whole, and, due to my total ignorance of the cheesecake market, I had wrongfully assumed that we were getting whole cheesecakes for a reasonable/cheap price rather than slices of cheesecake that were overpriced. At that point, it was too late to try to get whole cheesecakes (from anywhere) to rectify my mistake, so we ordered a replacement dessert from a local place.

    Most of the students who were present when that happened have since graduated, thank goodness. I order directly from the restaurant now, even if it means I have to be the cheesecake delivery person myself.

    1. The Wizard Rincewind*

      Oh no! What a horrible feeling to stare at 4 slices when you thought you were getting 4 whole cakes! I’m extending my e-sympathy. This is absolutely a mistake I would make.

      1. Worldwalker*

        Well, given the size of the slices from the Cheesecake Factory, it’s closer than you might think. IMO, those things are too big to eat, even if you’re getting *just* that. (not that I don’t try, because cheesecake)

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Now I’m imagining what the cheesecake futures market would be like. That time during the first years of the pandemic when we had a national shortage of cream cheese would have made some speculators very rich.

  39. Rachel*

    Our office had an annual pie potluck and competition. We’d have scorecards and award modest prizes for the top 3 finishers. Sentimental or funny entries would out rank the best technical pies For example, a smooshed Patti LaBelle Walmart sweet potato pie brought in by a college intern won one year. In our last year of competition, new hire did not place in the top 3 and there were immediately tears. And the tears went on for days. The entrant had wanted to go to culinary school, but her family couldn’t afford the tuition. She took pie making and recipe creation very seriously. She was upset that she had been misled by the nature of the competition and felt that the office consistently rewarded mediocracy. We just wanted to eat pie and not work for an hour. We canceled the pie contest the following year and the tradition faded away.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!*

      Thats so sad, I feel bad for her but I think it was overkill to cancel the whole thing.

      1. Dr Wizard, PhD*

        Honestly, I don’t. She sounds awful. Especially the ‘I didn’t win the pie contest so this office REWARDS MEDIOCRITY’ stuff. That’s ridiculous behaviour.

    2. Michelle Smith*

      For days?! Yikes, I hope she was able to get some outside support to deal with those issues and/or eventually afford to go to school.

    3. Pinta Bean*

      Did it have to be a contest or could it have been a Pie Expo or some other reason to eat a lot of pie as a group? If you’re just eating pie together, everyone’s a winner!

    4. Bringer of the plates*

      Legend has it, she gave up her culinary dreams and moved on to another organization where she proceeded to take up being upset about cheap-ass rolls!

    5. Raida*

      “She was upset that she had been misled by the nature of the competition and felt that the office consistently rewarded mediocracy.”

      I mean, if it wasn’t clearly shown what a ‘winner’ looks like beforehand, I can see how she’d be pissy that someone could win in a pie-making contest without even making a pie.

      BUT her personal drama was making her blow it out of proportional, emotionally. And she should not have brought that to work, outside of telling her manager that she’s disappointed in the unclear rules and the effort she put in, it stings, she’ll know next year.

  40. name changed for discretion*

    Is there a way to tell whether the website is glitching and eating comments or whether they’re getting stuck in moderation? I had one get lost yesterday and then just now my tame office-party-gone-wrong comment doesn’t seem to have posted. Would mentioning a specific business trigger the moderation filter?

    1. amoeba*

      For me, if the site jumps to the top when I click submit, it’s a glitch and the comment is eaten…

      1. Capt. Dunkirk*

        I’ve taken to highlighting and copying my text right before I hit Submit so that I can just make the post again right away if it gets eaten.

    2. name changed for discretion*

      Thanks amoeba & Capt. Dunkirk – useful intel! I wouldn’t want to unintentionally spam if I had triggered moderation so I am generally hesitant to assume something was eaten. Maybe if I comment more and gain a greater sample size, I’ll be able to tell with more certainty. (Although that does require coming back and checking to see if something was released from moderation.)

      The tl;dr of the story that may or may not have been eaten is that I mixed up and ordered 4 slices of cheesecake for a party instead of 4 cheesecakes. The price should have tipped me off, but regional variance + unfamiliarity with cheesecake prices meant that I thought we were getting cheesecake for a reasonable price, rather than (what I would have considered at the time) an outrageous one. I now know that $10 or less will never be a price for an entire cheesecake. . .

      2. Yay! I’m a llama again!*

        Unless there’s two stories of 4 slices of cheesecake, your comment has posted – 11.46 time stamp. Good story!

  41. Office Admin*

    We get a fair amount of reps in our office and get lunches occasionally. One time a lunch showed up from a popular smoothie place. The food was placed in the break room and people obviously started taking wraps, smoothies, chips, etc.

    15-20 minutes later the same delivery person came back and said the food was for a different department! She actually asked for it back, including the items already taken from the break room. I wonder if the correct department knew that they were getting food that had already been handled by another office.

    1. Cyndi*

      Oh noooooo, this is one of those things where it wasn’t anyone’s fault really but I would still have been so mad.

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        I would have been mad, too. If my department had taken the stuff in good faith, not “hey, we didn’t order food, this must be for X department” and then it’s really on the delivery guy. The restaurant should have ahem, eaten it and delivered more food.

  42. Marieke*

    In dutch nowadays we mostly borrow potluck but this used to be called when I was younger an Amerikaanse fuif which translates to an american party!

  43. WeirdChemist*

    Not proud of this one…
    Back in grad school my lab would have a potluck to coincide with our yearly lab cleaning day. I was an avid baker and would semi-frequently bring in treats for everyone (and put way too much self-importance on being the “office baker”), so I had planned to bake a dessert. Except when I went to check the sign-up sheet all of the dessert slots were already filled! First slot was taken by my boss, wasn’t touching that one. Second slot was taken by the guy who organized the potluck, I begged him to switch with me or add another slot, no luck. Third slot was taken by my desk mate. I begged, pleaded, that he would give up dessert, he didn’t even like baking! “Oh, I’m not baking anything, I’m bringing a store bought pie. I figured no one will want to eat it, so then I’ll have plenty of leftovers to take one and eat myself.” I was FUMING (and obviously way too dramatic/invested). So another lab mate and I devised a plan… after lunch we snuck into the break room and stole the pie to hide in another lab’s break room. We meant to just wait until deskmate noticed at the end of the day and give it back. Except I got really caught up in something and forgot to catch him before he left… and then it was the weekend… and then it was Thanksgiving break… It wasn’t until a few weeks later that we remembered the pie. Luckily desk mate found it funny and just turned it into a well-deserved joke between us. Every time I remember this incident I cringe at myself so hard…

  44. Sean*

    Some people celebrate Pumpkin Spice season.
    Some people celebrate Peppermint season.

    Me?

    I celebrate Cheap-Ass Rolls season.

    1. Wes*

      What are some of your Cheap Ass Rolls traditions?
      Ugly Cheap-Ass Rolls sweaters?
      Cheap Ass Rolls jingles?
      Decorating the house with Cheap Ass Rolls?
      Is there some kind of magical character that gives out Hawaiian Rolls to good kids and Cheap Ass Rolls to bad kids?

  45. Capt. Dunkirk*

    One time at my last job it was decided that we should have a chili cook-off for one of out quarterly potlucks. It turned out there was a lot of enthusiasm from the staff and there ended up being over a dozen participants.

    The morning of the potluck there were Crock-pots plugged in all over the office because there weren’t enough outlets in the breakroom. The whole office angels great! Many of the entrants had made there “secret family recipe”, others were recipes that they’d made up but had been tinkering with for years to perfect, and there were a couple who just made one they’d found online that they liked.

    At lunch time there was a whole sampling and voting process that was surprisingly well conducted. Eventually, a guy from my department (who was kind of a jerk and miserable to work with) ended up winning and was rewarded with a $50 Visa Gift card and small trophy.

    A couple weeks later, he let it out that he’d just bought cans of Hormel chili, emptied them into a Crock-pot and called it an old family recipe.

    Even though word got around the whole office, he was never forced to give up the gift card or the trophy he’d been given.

    We never had a cook-off again.

    1. starsaphire*

      Ohmigosh, I saw this exact thing on TV once too! I think it was an episode of Empty Nest – the one where the daughter decides to become a caterer, and the annoying neighbor ends up beating her in the chili contest, only to thank “those nice folks at Hormel” in his victory speech!

      I’ve never had Hormel chili, but dang, I guess it must be pretty good!

      1. Worldwalker*

        In the interest of increasing AAM knowledge, I just purchased a large can of Hormel chili. (regular, with beans) I will be eating Hormel chili for dinner, and report back.

    2. Mockingjay*

      Ah, yes. I too have lost the chili cookoff to a can of Hormel, even though my crockpot was scraped clean.

      I used to be a bit salty about it. Then I realized that out of 120 people in the department, only 20 or so actually voted. (You know who those people are – I call them the “Voluntold Captains and Crew.” Motto: Mandatory is Fun!) The rest of us were busy eating.

    3. Cyndi*

      I could swear I’ve heard this story on here before, but at the other commenter’s workplace it was Wendy’s chili. Not accusing you of anything–I’m perfectly willing to believe multiple people have tried this!

      1. Hlao-roo*

        Yes, the Wendy’s chili story is the first one on the “the thief and the hero, the crockpot discrimination, and other stories of potlucks at work” post from November 22, 2022.

        There’s also the employee who took a bowlful of everyone else’s chili and dumped them all in his crockpot–and ended up winning the cook-off for “depth of flavor.” First story on the “a drunken cowboy, gingerbread house chaos, and other office contests that went badly” post from February 24, 2021.

        1. Worldwalker*

          I’m sure it has happened repeatedly with various sorts of prefab chili. Some people are just lazy and shady.

          1. starsaphire*

            Oh, I 1000% agree!

            I reason that this happens a lot more than it should because that’s the *taste* that people associate with chili. Like, they eat Wendy’s or canned chili all the time, so the other concoctions don’t taste quite right – but that crock pot right there with two cans of Hormel and one can of diced tomatoes tastes JUST like chili should! :D

            Plus, people are busy, and not everyone has time to cook.

    4. Raida*

      We just had rules that if food wasn’t made from scratch it was in a different category – if we had any contests.
      Anyone wanting to use a seasoning sachet, or a premade pie crust, or canned filling, etc *could* enter a contest.
      They just wouldn’t be up against the people spending twelve hours on triple layer cakes, layered jelly/mousse/wafer/chocolate/cake creations, or multi-day slow cooker/smoker meals.

      On occasion someone will joke about entering the Scratch contest with a store bought item, and they’re told their entry will be excluded, they can’t keep a prize, it’s lying, and it’s disrespectful of the people entering the contest. So while funny, don’t do it, nobody will laugh along.
      And if you win – you must give back the prize, it’s part of the rules mate.

  46. Melissa*

    My first year at the company a notice was sent about a catered luncheon to celebrate the holidays. It was also noted that it was not an “all you can eat buffet”. I was mortified, had never encountered anything like this in my life. We have coworkers who do difficult physical labor jobs and pack large lunches for themselves. To make it worse, the office manager stood over people in the buffet line reminding them of one plate, one serving – and then still ran out of food!! Not festive at all!!

    1. Dulcinea47*

      At oldjob one of the “there will be pizza for those of you who have to work the day before thanksgiving” messages came with a nastygram about not taking more than two pieces. If they need to police people like that, I don’t want to participate at all.

      1. Liane*

        Read below for why Pizza Slice Police are needed:

        I used to be customer service at Infamous Retailer. This didn’t get me out of doing those thrice cursed (30K times cursed!) overnight Black Friday sales. “Lunch” breaks were done in waves of about 1/3 of the staff this one year. The (salaried) managers decided to order pizzas for all (about 200 people IIRC). The managers paid out of their own pockets, not our store’s Morale Budget.
        I was in the second wave. In the break room were 50 or so large pizza boxes. Most of them turned out to be empty; the rest had just 1, 2, or 3 pieces. I swear, there was the equivalent of, at best, 3 large pizzas, in individual slices, left. For 2/3 of the staff, well over 100 people.
        A few days later, one of the managers told me how all that pizza disappeared in 30 minutes. Many of those on the first break had eaten 3+ slices each. But that still wasn’t enough food for these greedy jerks – a number gorged themselves and then took additional slices and stashed them in their lockers!
        Surprise, surprise. We never had food provided for Black Friday again.

      2. Nina*

        In a previous workplace, pizza was bought for anyone who had to work past 8 pm, no questions asked.
        Because of allergies, preferences, and the expectation that everyone would be back at work at 8 am the next day with no time to pack a lunch in between, ‘pizza’ meant ‘one large pizza of your choosing from the local place’s entire menu, if you pick chicken cranberry and brie, enjoy’. People would eat as much as they felt like for dinner, write their name on the box, and put the rest in the fridge. You knew it was crunch time when the fridge was awash with pizza boxes.

    2. Essentially Cheesy*

      As the office coordinator that handles this type of event .. portion control is a huge deal, especially if people serve themselves. Some people can really go overboard and there has been a time where we did run out of food because the early people ate too much.

      I don’t want anyone to go hungry but it’s awful running out of food.

      1. anywhere but here*

        Eh, I think there’s a reasonable middle-ground. A good rule of thumb is to get more than you’d expect everyone to eat, and then, if you’re concerned about portion sizes still, remind people at the beginning to be considerate of their colleagues and let them know they can come back for seconds after everyone has been through. “No more than two slices of pizza at all” or “only one plate & only one serving” is very different from, “Hey, please limit yourself to X amount the *first* time through and then you can get more once everyone has been through.”

        For us, that’s particularly relevant if there’s enough food generally but certain items are in higher demand than others. So everyone can get two crab rangoons to start, and if there’s more left, go crazy. But if you go crazy before everyone has gone through, then some people might get zero crab rangoons, which would be so very sad.

        1. Artemesia*

          And if there are shifts expected to eat, don’t put the food out for the first shift. Stage it. And if there is an expectation that everyone will have 2 pieces or 5 or whatever of whatever it is, then let people know that. I have been in the back half of the line for dessert where the first have loaded their plates with 6 or 7 mini desserts each and the back half of the line got none. I think if everyone had been informed that 3 desserts were ordered per person that this would not have happened with this group.

      2. zinzarin*

        That’s why the only “right” way to do this is to provide more food than can possibly be eaten by everyone. This problem is *not* on the guests; it’s on the organizers (who are–presumably–a business, and can afford to go over and above).

      3. NotARealManager*

        I also handle the food events, so I’m offering some solidarity. We always have more than enough, but I still have to say something like “please only take two slices of pizza until everyone’s had a chance to grab some” or whatever portion is reasonable for the type of food.

        I wish I could just let people go through the line, but I’ve seen people leave the room with entire pizza boxes or trays of food still half-full.

        1. I Have RBF*

          How about, instead of “You only get two slices of pizza”, say “Do not take extra food out of the room for later.” Then stop people at the door when they try to carry half the meal away.

    3. Ashley*

      I used to help organize training classes. We had someone in the office who would order food, but she was used to ordering food for office folks. She didn’t understand for reasons unclear that field folks doing physical labor ate more and tried order a serving of 10 for a class of 11. I started ordering food for classes because it is pretty easier to figure out most of the field crowd ate double what the conventional serving size was. To me if you don’t have leftovers you didn’t order enough food.

      1. anywhere but here*

        “if you don’t have leftovers you didn’t order enough food.”

        I agree wholeheartedly! The goal is just to get the scale of leftovers just right . . . it’s possible that we’ve once had leftovers that were about half of the total food that was ordered. Oops.

        1. Tin Cormorant*

          I went to a family camping event at a city park once where they ordered BBQ catering to feed everyone, and it was *way* too much food. I felt a little bad for not eating more than I did, because they kept reminding people they could come back for more. I think at least half the trays they brought were never opened, and it’s not as if the opened trays were emptied.

          They knew exactly how many people signed up to attend, they just way overestimated how much people would eat when a good number of those people were very young children.

          But at the same time, that’s way better than people going hungry.

      2. Angstrom*

        I went to a bicycling event and finished a hard multi-hour ride to find no food left at the promised lunch. The story turned out to be that the organizer was new and had ordered food for X normal people, not X ravenous cyclists.

        1. Your Mate in Oz*

          One race we found an “all you can eat buffet” on the way home. It was great, we ate until we couldn’t. Next year the all you can eat buffet place had mysteriously gone on holiday for the exact weekend that the race was on.

          The only bad food experiences I had at work have been with the combination of “this event is mandatory” and “food allergies are no excuse/will not be catered for”. I’ve been to an xmas party where I had a glass of lemonade as my entire consumption over two hours. And I had the notorious “of course I am stinking out the office, I told you I get farty if I eat cake” incident, where not only was the event compulsory, your enthusiasm was monitored and formed part of your performance review.

      3. Harried HR*

        We just had a Halloween luncheon where the powers that be (….NOT HR) decided to order from a authentic mediterranean restaurant. To be fair the food was good IF you like that kind of thing however the majority of the employee reacted with “Uh what’s that…I’m not eating something I don’t know” and we threw 75% in the garbage !!!

        1. Cardboard Marmalade*

          As someone who can easily eat my own weight in baba gannoush and olives, this had me gasping aloud in horror.

    4. kiki*

      Oooooof! The fact that some of the coworkers do difficult manual labor makes this especially egregious. It always raises my hackles, though, when people chide folks for taking too much food. While I understand one shouldn’t be filling up a to-go container before other people get a first pass at food, it’s always bothered me when folks would judge someone for, like, taking 4 slices of pizza instead of 2. People are hungry! If you’re ordering lunch for a group, you can’t count on everyone just needing 2 slices!

      1. Rocket Raccoon*

        I order for my husband’s crew, and I have a formula: office workers eat 2x what I think a serving is, field workers eat 3x. So if I would eat 2 slices of pizza I assume the field guys will eat 6 and that seems to work out about right.

        Works for feeding my kids’ sports teams too :)

      2. Lady Ann*

        My former boss told me a story about going to a training hosted by our company when she was quite pregnant. The lunch was catered by a sandwich places and consisted of a 4 inch portion of a sub, a tiny bag of chips and a cookie, and there were no extras. She had to leave to get a real meal so she could focus on the 2nd half of the training day.

  47. Emma*

    I’m sure this story is tame by AAM standards but it’s my most memorable work holiday party. I worked at a small but upscale office owned by a husband and wife. The second year I worked there, the owners decided to have a Christmas party at their house. (Which was so big, it had a literal elevator.) Gorgeous house, amazing food, lots of wine. What a great time! The receptionist got so drunk that she spent most of the party in the backyard playing with their dogs. Meanwhile, the wife (in her 50s) started doing tequila shots with the three 20-something women who worked there. She drank us all under the table. Mind you, this was a Thursday night and we were still working Friday. Somehow we all made it in the next day, although the wife didn’t make it till around 10 am.

    1. Frickityfrack*

      I love that receptionist! It could’ve turned out so badly, but it was so wholesome. And relatable.

      1. Shirley Keeldar*

        Heck, I want to hang out with the dogs in the backyard at any party, even when I’m entirely sober.

    2. Blanked on my AAM posting name*

      Personally I don’t need alcohol to convince me that playing with dogs is a good idea. I just need dogs!

  48. Eleven*

    It was your average office holiday season potluck. The room was festively decorated thanks to some volunteers with holiday cheer, and Christmas music was playing on someone’s laptop. A colleague brought in a whole rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and placed it with the other food. It was hot and fresh – a lovely contribution – delivered just a few minutes before people would begin filing into the room to make their plates. “I’m going to go grab a knife from the kitchen so I can carve it up” my colleague said as she exited the room. Dear reader, what happened next still haunts me to this very day. One of the office’s more chaotic characters stepped up to the buffet and announced that a knife was not needed. She then proceeded to rip the chicken carcass apart with her bare, unwashed hands. Another colleague and I watched in horror as she savagely tore the chicken limb from limb, her hands dripping with grease from the succulent, now ravaged meat. In the distance, Mariah Carey was singing (or was she screaming?). Our duty was now to warn the others. “Don’t eat the chicken,” we whispered as more guests began filling up the room. “Don’t eat the chicken.”

    1. Elsewise*

      Oh my god the way you wrote that had me rolling on the floor! I had to call my partner in for a dramatic reading. This is horrifying and I want to know everything about this chaotic chicken-ripper.

      1. Ally McBeal*

        About a decade ago, one of my dearest friends invited me to her family’s Thanksgiving weekend. They had an absolutely massive turkey, but somehow they were worried that there wouldn’t be enough leftovers. I said “hold my beer” and (after thoroughly washing my hands) set to picking apart the carcass. By the end, the entire family was ringed around the counter watching me – I was more interesting than football or holiday movies, I guess – and I’d pulled probably another pound of meat off the bird.

        Then I taught them about the wonder that is Turkey Slop: biscuit halves topped with shoestring french fries, topped with turkey bits swimming in gravy. Looks sort of like poutine, but minus the cheese curds and plus the biscuits.

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          I once went fishing with a group and one of the group was a surgeon. Watching him gut those fish was something. It was precision and artistry.

        2. Artemesia*

          And you set the carcass to boiling too I’ll bet. I have actually had a guest ask for the smoked turkey carcass to make soup with — as I starred in shocked horror as of course that is exactly what I was going to be doing with MY leftover turkey carcass.

        3. Emma*

          One of my fondest friendsmas memories is the year that, after dinner, we all got to tidying away, and one friend said, in a very hospital-drama fashion, “Right, I’m going to need some latex gloves and a bowl”. She did a great job of stripping the turkey!

    4. Pinta Bean*

      As I read this, my shoulders clenched up and are now around my ears. Her hands! All over the chicken!

    6. Choggy*

      Sometimes you just never know people until you get them around food. This is why I now avoid the company parties, I don’t want to know any of my coworkers that intimately.

  49. Yup!*

    All I have is a habit I picked up attending the holiday buffet at my parents’ church. There’s one (grown up) congregation member who would sprint to the dessert table as soon as it opened, licking his fingers and touching everything. Since it was virtually impossible to be in line ahead of him, I made sure to be close behind so I knew which pieces to avoid…

    1. Raida*

      goddamn, why don’t they put someone at the table to tell him off?!

      It’s not hard! Put the pastor/vicar/priest or the scariest person in the congregation there to spook him. One 80-yr old lady with high standards will have him cowed in three seconds flat.

      And everyone will hear it

  50. Ted*

    I got norovirus from a potluck. Took me down for a week. Vave vowed never to attend a work potluck again, and thankfully since I’m a remote worker, it’s easy to avoid!

    1. Frickityfrack*

      Potlucks are honestly kind of gross – you never know what kind of standards your coworkers maintain, and clearly they’re not always that high. My mom used to work with a nurse who picked her nose and ate it, and that woman brought stuff to potlucks. She never seemed to notice that everyone who worked with her would either avoid her food or take some and then throw it away discreetly. My mom swore off potlucks permanently after that job.

    3. Overit*

      I was infamous at our church for confronting a woman who brought a mayonnaise potato salad to a potluck. i confronted her because I discovered she had it in her car trunk for at least 2 hours before the event. on a very hot summer day.
      I first suggested to the woman that it was unsafe to serve it. She flipped me off. I then approached the pastor, who didn’t want to “get involved.” So at that point, I stood near the serving table and warned everyone with facts. Even the woman’s wife and daughter refused to eat it.
      The only person who ate it was Salmonella Sally. So called because she came down with a serious case of Salmonella that resulted in a week long hospitalization.
      What happened next year: Salmonella Sally struck again. So did I.

      1. run mad; don't faint*

        I attended a church sandwich lunch for all the volunteers on a project. Every person who attended and ate came down with food poisoning, all forty of us. We never did officially figure out what the cause was as far as I know, but the organizers brought all the food, including condiments they brought from home. Some people thought the mayo may have been contaminated. I didn’t eat at a church potluck for years.

  51. Brain the Brian*

    One year, our genius CEO decided to cut costs for the Thanksgiving meal by providing a fully-cooked turkey himself and then buying microwaveable sides. You try microwaving mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy for 70 people and tell me how it goes.

    We went back to catering the next year.

    1. pally*

      Similar cost-cutting tactic was done at my work. Only, in addition to microwaving what they could, a couple of folks were dispatched to the nearby home of a C-suite person who was heating things up in the oven. They were then to drive to work-hopefully the food would remain hot for the trip. Result: lukewarm everything.

      No repeat the following year.

  52. Elizabeth*

    Just before Covid, I organized the 12 days of Christmas Baking at work. There was a signup sheet (asked for only 2 volunteers a day), and I envisioned people bringing in just a snackeral, maybe a dozen or two dozen cookies, or such – just a taste.

    People baked like they were feeding the army. Costco-sized cakes, 5/6 dozen cookies at a time, multiple pans of tarts. I’ve never in my life seen so many sweets; it was the 12 pounds of diabetes. By day 2 we threw out the rule that you couldn’t partake if you didn’t contribute and we were holding other departments hostage until they took treats. Every day there was too much to eat and into the fridge it went, to be added to tomorrow’s ridiculous offerings.

    Never dreaming of this magnitude, I hadn’t asked for anything savory and we were like raging hyenas on the cheeseball and veggies one kind soul brought in. First time in my life I craved lettuce.

    We’re going to do it again this year, but it’ll be one sweet one savoury per day!

    1. Cyndi*

      I’ve also worked in offices that went way overboard distributing sweets–one year I still had a large Tupperware full of candy clogging up my fridge well into January, and gave up and dumped everything individually wrapped into a couple of gallon Ziplocs and left them in the Little Free Library down the street. One sweet and one savory per day sounds like the perfect solution, though, and I’m jealous!

    2. Ann Onymous*

      I debated saying something about your 12 pounds of diabetes comment – I don’t want to be seen as pedantic or like I can’t take a joke – but this is diabetes awareness month so I am going to throw some education into this chat.

      Diabetes is not caused by eating too many sweets.
      Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body kills the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. It is not caused by anything a person does. And although a person’s diet can impact their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, it is just one of many risk factors, only some of which are within a person’s control.

      I’m sure this wasn’t your intent, but the idea that someone caused their diabetes is a persistent stereotype that is hurtful to the over 400 million of us worldwide who live with diabetes.

      1. Elizabeth*

        Absolutely not my intent – I have two family members in my household with type 2, and it’s highly prevalent amongst Indigenous people. It was a flippant, off-the-cuff with no stereotyping or malice behind it, just a probably poor sense of humour, lack of tone, and no way to edit.

        1. Malarkey01*

          Just want to say this is the internet at its best and why AAM is the only comment section I read. OP made a bit of a flippant remark that came out badly (something ALL of us do all the time), another person responding kindly said I’m not calling you out but hey here’s some helpful info that would be great to normalize, and OP says shoot you’re right not my intent and thanks.
          Everyone here is awesome!

    3. Irish Teacher.*

      This reminds me of the end of my student teaching year when the group of us student teachers doing our teaching practice in the school I was in (four of us) decided that we would bring in some cakes and chocolates to thank the teachers for all their support during the year. What we did not know was that these two teachers who had been subbing had also decided to bring in cakes that day to say goodbye as their time in the school was up (and they brought a pile of boxes filled with cakes) and somebody else also decided to bring in treats to say thank you for something (I can’t remember the details; this was nearly twenty years ago).

      Anyway, the upshot was that the entire table in the staffroom was covered in cakes and boxes of chocolates and everybody who came in just stopped and stared for a moment. And the deputy principal said something along the lines of “I’d like to thank all those involved…for all the cholestrol and…”

      2. Sharpie*

        Somehow this reminded me of the bit of Anne of Avonlea (I think) where the new minister’s wife is coming to tea and everyone adds a spoon of sugar to the peas, in a case of ‘too many cooks’.

        1. allathian*

          Yeah, and I’m of the opinion that even *one* spoonful of sugar in the peas is one too many…

          What was the inedible, strong-smelling substance she put in the cake when she had a cold and no sense of smell, and the cake had to be given to the pigs?

          But the sugar in the peas episode reminds me of this silly poem I found in a joke book for kids:

          I eat my peas with honey,
          I’ve done it all my life,
          they do taste kind of funny,
          but it keeps them on the knife!

          2. Emma*

            My gran always used to say a version of this when eating peas! She also threw in random German words (she was not German and had never learned to speak German), and relatedly referred to bras as over-the-shoulder boulder holders.

    4. frystavirki*

      Oh god, yeah, that’s kind of like every year around this time of year for me. My birthday is on October 29th, Halloween comes in the middle so we have leftover candy, and then my mom’s birthday is on November 3rd. I love sugar but like. There’s only so much sugar I can eat. Luckily cake freezes well and candy keeps.

      1. Tin Cormorant*

        My daughter’s birthday is the week before Halloween, so I will definitely buy candy for the kids’ goodie bags and then hand out the extra to trick-or-treaters >_>

  53. The Wizard Rincewind*

    I worked in an office with a bunch of hippies (said with love) and there were so. many. dietary considerations. From the expected (vegetarian/vegan) to the allergies (gluten, canola oil!!!) to the preferences (no vinegar, no nuts). So, I thought I threaded the needle perfectly one year and made a version of red pepper dip with lemon juice and my most expensive olive oil. Served it with carrot chips. Naturally gluten free. Naturally vegan. I wrote a sticky note with the ingredients and put it on the container so people didn’t wonder “what’s in this/does this have nuts/cheese/holy water?”.

    The person organizing the potluck threw the sticky-note away! I guess she thought I wrote out all the ingredients for fun? For my health? No one ate it because I worked through the potluck (drop-dead deadline) and no one knew what was in it. If only I had some way to communicate the contents of the dip…

    The other story I have is in a different office where there was a beautiful cheese tray that a coworker stood by the whole time and ate basically the entire thing. They must have had a digestive system of steel, because that was several pounds of cheese.

    1. persimmon*

      People who remove labels from food are the worst! I once brought a peanut dish to a potluck where we had one (1) coworker who was allergic to peanuts (it was a contact allergy, I asked her first and she said having it in the same room was fine). I labeled the dish and told the coworker where it was as a second precaution. Someone, I don’t know who and I wish I did, not only took the “contains peanuts” label off and threw it away but picked up my dish and moved it to the other table.
      My coworker was okay, it was a mild allergy and she only had a couple bites before realizing something was wrong but I was mortified.

  54. Yes And*

    For a morning staff retreat, we were told (multiple times) that there would be bagels. Friends… they were from Dunkin. Toasted. With butter as the only available spread. And there were exactly the number of “bagels” as there were attendees, so whoever was last (aka me) got the this-is-not-a-bagel variety (oatmeal). (We are in a region where authentic bagels are abundant.)

    I kept having to remind myself, “This just feels antisemitic. It is not actually antisemitic.”

    Next time, I’m bringing the bagels.

    1. Overit*

      One day we were excited bec Boss offered to pay for bagels etc from Awesome Local Bagel Shop for a milestone birthday for his admin. ALBS also makes their own cream cheese and other spreads. All of which are Awesome…except for the low and no fat varieties. Which are Disgusting.
      We all troop down, see a beautiful array of bagels and spreads. The spreads were now in fancy bowls. We get bagels and a spread. We all bite in and…time freezes. We are all atuck in brunch hell. Everyone stops chewing. We all look at each other.
      Wait. One person IS chewing. The boss.
      Boss’ admin swallows hard. Wipes her mouth with utter bagel disdain.
      Admin asks, “Boss…did you only get the fat free spreads?”
      Boss is beaming. Beaming. Boss says, “Yes! I love them and you were saying you wanted to lose weight….”
      Never has a room cleared so fast.

    2. Fishsticks*

      My workplace brings in panera bagels, which… not the worst thing and at least there’s cream cheese, but we have a bagel-focused deli! It’s like ten minutes away, if that! The owners are Jewish and from New York and make the best bagels I’ve ever tasted!

      Nope. Chewy panera bagels for everyone.

      1. Ally McBeal*

        I feel this so hard. I spent a decade in NYC and now live in the Midwest, in a bizarre corner of the region that simply doesn’t have Einstein, Bruegger’s, or any other bagel-serving chain that isn’t Panera. People here raaaaaave about the locally owned bagel shop, but the texture is way too soft and bready.

        I’d be absolutely miserable except that, right as I was leaving, my local bagel shop – where I’d been going at least once a week for 8 years – started shipping nationwide. I used to import wine from New Zealand… now I import bagels from NYC.

          1. Emma*

            New Zealand wine is good! It’s not quite got the rep of Australian or South African, but there’s lots to like. Whether you’d pay to ship it yourself may be a different question.

      2. No Direct Reports*

        My office is less than half a mile from an authentic Jewish Deli – in South Carolina! What are the odds!?! Its so, so good, and we still get office bagels from Panera ALL.THE.TIME. It boggles the mind.

    3. allathian*

      Only tangentially related, but the first restaurant chain to bring bagels to Finland stuck to traditional local sandwich toppings. The most popular bagel topping? Ham. *cringe*

  56. Manders*

    This isn’t really a “gone wrong” story, but… Our admin assistant started a yearly autumn Soup Day. Which was delicious, but soup is challenging to bring to work, and you can really only sample one at a time. It’s not like a potluck where you can place many items on one plate. I brought my bowl that I keep in my office and rinsed it between soups, and everyone made fun of me for not using the disposable bowls and tossing them after each one. By the end of lunchtime we had filled up multiple garbage cans with bowls. The admin assistant no longer works here and we have not reinstated any potlucks since the pandemic, so I think we have had our final soup day.

    1. Hell Kitchen*

      You need to use Dixie Cups for tasting on soup day, they are smaller! I don’t remember which workplace this was at, but I LOVED soup day! Thanks for bringing up a fond memory!

  57. Watry*

    Once I had a coworker who was very adamant about her vegetarianism. We had several people bring smaller, meatless variations on their dishes, mostly for her.

    Turns out she thought vegetarian means no red meat, which we found out after someone freaked out about her eating a chicken dish. She then refused to be corrected by us or by the dictionary. She was, at you might imagine, very strange in other ways.

    I ate a ton of the vegetarian stuff because I have texture issues with some meats.

  58. Ellis Bell*

    I was working at this brand new school – differently funded government quackery project – and in true start up style all the teachers were overworked and encouraged to do all their socialising together. So the Christmas party do was highly anticipated. The principal’s favourite was given the honours of planning it, and he chose a Chinese restaurant and karaoke venue because we’d all be paying for our own meals and it was pretty cheap. For a modest prepaid sum each, we were promised turkey and cranberry sandwiches, ribs, and chips (as in fries). This sounded pretty adequate and obviously we were expecting quite chunky restaurant style sandwiches. So we go, and it’s pretty fun karaoke, but the food is taking forever and people are getting hungry. When the food comes out it’s like one sharing bowl of chips at a time, with a huge delay for the next one, so people are trying to be polite and not get grabby, but any food that comes out is disappearing quickly, with people only getting a few chips each. The organiser is asking the restaurant staff to either bring out separate plates or everything together, but the staff are pretty shruggy towards this suggestion. Then the sandwiches come out and it’s the kind of thin white bread and wafer thin meat you’d give kids, cut into triangles. The meat is so thin in fact, that at first we were sure it was just jam sandwiches (as in the cranberry part of the promised turkey and cranberry). Again, there’s nowhere near enough before we get told that’s it; so hopes were high that the ribs might be more substantial. They ended up being those mini preformed meat lollipops, on a stick – they’d clearly never seen a rib bone. People were so hungry that they started snatching food, before giving up entirely and just abandoning the venue for to go get a nearby burger (you couldn’t get back in to the karaoke place once you’d left). People who stayed hadn’t eaten enough for the alcohol they’d drank so they gave epically drunk karaoke performances. The principal’s favourite never lived it down that the Christmas party food catering he organised was the equivalent of half a jam sandwich, a fistful of chips and a pepperami.

      1. Princess Sparklepony*

        That was what was offered. Sounds like they were given the pre-ordered menu before the party.

    2. lpuk*

      I once went to a Chinese restaurant for an office party. It was a private function, we pre-ordered the menu and confirmed number and that night we got to the restaurant. and waited. and waited. It took 3 hours for the food to start coming out. By this point I had taken the paper off my chopsticks, dipped it in hoisin sauce that was on the table and ate it to try and quell the hunger pangs. I had moved on to eating my paper napkin in the same way by the time food finally appeared.

  59. Ann Onymous*

    A catered holiday lunch after which 3/4 of the people at the site came down with food poisoning. But the person who ordered the food refused to believe the food was the issue because she hadn’t gotten sick.

  60. HannahS*

    At many hospitals, the attending physicians put money into a pot at the beginning of the year, and once a week the residents get to buy lunch and eat together. It’s a really nice thing for the residents, who are underpaid, overworked, and usually starving. It’s usually pretty good; we’ll get burritos or poke bowls or Korean lunch boxes, etc.

    One time, lunch arrived (45 minutes late) and, for some reason, every single serving was SO SPICY. The meat was covered in chili flakes. The sauce was red and hot. The rice, usually a safe bet for the spice-averse, was cooked with chili flakes. I was so hungry that I ate part of my serving anyway, but I had a stomach ache for the rest of the day and some people didn’t eat it at all. We ragged on the organizer, who protested that he didn’t know it would be so hot…but come on, the restaurant’s logo was a chili pepper that was ON FIRE!

    1. HannahS*

      Oh, and another:
      When I was a student, I was given a free ticket to a VERY fancy fundraising reception for the university. The meat eaters got steak or chicken, mashed potatoes, mixed roasted vegetables, and a bread roll with butter. The vegetarian option was about eight potato gnocchi on a swirl of sweet potato puree. And a bread roll. It was maybe 200 calories worth of food. I guess everything else was cooked with chicken broth? But bread and few bites of potato do not a meal make!

    2. thanks for all the fish ....*

      I’m sorry about the meal, but the tradition of the attendings vis-a-vis the residents is sweet, and actually made my day. Clearly I need stories of people being nice!

  61. pageall*

    At last year’s chili potluck (not a contest), one staff member went around to each of the 10 chilis, took a spoonful, and immediately listed what he didn’t like about each one. In front of all of the people who made them.
    So this year, an assistant intercepted him and said “Ohh, John, most of the chilis have jalapenos this year and I know you don’t like them! That’s too bad, you have such a *discerning* palate.” John seemed satisfied with the recognition of his culinary prowess, and just ate the cornbread instead.

    2. StarTrek Nutcase*

      How sad is it that honesty has become a hazard at work whether it’s when dealing with a coworker or boss. One big perk of closing in on retirement was I no longer gave a f*ck and started being honest as opposed to worrying about optics. I made it clear if asked for my opinion, I’d be honest – so beware. (Honesty doesn’t mean rude.) One coworker who ignored my warning was shocked when I agreed with her supervisor that she needed a PIP.

  62. A Genuine Scientician*

    When I was a grad student, every year there was a big chili cookoff competition. Prizes in multiple categories based on styles, with/without meat, etc. People were very into it, sometimes entering multiple different ones. Ingredient lists were kept secret other than attesting to meeting the requirements for a particular category, so that the cook could try to maintain an edge on the competition..

    It was the one social event from the program that I never participated in, which seemed to drive some people crazy. Why wouldn’t I go to this? It’s free food, it’s on a Friday late afternoon, I went to everything else, people knew that I could cook because I brought stuff to other events.

    Any form of peppers — chili or bell — makes me ill. It’s digestive, not anaphylactic, so it’s an intolerance rather than an allergy, but I’m sensitive enough that it’s better to think of it as an allergy. I don’t need utensils scrubbed, but I also just can’t pick out the peppers; the juices soaking into anything else makes that other thing inedible for me. Seasoning something with paprika is enough to cause problems. An event based around consuming chili — and most especially without having a firm list of ingredients in each one — is absolutely not something I’m going to do.

    I was perfectly fine with just sitting this one out; there were enough other things over the course of the year I could do. But by the 3rd or 4th time the same people gave me a hard time for not participating, I was running out of patience with them. And I do mean giving me a hard time; simply asking if I’m going or why I didn’t was fine, but trying to apply pressure to make me go was ridiculous.

    1. king of the pond*

      Obviously, you shouldn’t have to explain “if I eat anything with peppers I will {overly descriptive bathroom problems here}” in order to be left alone by coworkers… but did they harass you even after you told them you’re basically allergic?

    2. Princess Sparklepony*

      I had to explain to my mother that I cannot eat bell peppers, even the sweet red ones. She’d keep trying to get me to eat them since they are “sweet!” No, they are evil minions trying to rip my stomach into a million pieces!

      Weirdly, I can eat some spicier peppers but not a lot. I think it may have to do with the amount of pepper – bell peppers are bigger and people use a lot of them to bulk up a dish. The hot spicy ones, smaller, usually seeded, and used as an accent. Not saying I don’t have to take antacid because I do, but the effect isn’t as bad.

  63. Holly.*

    Previous job, I used to get tasked with organising ‘lunch and learn’ events.
    External sales reps came in, gave a presentation and bribed us to attend by offering food.

    I would let them know to bring food for 25ish people.

    (Background: What the sales reps didn’t usually pay attention to was that I was a Technical Manager responsible for recommending firms to internal teams – my job title was in my email and I would introduce myself with my title, but there was a sexist expectation that I was an admin assistant. Not usually an issue, but..)

    One firm turned up, with 15 sandwiches.
    So they can’t count to 25, not a good start.

    And then did a very sexist presentation, including photos of a technical trade show they had organised, which included girls in skimpy flight-attendant style dresses for decoration.

    I did try to talk to them afterwards, but they were not interested, so I promptly put their firm on my ‘avoid using if at all possible!’ list.

  64. Nora*

    This story came up every time we had a potluck at a school where I used to work. Years ago the principal announced that he would be getting lunch for everyone for teacher appreciation day. It was the first time he had offered, and everyone was really excited about having a decent lunch. No one packed lunch that day. The principal gave the catering money to one of the department heads (who he was having an affair with) and asked her to arrange the lunch. Instead of ordering something, she bought groceries and had her students assemble sandwiches – bologna sandwiches on cheap white bread. They assumed she pocketed the rest of the money. It did not go over well, especially with the Jewish and Muslim teachers.

  65. Tio*

    Ok, this is not exactly catering, but still entertains me.

    We had a group that would order food on Wednesday, with people dipping in and out per week. One week myself, my direct report, my boss, and my grandboss were all ordering with the group, something like 8-10 people. So we order, and right around noon the food gets here. I and my report were free, so we went to the reception desk, gathered the food, and brought it to the kitchen. While my report found our food, I went around and told the other people the food was here. They were finishing up conversations and what have you, so after a few minutes, my report and I took our food and went to the building lounge downstairs to eat and watch tv (the kitchen is not terribly big). After about half an hour, I get a text from my boss. He wasn’t sure how to let me know, but it looked like the company had forgotten to make/send the order for me and my direct report.

    The one we just ate, you mean?

    Turns out, that after we left, the rest of the group came in and was going through the bags and discovered there was no food left for me and my report! Who were mysteriously ~missing~ despite being the ones who brought the food in. And one of the bags was already open and half empty. (Context clues, guys.) They apparently thought we brought the food in and then just… left for half an hour without taking our food? So they were going wild up there. Apparently my grandboss called the restaurant and reported the food missing and got a refund. All of this before anyone texted me about it. So when I got the text, we went upstairs and cleared everything up. Then everyone felt bad that we reported the food missing and it wasn’t, so we called the restaurant and placed another pickup order for the missing food and just told them not to make it. But it was an absolute circus. Looking back (and even then, honestly) I laugh wondering what they were thinking.

    2. The Person from the Resume*

      That did not got the direction I thought. I thought someone was going to come in and take your boss’s meal assuming it was free food. Their confusion is very confusing to me.

      1. Tio*

        Right?? I still have no idea what they were thinking. I clearly knew he food was there since I brought it in, and the bag was open… I mean at least check with me first? And why did they think I would order food, bring it in, and then leave without taking my food?

        They were excellent bosses but this was just a major fail. It’s funny now though!

  66. Sabina*

    My saddest potluck story: a coworker known to be a fabulous cook brought homemade ravioli (she was Italian so they were legit). The ravioli was in a large crackpot and gave off a wonderful aroma for hours. Lunch time finally comes and the cook prepares to serve her masterpiece when she discovers the glass lid to the crackpot has cracked and she can’t find all the pieces. The entire pot of deliciousness went into the trash. People wept.

    1. Nina*

      I must be related to raccoons because I would absolutely have just risked it.

      I mean, I’ve eaten taffy that I knew for certain had had a mercury thermometer break in it, because I saw it happen, what’s a little glass between friends?

      1. Emma*

        The glass, fine! The mercury is a neurotoxin, deadly in tiny quantities with no treatment, so you’re extremely lucky to be posting

      2. Emma*

        (Correction to a reply that is in moderation: I should have said that mercury is a heavy metal which will screw up your brain and kill you, it’s not strictly speaking a neurotoxin – though it’s a pretty academic distinction once it’s inside you!)

  67. Viki*

    We set off the fire alarm, and since the office was on top of a mall, we had to evacuate the mall, in December. For an hour. Everyone loved us.

    That’s the second time in my life a panini press has caused me to stand outside in the snow, which is just more than I expected.

    My in laws that year, gave us a panini press for Christmas.

  68. Alfredo's Pizza Cafe*

    I worked at a company that had an office space and an attached warehouse. The warehouse guys would always go above and beyond, especially around the holiday season, when the company would need them to work extra hours and ship more to make the quotas for the year (this happened Every. Single. Year.). The year the company decided to finally hire an actual HR person, she wanted to reward the warehouse guys for going above and beyond. She told the warehouse manager that the company would buy pizza for the warehouse and the office – just pick where they wanted pizza from. The company was located in the NY/tri-state area, so we have excellent pizza here, as a general rule. The warehouse guys decided they wanted pizza from a national chain though, so that’s what got ordered, because they were told they could pick what they wanted.

    Many of the office workers complained and refused to eat chain-pizza. HR later scolded the warehouse manager for not forcing his people to pick a place the office staff (who had not contributed to the extra efforts to meet the quotas btw) would have liked too. I still think about this sometimes and get so much cringe at the idea of 1. people who didn’t earn the pizza reward complaining about where the pizza came from and 2. HR reprimanding someone for letting his staff choose what they liked.

  69. Cyndi*

    I’m actually going to a catered work event this evening, and I’m half worried that reading these comments will jinx it somehow, and half just way too hungry way too early. I’m craving so many foods now, help.

  70. undercaffeinated*

    Teacher here. Previous school district that prided itself on being a “destination district” decided to go big for our opening professional development session for staff, so they held it off site in the basement conference area of a local restaurant.

    We were told lunch would be provided and were strictly commanded not to leave because they wanted the afternoon presentation to begin exactly on time and didn’t want people straggling in late. That was great except that the buffet ran out of food after about 1/3 of the staff went through the line. People were literally eating the garnishes off the platters.

    Myself and some coworkers high-tailed it to the bar upstairs and ordered a quick round of appetizers which were of course not reimbursed.

    Shockingly we never did an off-site, lunch prof

    1. Wolf*

      > People were literally eating the garnishes off the platters.

      Bit of a tangent, but that reminds me of the conference session where the only vegetarian option were the decorative lettuce leaves under the sandwich platters. The organizer looked a bit ashamed when I ate that.

  71. wheresmyhyphen*

    We used to take turns where one department was responsible for the potluck each month, and in my first month there, the admin from the potluck department very kindly gave me a (very short!) list of what I could eat, as I’ve got some pretty extreme allergies and some not-so-fun food intolerances to boot. There was one area of the table marked off for kosher foods, and one of them was the only dessert I could eat. Three ladies came up and berated me that these were just for the Jewish staff, and really worked hard to embarrass me, brand new office junior who was all of 17 years old, for daring to take the kosher food, and grilling me: ‘Do YOU keep kosher? Do you NEED to be careful with food?’ etc. etc. Answers, no, and no, but…

    I’m Jewish.

  72. ...*

    We used to have an office party at the end of each month to celebrate birthdays. For months, everything went smoothly, but the person in charge left, and another employee volunteered to continue the tradition. She organized it without any issues until it was her own birthday month…

    … after all the food was set up on the table, she expressed disappointment with some of us. “Frank made handmade sweets for the September birthday, but for my birthday month, he just bought something ready-made.” “Alex brought a cake that probably cost $10 in October, but now brought one that must have cost $4.” And then she started distributing the food based on the “value” of the food each person had brought.

    After that month, we never had a birthday celebration again.

  73. TrixieJeep*

    A little different. I worked at a company as a temp many, many moons ago & it was Christmas time. All of the women who worked there were sent to a Christmas lunch at a very elegant and expensive restaurant during the work day as a holiday treat. When we were seated, I began to peruse the menu (alarmed at the prices!). The most senior woman present said, “Oh, TrixieJeep, no need to read the menu”. She then proceeded to tell the waiter we wanted one of every single item on the menu! With multiple cocktails and bottles of wine. We were there for about three hours and completely snookered when we returned to the office. The tab was over $1,000 – and this was the 80s! Plot Twist: the company’s owner (very married) was always trying to seduce this woman with seniority, and she liked sticking it to him. Fun Times!

    1. Wolf*

      If someone else picks up the tab (no matter if for professional or weird reasons), they should tell people from the start.

  74. Rose*

    Had a PI (academic research lab) who wanted to have us all over to a dinner at her house.

    “I don’t cook,” she announced. “You’ll provide me with a shopping list and I’ll buy all the food and you’ll come over and cook it.”

    I did not like her, and I knew I wanted none of that (she was legit bonkers, same person who tried to send six of us on a multi-day research trip on a budget of four thousand euros), so I went ahead and opted out, playing the “idiot foreigner doesn’t know how to cook in your country” card. Then, I got a wild lung infection, so I actually couldn’t go.

    But I hear, in the end, they went with takeout.

  75. Evernerd*

    We had a particularly unstable coworker who signed up for the weekly breakfast share rotation. The day she was supposed to bring food for almost 20 people, she ran in (late) with a whole tray pan full of uncooked eggs with sausage and salsa. Not just a little runny…raw! Someone tried to use the kitchen oven to help finish cooking them, but she pulled them out too soon so everyone could eat at their regularly scheduled time, and…no one could. They just sat there all day, getting more and more salmonella-y. Years later, just saying her name, or the words “egg soup,” would immediately elicit this memory, and cringe-y laughs.

  76. She of Many Hats*

    I handle the catering for our offices meetings and events.

    In the before times, it was *always* one of two sandwich/salad/soup national chains, alternating between them for variety. We also had the IT cave in the back corner of the office. Once the food moved from the meeting space to the kitchen, the “seagulls” in the back corner could sense the vibrations of the platters landing on the counter and would handle any leftovers, often before the sales team to beat them to the kitchen.

    Now we are primarily remote but still having the same number of on-site meetings, I don’t have the clean-up crew handling leftovers. I hate throwing food away so now, I order at least one meal is now from a place where *I* will like the leftovers. Today’s catering event meal is a baked potato bar.

    2. Peon*

      It was hard adjusting my baking habits to work from home for this reason. I was so used to trying new recipes on the weekends and feeding the “seagulls” (love that) on Monday, and the seagulls here at home are just way too picky.

      1. slowingaging*

        I started stress baking during the pandemic and my neighbors, coworkers and friends suffered for me. They were my seagulls.

  77. CR*

    I worked at a really dysfunctional non-profit that spontaneously threw a party to celebrate our city’s sports team. They had us all gather in the break room downstairs for treats. When I tried to go back upstairs to my desk to get some work done, my manager stopped me and told me to stay downstairs, which I thought was strange, but I brushed it off. I ended up slipping out of the party and going back upstairs anyway, where I saw a colleague gathering her things and being led out by HR. The party was a front to distract us while our colleague was fired!

    2. Dr Wizard, PhD*

      You win, that’s the worst possible party, barring one used to fire all of the attendees.

  78. Potato Po-tah-to*

    Around the holidays, it’s not unusual for our office break room to contain an assortment of treats gifted to us from vendors or customers. Several years ago during this most festive time of year, I noticed a tray of what looked like divinity candy sitting out on the break room table. Divinity is not my favorite holiday candy, but it was early in the season, and the pickings were slim, so I decided to have a piece. Just as I took a bite, a coworker walked in and said, “Oh! You’re trying out my candy – let me know what you think of it!” By this time the bite had well and truly settled on my palate, and let me tell you, I had opinions. Being a polite sort of person in real life, I was hesitant to tell her what I thought (which would have been difficult without swallowing, which was not an option at this point), but I can tell you – it tasted like a dog turd rolled in powdered sugar. Or what I assume a dog turd would taste like, having never sampled a dog turd myself. I stepped around my coworker to grab a paper towel to ostensibly wipe my mouth (and discretely spit out the offending “candy”), then turned back around to address my coworker. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like it,” says I, in what I hope was a pleasant voice. “What’s it called?” Coworker replies “I haven’t really thought of a name for it – it’s just something I experimented with,” then she tells me how she made it.

    Y’all. It was mashed potatoes. And not even real potatoes, but the boxed potato flakes. Prepared in the normal way with butter, milk and salt, then mixed with peanut butter, Karo syrup, and powdered sugar, then rolled in another healthy dose of powdered sugar. Dear coworker had made too many mashed potatoes for dinner the night before, and in an effort not to waste food, had decided to try her hand as a confectioner. I’m having flashbacks of the nauseating flavor and texture just typing this out. So gross. So, so gross. I mumbled something polite that probably came out as more of an “Oh! Hrrmm, interesting “ or similar, then bolted from the room to warn the rest of my coworkers NOT to try the “divinity” in the break room.

    1. Potlucks in Higher Ed*

      I love mashed potatoes and most of the things mixed into that recipe, but MAN do I never want to have them all mixed together like that!!!

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        I can think of about 100 things you can do with leftover mashed potatoes, and that would have never even crossed my mind!

    4. Fishsticks*

      Man, potato candy is real, and delicious, but that is NOT how you make it!

      God love you for staying polite.

    6. Bibliothecarial*

      Oh! That sounds like the evil twin of the potato candy recipe Dylan Hollis made. He tries old timey recipes that sound weird but are mostly good. His recipe didn’t have butter or salt, just a boiled potato, powdered sugar, and peanut butter.

  79. Rachel*

    I love, so very much, the cheap-ass rolls! Thank you for reminding me how to get bent out of shape over nothing!

  80. Potlucks in Higher Ed*

    This will probably be lost in the shuffle, but here you go.

    At my first job, the department I was in was really into office potlucks. We had them for everything from holiday celebrations, end-of-semester celebrations (I work in Higher Ed), to celebration lunches for our student employees. We had an Office Manager who tried to rule over how the potlucks were managed, and one of her rules was if you don’t contribute, you don’t get to eat. A lot of the staff would push back on that and point out that some people may not be able to contribute financially and are we really going to have a whole office celebration where they can’t eat. We also pointed out that we were a department of 40+ people, and we really didn’t need 3 versions of mashed potatoes.

    Anyway, we had recently hired my counterpart, and he started about a week before our Thanksgiving potluck. My supervisor and I told him not to worry about it for a variety of reasons, including that he just moved and was still unpacking, he hadn’t even received his first paycheck for the job, so no, you don’t need to make food to feed people. The day of the celebration comes around, and the Office Manager stops my new coworker as he is in line for food and asks what he brought. I just stepped in and lied by saying he paid for half of the ingredients of my recipe as his contribution (mind you, I also doubled my recipe given the size of the group). She tried to push back about how “that wasn’t the point of a potluck” until my Supervisor stepped in and asked if she really was going to be unwelcoming to our newest staff member about a Thanksgiving Potluck.

    Since this all happened in line, it was witnessed by a lot of people in the department who started to more actively voice their concerns about how the celebrations were run. By the time the end-of-semester celebration happened a few weeks later, the potluck was optional, and a portion of the departmental budget went to paying for a bulk of the food.

    1. Peon*

      I’m in higher ed too, tons of potlucks here, but we take the “bring all your hungry” approach because when you think about it, each person who DOES bring a dish usually makes a recipe meant to feed 8-10 people a serving so it really multiplies quickly if you don’t have a few wanderers from other departments. We usually still have leftovers that we leave for the evening shift of another department.

      One solution we do for the people who can’t/don’t want to/forget to bring food is ask for help setting up or tearing down the events too. We always need help with that and it’s really appreciated.

      1. Lily Rowan*

        Yeah, office potlucks always have too much food, in my experience, because each individual brings a family contribution! (As opposed to community potlucks where each family brings a family contribution.)

      2. I Have RBF*

        When my department at my previous university job had potlucks of brought food in, we never really worried about leftovers if school was in session. There was a grad student grapevine that had a “Radar O’Reilly” sense for free food. If the students weren’t there, OTOH… you could find stuff on Monday that had been put out on Friday. When we moved to an off-campus open plan mess, the potlucks just… stopped. No one wanted to spend more time in the presence of their coworkers than we had to.

  81. Happy Pineapple*

    I used to work as a day-of coordinator for weddings, so I’m hyper aware of anything that goes wrong when I’m a wedding guest. Two recent catering mishaps:

    1) I was a bridesmaid. We had a 7am start time at the venue for hair and makeup, the bride graciously ordered a continental breakfast buffet to be served at the venue while we were getting ready. I arrive the morning of the wedding before the bride and the buffet is set and waiting…but also crawling with ants. Ants marching over the pastries, on the sliced fruit, and in and out of the coffee pots. It took an hour for the venue staff to address it, and their solution was to clear the food, spray smelly insecticide all of the table in the small, enclosed room where we were getting ready, and then disappear. None of us got to eat anything.

    2) It’s common in my religious community to have cocktail hour before the wedding ceremony and then follow with dinner and dancing. Guests arrive for cocktail hour and there’s an open bar but no food. Catering says it will be there any minute. An hour passes and the ceremony begins, still no food. Appetizers finally show up two hours late right as the guests are being seated for dinner. Dinner is a buffet served by the catering staff. My table is the last called and more than half the dishes were already gone. A woman with severe food allergies, which the staff was made aware of before the day, is mocked when she asks about the ingredients in the remaining dishes. Her dinner ends up being a slice of bread and a scoop of rice. After the wedding the couple contacts the caterer to complain about the lack of cocktail hour and food running out. The caterer has the audacity to say that cocktail hour should never be before the ceremony, and also FAT SHAME the guests, saying that if they weren’t such “heavy eaters” who consumed “far above the national average” then there would have been enough food for everyone. Remember, this was not a self-serve buffet; they portioned and served everything onto people’s plates. When the couple pointed this out they backtracked and said the catering quote in the contract was too low, so they only brought what they thought was an appropriate amount of food for the payment.

    2. Alisaurus*

      I think my worst wedding food experience was a small outdoor one in NC in June. Where the food tables were placed directly in the sun. At an 11am wedding. By the time the ceremony was over, the cheese cubes were melty, the tea sandwiches were limp, and all beverages were lukewarm. Not to mention all the guests were dripping with sweat.

    3. LCH*

      eek! i was at a super small restaurant once that had ants in one syrup section of the soda machine. i felt so bad for them so i tried to alert them quietly.

    4. Ally McBeal*

      It’s truly amazing, how some people get into the wedding business that should never be permitted to talk to another human being. The DJ at my best friend’s wedding played the wrong song for their first dance, then when we ran over to correct the issue, said he “couldn’t find it” (“The Book of Love” by Peter Gabriel is not a niche song, and he’d been given the song list weeks in advance, in the age of Spotify and iTunes!). Later that evening he told the father of the bride, to his face, that we were the worst wedding he’d ever DJed. It was a perfectly normal wedding. I told she should’ve sued.

    5. Delta Delta*

      Just want to say that by the time Mr. Delta & I got married we’d been to SO MANY weddings and realized all people really want at a wedding is a drink. So we had the bar open before the ceremony. There are photos of guests with drinks in hand while we’re saying our “I do’s.” People loved it.

      1. TheAG*

        I would have completely agreed with you before I went to my husband’s cousin’s wedding lol!
        It was the world’s fanciest shotgun wedding and the mother of the bride had put it all together within a month and at GREAT expense.
        When it’s time for the wedding we’re all waiting. And waiting. And waiting. We learn that the best man (the groom’s brother) had gotten drunk and ran his car into the gas line at the venue. So we were essentially waiting for him to get booked at the police station and brought back to the venue, which put the wedding about an hour and a half late.
        The wedding goes off and we move to the reception area where there is a HUGE, incredibly well-stocked open bar.
        But the venue cannot cook any of the food until the gas line is repaired so we wait. And drink. They cut the cake about an hour and a half after the reception started because people were starving (by this time it was about 9 at night).
        The food didn’t come out until well after 11 pm and by then I don’t think much of it got eaten because people were WASTED. Imagine 300 plus people all dressed up fancy and reeling drunk.

        The only saving grace was they had this amazing funk band with a full brass section and people were dancing their booties off. Reeling drunk, all dressed up, and dancing. Ay yi yi.

  82. Titmouse*

    I made a wonderful banana bread and raspberry cake for a labmate’s birthday. It was my first time using that particular recipe and I was in a rush so I just followed the instructions and assumed it was done when the time was up. It was such a beautiful golden color! I was so proud and happy until I brought it to the lab and we cut it open – it was raw batter in the center! Lesson learned, I’ve doubled the baking time for that recipe + always stab the cake to check if it’s done.

  83. 1-800-BrownCow*

    Not an office potluck, but I was once sent to a 3-day training by my company held at a university. There was another training going on during the same 3 days so the 2 groups of people were in neighboring classrooms for training. For breaks and lunch, the university food service had tables set up in the hallway outside the 2 classrooms with food for the both training groups. When I filled out the online registration, I marked myself down for food accommodations for gluten free options (for medical reasons, not just diet preference).

    On the first day of training, when we took our morning break, someone from food service approached me to confirm I was the “gluten free person” (I was the only woman in any of the training groups and I have a common female name, like “Jennifer”, so it was easy to guess I was the “Jennifer” that marked they were GF in their registration). Anyway, they let me know that when we had our lunch break later, there would be a separately wrapped gluten free meal with my name on it placed at the end of the table, which I thanked them for. While there were plenty of GF options (fruit, yogurt, etc) with the morning break food, I don’t typically eat until lunchtime and wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t have anything to eat.

    Fast-forward to lunchtime and our group finally broke for lunch around 12:30 as our instructor wanted to finish up a section before lunch and everyone in the training was fine waiting an extra 30 minutes to eat. So we all file out into the hallway to get our lunch and lo and behold, there was no separately wrapped meal with my name on it. Lunch for everyone else was premade sandwiches and pasta salad and cookies for dessert, none of which were GF. About 10 minutes or so later someone from the food service comes by and I asked about my food. They weren’t sure, so they went and found the manager who had spoken to me earlier. Manager comes out surprised and sure enough, my lunch was gone. They did not have an extra lunch with them and the campus kitchens were on the opposite side of campus, a 10-minute drive away. By now, we only had about 10 minutes left for our lunch break and I declined having someone from food service go get me a lunch and drop it off in my training room as I really didn’t want to eat in the room during the class. There were some apples left over from the morning break, so I took one of those. But the apple was mealy and not good at all, so I only had 2 bites and threw it out.

    Next day, the food service manager found me and explained that they learned someone in the other training group that had come out for lunch at noon (the same time we should have had our lunch) wasn’t interested in the sandwiches or pasta salad so they decided to take my lunch instead, that had MY NAME on it. They claimed they didn’t know it was for someone else because there was no one named “Jennifer” in their group. This was despite the fact that we all had morning break together so that person should have known there was another training group there (it was pretty obvious) and that the food tables were set up for both the training groups. And I’m definitely a female-presenting woman, so I was very much noticed as the only woman there. Again, “Jennifer” should be a dead give away and also, we were wearing nametags, so…..

    Food service manager was very nice and apologetic and so for Day 2 and 3, they made sure to keep my food “hidden” and brought it to me when we came out for our lunch. And I never did learn who from the other training group stole my lunch. I thought the culprit was going to be polite and come apologize as both groups took morning break and lunch break at the same time the last 2 days. And again, as the only woman in either training group, the Lunch Looter should have easily identified who’s lunch he stole. But, alas, he chose to stay incognito and not apologize. And thanks to “Food Service Manager and Gluten Free Meal Protector”, I did not go without food Days 2 and 3.

    1. king of the pond*

      Is it pessimistic of me to suspect the lunch thief was less respectful of your lunch explicitly because it had a feminine name on it?

      1. 1-800-BrownCow*

        Ha, wouldn’t come as a surprise if that is true! I’ve certainly experienced it throughout my career (sadly).

  84. Why is it so hard to think of a name*

    Potlucks at my first job were legendary. People wore stretchy pants, came in on days off – ah, the good old days.

    Then we had one (that I missed, because I was out of state that day) where multiple people were sick over the weekend. A culprit was surreptitiously narrowed down, based on what people had eaten, and from then on, someone was appointed to watch for her contributions and alert the rest of us as to which dish to avoid.

    2. Elle Woods*

      I had a similar food poisoning story which I shared the story last year. The short version: coworker brought homemade shrimp dip and a bunch of people got sick; one was even hospitalized. Turns out she had let the shrimp (the super tiny salad kind) thaw in her sink for more than 24 hours before assembling the dip.

  85. Stevesie*

    I’m sure most people have a version of “too much alcohol, too little food”, here’s mine:

    At a holiday party several years back we had a 1920s casino theme, in a random hotel conference room, which, apropros of nothing, had no food other than vaguely Mediterranean appetizers. Definitely not enough food for the amount of drinking that historically happens at these events. I got hammered, along with most everyone else. There was also a man dressed as Santa there, who had clearly bleached his beard in an attempt to make it white to pass for Santa, but it turned out neon yellow. No one remembers hiring him. Our best theory is he was a holiday party crasher that dressed as Santa to drink for free. Everyone took photos with yellow beard Santa.

    We ended the evening making plans to hit up a second location with some colleagues. Second, and third, locations for parties are NEVER EVER a good idea.

    I didn’t make it to the second location. My husband started driving down the parking garage spiral ramp exit and I immediately started emptying the contention my stomach into a fast food drink cup that was in the car. I’m still making it up to my husband for having to be the DD that night.

  87. Kay*

    I was laid off from a previous job in a mass layoff that effected about half of the company (~200 people). On the last day of our notice period the company threw a goodbye party. They sent out emails about the party a week in advance, advertising that food and drink would be provided, and encouraging remote employees to come into the office to attend.

    The “food and drink” in question turned out to be a SINGLE sushi platter, a box of crumble cookies, and warm cans of soda. For about 50 people. An admin came in, set it up, and promptly left. Not a single member of leadership even bothered to show up. Really put into perspective how lucky we all were in the end to be leaving that place.

  88. Penny Pasta*

    My company organized a cookie swap. We had maybe 10 people who participated, and one of the conditions was that to get cookies, you had to contribute cookies. Since the swap was open to anyone who wanted to participate, it was announced on company-wide comms, so everyone knew the date/time/place it was happening. At the appointed hour, a swarm of cookie-eaters formed outside the conference room where the swap took place. No sooner did we take the covers off the Tupperware than every container was picked clean by people who just showed up for free cookies without contributing anything themselves.

  89. Pinta Bean*

    Eleven’s hands-on-chicken story above reminded me of this.

    I had a boss who was obsessive about portions. It made me wild. Whenever we had treats or snacks put out for the staff (think donuts, breakfast pastries, cupcakes) he would loudly announce that “no one wants to eat an entire donut!” and then use his hands to break all the treats in half with his hands.

    First, I absolutely 100% want to eat an entire donut, and I think there are other people who also want to eat an entire donut, and there was something very food-policing about his declarations that he was doing this because “everyone” wants half a donut.

    Second, if a coworker offered to share a donut and then broke it apart and handed me half, I’d be fine with it, so I don’t think I’m being too precious about another person touching my food, but it’s so unnecessary to have an entire tray of donuts touched by another person.

    Third, by breaking in half an entire tray of pastries, the jam or the cream from the filled type of pastry would be oozing out all over the place.

    Fourth, this might be me being picky but if you break a donut or cupcake in half, the exposed parts get stale faster than an intact donut or cupcake.

    You can tell by this comment that if there is a value of X annoyance for this behavior, it took up about 100X mental space for me because I was SO annoyed. I’m annoyed right now, and this person retired about five years ago!

    2. Gumby*

      You know what is a better way to cut donuts in half? Pizza cutter. Maybe I imagine it but there doesn’t seem to be as much drying out since the two halves are still touching until one gets taken. And even with that, only half of the donuts should be halved according to tradition at coffee hour.

    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      I agree with everything you express. A donut is a complete serving.

      If Boss thought donuts were too big, there are donuts holes.

  90. cold call catastrophe*

    A very sweet coworker brought in a giant trifle she had made. Everything was from scratch. It was beautiful. She just wanted to bring a treat for us! Another coworker (we’ll call her the Troll because just like her online counterparts, she loved setting someone up for a fail) saw this gorgeous trifle and got the most sly look on her face.

    “Oh, how nice. Did you use unbleached flour for the cake?”

    My coworker was taken aback a little. “No, just normal all purpose flour.”

    “Oh,” said the Troll. “And the sugar, is it organic?”

    “No,” my coworker said, looking cowed.

    “I suppose the cream and berries are conventional, not organic,” said the Troll with a pitying look.

    My coworker nodded.

    “Well, I prioritize what I put in my body,” said the Troll.

    She gave us a giant smile and left the break room.

    My nice coworker never brought in another treat, and actually left for a different job within a couple months. I think she looked around and realized that the Troll was actually one of an entire party of Trolls and decided to get the heck out.

    1. Kelly L.*

      I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who said “put into my body” instead of “eat” who wasn’t a massive killjoy. Your poor nice coworker!

    2. Non-profit drone*

      That would actually be awesome. I’d shout YAY! More for MEEEEEEEE! and have a double helping. I love trifle.

  91. Laura*

    About two decades ago, my boss had his 25th anniversary at the company. Back then it meant he did not have to come to work, and would get picked up from home in time for the anniversary lunch by one of the company’s drivers with a Mercedes. The company had its own catering, which did company events and very fine meals for important customers — or for anniversaries.

    Boss had invited 15 people from the company, including his own boss. We were in the VIP restaurant at noon, a bit hungry already, because we knew the food would be good. Champagne and some finger food was served. 10 or 15 minutes passed, the jubilar did not show up. More champagne. Finger food ran out. Half past, grandboss started making phone calls. Long story short, the driver had become totally lost. Hopelessly lost. He did not know where he was, how he got there, or how to get back. I still have no idea how that could happen. Anyway, more champagne.

    The department of driving important people around managed to find another driver who brought the jubilar in at quarter past one. We were all very hungry by then, and very tipsy.

    I have to compliment the kitchen, they managed to serve a four-course lunch for 16 people very quickly, everything fresh, nothing burned or lukewarm. And we had a lot of fun. Until we found, at about half past three, that we were all too drunk to work and to drunk to drive home…

    1. Cardboard Marmalade*

      I googled jubilar hoping to learn a new regionalism but couldn’t find any useful definitions, would love more info!

      1. Laura*

        The person who has an anniversary (especially if it’s not a birthday).

        However, English ist not my native language, I had to look the word up in a dictionary myself, and checking again now it seems that I have made an error.
        There must be a better English expression than “anniversary person”, surely, even if I cannot find it?

        2. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

          I think I’d go with “guest of honor” or possibly “honoree” for the person to be celebrated at a non-birthday party (I speak American English). Not sure if there’s a better form for this that I just don’t know, since I can’t think if I’ve ever been to an anniversary party for something other than something like the 50th wedding anniversary for a married couple (where the expression used would be something like “the happy couple” in that context, but there’s no way to extend that construction to a work anniversary context that wouldn’t be Weird).

          A lot of our honoree-words are occasion-specific: “the graduate”, “the happy couple”, “the birthday boy/girl”, “the retiree” and I can’t think of one to use for a work anniversary but I’ve also never been to a party to celebrate working someplace for x years.

  92. Elle Woods*

    One of my husband’s co-workers brought homemade potato salad to the company potluck this summer. The problem was that she didn’t boil the potatoes nearly enough so they had the consistency of rocks.

  93. Fishsticks*

    Work did a chili cookoff. We had a couple employees who don’t eat meat who basically got mocked by several other coworkers (think those guys who proudly brag about how they won’t eat vegetables and ‘pick the green bits out’ of chicken pot pie, etc) when they mentioned bringing vegetarian chili.

    I got into a Mood about it, and my Moods can be… petty. I decided to bring a vegan option (I wasn’t vegan whatsoever). I spoke to friends of mine who are, though, got all their best recipe tips, tested and worked on it for a month and a half leading up. We ate so much vegan chili. We were so sick of it, but I was bound and determined to figure this out because I hate people who think it’s hilarious to make other people feel bad about what they eat.

    I entered my vegan chili in the cookoff but nobody listed ingredients so you didn’t know whose chili had what and it could be “so and so’s secret recipe”, although of course the vegetarian coworker who participated made a veggie version, etc.

    The coworkers who had mocked my vegetarian coworkers also mocked their bean-based chili offerings, of course (their chili was so good actually!)

    They LOVED mine, which to them had what looked like meat in it. Talked it up!

    I explained it was vegan.

    Not a single animal product involved.

    Even though I didn’t win anything, I kind of still felt like I did when I saw the look on the one guy’s face.

    4. Peon*

      I love it! We do a chili cook-off too; the best year we had someone from another department attend and she brought THE best chili I’ve ever had and it was vegetarian. And she couldn’t give me a recipe because she “just threw it together”. It’s been years and I still wish I had a recipe for it.

    5. Non-profit drone*

      Excellent. I do not understand people who get into a snit about what other people choose to eat. I have several vegan friends and it is fun to cook for them when they’re coming over. I’ve learned a bunch of vegan recipes that I make for my carnivorous household all the time.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, this. I’m a flexi-eater, and I’ll often pick the vegetarian or vegan option, as long as there’s enough for all the vegans and vegetarians. This is generally not a problem in restaurants serving buffet lunches. When we have catered lunches at the office, my vegetarian and vegan teammates always get the first spots in the queue, to ensure that they get their share of the food. I work for the government, but not in the US, and our taxpayers don’t begrudge us the same perks that employees in the private sector get, so I’ve never been exposed to a potluck at work.

        My sister’s vegan, so our family’s learned to cook to accommodate her needs.

    6. They Don’t Make Sunday*

      My favorite part is your utter commitment to this plan. A MONTH AND A HALF. And it’s so perfect. Who would expect a nonvegan to bring in vegan chili? Way to go!!!

  94. Chai Latte*

    Three weeks ago I was nominated to a Morale Committee for my very large organization–think 14,000 employees–and they selected 23 of us to discuss employee morale, retention, and holiday celebration planning. This was an unpaid after hours meeting that was “voluntold” and we were promised catering in lieu of pay for the inconvenience.
    I shit you not: five cans of Diet Coke, four cans of regular Coke, three cans of Sprite, and eleven individual-sized bags of potato chips, all in a cardboard box. CATERING.
    The meeting did not go well, largely because the organizers–all of whom make six figures–wanted us lowly peons to be grateful for the snacks and plan site-based celebrations for Holiday 2023 with our own money.

    1. Alisaurus*

      You should tell them you’ve planned the catering for the event as 12 cans of sodas and some mini bags of chips.

    2. Dulcinea47*

      do you work for a public university? ’cause, sounds about right. We don’t need lavish, but that kind of thing is just disrespectful.

    4. I Have RBF*

      That’s just bonkers. 14,000 employees to get snacks for on a IC’s salary? Hard no.

      12 cans of soda and 11 bags of chips for 23 people? Those idiots couldn’t even count.

      1. Ev*

        Oh, but see – that’s a single item each. Surely no one could expect that you would want both a drink *and* chips? /sarcasm

  95. Alisaurus*

    I think I’ve shared this here before, but we had a fancy holiday party at one of my previous jobs. Apparently it was a huge shindig every year, with people talking about the last year’s party for months. When it was announced one year, the people organizing it made a big deal about how it wouldn’t be a sit-down meal like in the past, there would just be finger foods, make sure you eat dinner first, etc. So we all did. Some people made it a whole thing by going out for a nice dinner beforehand near the venue, but we all arrived quite full and expecting circulated trays of hors d’oeuvres with drinks or something similar.

    Well… it was not that. There were STATIONS OF FOOD set up all around the large venue. Crepes with all kinds of fillings in one spot, sushi in another, chicken and waffles at yet another, fancy desserts… I could easily have had a full dinner from any one of them. As it turned out, telling people to eat dinner first meant almost no one partook because no one could manage more than a few nibbles here and there.

    I’m still kind of mad about that one. Those crepes looked amazing…

    1. violin squeaks*

      I’m sure no one will see this, but this reminds me of a conference event I was peripherally involved in organizing. The conference program/communications told people there would be light hors d’oeuvres at one reception. I saw the banquet event order at a meeting and noticed it was NOT light – it was exactly what you described with stations. I began telling everyone I met at the conference that it was NOT light and they should prepare accordingly. People thanked me. I was a hero.

  96. Mrs Whosit*

    This is so small, but last week in the faculty lounge, we were supposed to have lunch provided from a fast food place. Well, the place had lost the order, so instead of whatever the plan was, there were enough chicken strips for each person to have… 1.

  97. no one reads this far*

    I’ve been vegan for nearly 5 years now. I’m not obnoxious about it but it’s also not a secret.

    When I left my last job, there were a few other people leaving around the same time so they decided to have a catered lunch to send us off.

    What did they order? Chick-fil-A. My queer vegan ass was quickly reminded why I was leaving that place.

  98. Jane*

    Several years ago the company holiday party was at a local restaurant and after several bottles of wine at the restaurant about 10 of us ended up at a dive bar down the road. The owner of the company was more like everyone’s frat brother and was buying so everyone was drinking, heavily. As the night went on and everyone got more drunk a huge fight exploded between 2 co-workers we’ll call Zack and Kelly. They had worked together for nearly a decade, what a lot of people didn’t know was that Zack and Kelly had been having an on/off affair for nearly 5 years. Zack was married with a child, Kelly dated around but was mostly single. Some in the office were aware of it because when they were off Zack treated Kelly like garbage and was bad at hiding it but most found at this night at the bar. Back to the bar- Zack and Kelly were off at this time and were loudly arguing which got all of us at the table interested. It devolved into Zack screaming at Kelly about her forever being a side chick which Kelly did not take well and had a screaming/sobbing melt down. It got awkward very quickly and they were separated, Kelly was taken outside where we could still hear her screaming and crying. It killed the vibe and everyone went home (via uber, don’t drink and drive), but it was the talk of the office and everyone who didn’t go the bar had heard about what happened by the time the next work day rolled around.

    Once everyone was back at work after the holidays both Zack and Kelly were written up for what happened, however that blowout at the bar must have cleared the air between them because they GOT BACK TOGETHER and restarted the affair…both were later fired for different reasons. No idea what either of them are doing now, I don’t keep in touch.

  99. Beth*

    I’m pretty sure I’ve told this one before, but hopefully not for a while.

    I used to be very active in my local pagan group, which had regular events that invariably included a potluck. None of us had what you’d call lucrative careers. The typical potluck spread was usually:

    – a big bucket of grocery-store fried chicken, like KFC but greasier
    – a million containers of grocery-store potato salad
    – one package of cheap grocery-store cookies
    – MAYBE a tray of ghastly precut finger veggies from a warehouse store

    Sometimes there were also cheapass rolls.

    When I moved from a job that paid badly to one that paid much better, I thought it was time I paid it forward, as it were. I started buying and cooking actual MEAT — roasting a chicken or doing a beef roast. I would carve the chicken or slice up the beef and do a nice arrangement on a platter.

    The third or fourth month I did this, I watched the guy who was the head of the group take pieces of my lovely, tender, perfectly roasted beef and feed them to his dogs.

    That was the last time I took extra time and spent extra money to bring anything extra special to one of those potlucks.

    1. Wolf*

      Interesting. Our lical pagan/witchy group suffered from the opposite: everyone tried to do homemade, alternative or “ancient” style foods, but with varying degrees of cooking skills. Some results were amazing, some were not. I remember an attempt at mashed turnips with lots herbs and leafy greens in it, which tasted fine but sadly looked like a cowpat.

  100. Donna*

    A few years ago I worked at an organization that did a monthly employee activity. I led the committee that organized these events.
    I was really proud of the tone we set— nothing was mandatory and there was an even mix of activities. Some were during work hours, some were Happy Hour style, some you could bring family to, or not.
    This particular activity was geared towards a moment of peace and health before getting into the holiday season. We set aside a room for an hour on Friday morning for people to gather and hang out over a make-your-own smoothie bar and there was an optional chair yoga session.

    It was a hit. Lots of positive feedback and I went home satisfied at the good job I was doing.

    Until I turned on the news. And saw that a particular type of frozen mixed fruit from a particular store (the very frozen fruit we had used in the smoothie bar) was subject to recall due to a Hepatitis risk.

    My life flashed before my eyes, culminating in a vision of having to tell our CEO that we would need to test almost the entire staff for Hepatitis. I flew back to work to grab the receipt and go to the recall site online.

    Imagine my relief when the list of states subject to the recall did not include ours.

    It really made me re-think including food in culture-building activities moving forward.

  101. You want stories, I got stories*

    Not a big high stakes error, but I do laugh at this and the “definition.”

    We were ordering pizza for work. My boss’s boss always complains there is never enough food for him because he is a vegetarian. My boss told the people ordering, “Hey make sure half of the pizzas are vegetarian, so there is enough.”

    They ordered.
    4 sausage
    4 pepperoni
    2 vegetarian
    6 cheese

    Thus became the debate, “what is the definition of Half to be vegetarian.”

    1. Rocket Raccoon*

      My instinct is that this did, indeed, meet the requirements.

      However years of reading AAM tells me that cheese pizza gets snapped up by everyone, so it should be a third category altogether.

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        Cheese pizza is the most aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. Especially on the second or third round in line.

      2. You want stories, I got stories*

        Which means of course that
        8 vegetarian
        1 sausage
        1 pepperoni
        6 cheese
        would also work cause those who like meat can just eat the cheese too.

        But I agree with you, cheese should be its own category and doesn’t count towards either side.

  102. Peon*

    We held a vegetarian potluck while we had visitors from overseas – vegetarian because our foreign visitors were all vegetarian and given the culture/language differences, we didn’t want them to worry about determining which dishes were safe for them to eat.

    One of my coworkers brought ham. It was very tasty, and it certainly got eaten, but yeah. He claimed it was a communication issue because English is not his first language either, but I’ve worked with him for a decade without having those kinds of communication problems so I’m not sure I’m buying it. At least it was a nice bone in ham so it was very obviously not vegetarian?

  103. Cookingishungrychemistry*

    Not wrong per se just very sexist.
    some background information: I’m a man and I work in a VERY gendered industry (primary education), also when I have the energy for it I’m pretty goddamn good at baking.

    so my first year at my job we were doing a pre-thanksgiving potluck and I signed up to bring cookies.
    I’d had a few chocolate chip cookie+ recipes I’d been itching to try so I figured now was as good a time as any.

    so I started with a base of my slightly modified toll house cookies (a pinch more vanilla and brown sugar, a little less white sugar). one batch I added a bit of mint extract to the chocolate, one batch had homemade toffee chunks in it, one batch had cinnamon toffee chunks in it (again, homemade) and one batch had mashed up pretzel bits.
    also I used Ghirardelli chocolate that I broke into chunks.

    suffice it to say they came out FABULOUSLY and like nobody ate the store bought ones the secretary brought. where it’s a little cringe though is NOBODY thought I made them and everyone either insinuated that my girlfriend made them (which like she helped but more prep and cleanup) or my mom made them (which is hilarious because I think my mom would burn water).

    ironically in my family with the exception of my sister in law NONE of the women can cook, the family chefs are myself kinda (I’m good at what I’m good at) my dad and holy shit my brother in law.

    but nope, I’m a guy so clearly I can’t bake

      1. Cookingishungrychemistry*

        so it’s the standard toll house recipie but before you make the batter take a medium sized ziploc bag and fill it about a half to 2/3rds with the thin salted hard pretzels (I like road gold but you don’t want the like super mini ones and they should be thin) then you seal the bag up really well, find an open area of wall and practice your fastball about 3 times. (3 for luck)

        then you empty the bag into your batter and mix it using a motorized stand mixer

    2. purple sox*

      yeah, I hear you. I was at a small start-up once, and our first year my male colleague and I (female) had pumpkin-pie contest. Years later, and now a much bigger company I had some new-hires ask about the pie contest with male-colleague’s wife. I always gave the dead-pan stare, ad say: why do you think men can’t bake?

    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      My dad is the person who taught me to bake. My mother is a lovely person who has zero interest in baking. (She learned to bake one kind of cake and one kind of pie, because it was expected for her generation. Once I was old enough to handle the oven on my own, I did her potluck and entertainment baking. And she was quite honest that her preteen/teen daughter made whatever dessert people were enjoying.)

    4. Outofthepool*

      My son is also a teacheris a female-dominated school in the Midwest. The first year he was there they had a potluck and he brought in homemade foccacia. Literally the only thing that did not include jello, Betty Crocker, or a can of Campbell’s soup.

    5. Manders*

      I worked at a company that had a branch in California and one in Kentucky. They created an internal website so the employees could get to know each other (since the two branches worked together a lot, even if in different locations). The hobbies listed cracked me up. The rural KY branch – all the women listed baking, sewing, crafting as their hobbies, and all the men listed hunting, fishing, etc. The CA branch – pretty much all of the men AND women listed cooking, baking, and reading as their hobbies.

  104. Euphony*

    My department recently had it’s annual strategy away day at a local hotel and conference centre. Lunch was a weird mix of cold sandwiches and a few hot items. By the time I got to the front of the line there were just a few mangled sandwich remnants left but plenty of hot food. Which was potato wedges, some very dry chicken skewers and vegan watermelon skewers. Normally I love watermelon, but it turns out that grilling it removes everything that is enjoyable about watermelon. Instead of crisp refreshing bites, it was a lukewarm flavourless slimy mess. Bleurgh!

    1. Peon*

      Grilling watermelon sounds so weird to me. Pineapple is fabulous grilled, why wouldn’t they have just done that?!

  105. Marketing Queen*

    Our lovely and fun office holiday party at a hotel with dinner ended with the entire office taken out by norovirus. Like, the whole office. Even people who didn’t attend the party because it took us all out in waves and sick people went into the office not realizing what was about to happen. So that was fun.

    1. Artemesia*

      One of the consequences of low pay and no sick leave and no health coverage for food service workers is that they work sick. I have stood outside a restaurant restroom and heard someone being violently sick and then watched the cook walk out and go back to cooking.

  106. Kayem*

    At OldJob, a family member (Chris) worked in another department for a department head (Fergus) who never washed his hands. Fergus’s infamy was well known in other departments as they witnessed everything from picking his nose then grabbing the coffee carafe, to walking straight out of the bathroom without washing hands after long, noisy, bowel sessions. All of us from other departments noticed this because it was so obvious, but somehow no one in Fergus’s department noticed. It wasn’t that they were just pretending to keep the peace, when asked, they would offer blank stares and insist we must be mistaken.

    Fergus also organized monthly BBQ potlucks and his dishes were always the star of the potluck. From what I heard, he could have been a great cook if it wasn’t for his total lack of hygiene. He never wore gloves when handling food. Unsurprisingly, everyone in that department either called out sick or came to work feeling terrible within a few days of the potluck. Every single time. They always made excuses like “I ate too much” or that it must have been too spicy.

    Chris raved about how great Fergus’s dishes were and looked forward to the potluck. He always offered to bring me some and I was like oh hell no and family member would get exasperated. Apparently I was “being weird.” Sure, I might be weird, but at least I don’t have to worry about vomiting and crippling diarrhea after eating wings.

    1. StarTrek Nutcase*

      I never understand how those who cook for non-family (so work) events don’t ramp up their hygiene & food care. At a potluck for board members, our executive director decided to cook her meat sauce in the office kitchen. So several times I go to get a soda or water, and see her stirring and tasting with the same big spoon. I was so grossed out.

      If I don’t mouth kiss someone, I don’t want to eat food they’ve been using the same utensil in or double dipping. When a coworker asked me why I didn’t try exec’s dish, I told her. Gossip meant eventually all workers knew. At future food events, only non-workers ever ate her food. And this prompted me to never eat at work potlucks even at future jobs.

      IMO Equally nasty are people who touch their face & hair -without washing hands- and then touch food being cut up or assembled. (This is why I can’t watch Rachel Ray anymore.)

      1. NotTheSameAaron*

        One dish I never touch at potlucks is potato salad. It’s the usual culprit for getting food poisoning.

  107. Lily*

    I can’t resist telling this story, though it’s technically not a work party.

    Years ago, now, I was at a convention for a social group (think Science Fiction Con, although not). This was held in a large, mid-level hotel with banquet facilities. We had an awards banquet on Saturday night in the hotel ballroom, and in those days, hotel catering meant rubber chicken for the main meal. There might be alternatives, but they were usually terrifying, and it was wise to just be aware that it would be rubber chicken. Well, we weren’t there for the food, it wasn’t our first rodeo, no big deal.

    Except the food was over an hour late. Stone cold. And unusually, extra, extra, EXTRA rubbery. Completely inedible, and probably a vector for food poisoning. A vote was taken, at my table, and a collection. (There may have been alcohol involved.) I was deputed to find a local pizza joint and order enough pizzas for our table. I did so. The banquet continued, the entertainment, the awards, and then our pizza arrived, and we fell on it like starving wolves.

    After I had paid the driver (and gulped a slice of pizza), I got to feeling a bit guilty. We were visiting the town, but this guy had to live here, and I had just asked him to do something pretty rude, delivering this pizza to the hotel ballroom. So I chased him down and apologized (remember, alcohol.)

    “Oh,” he said to me, “don’t worry about it at all. I deliver to this ballroom about once a week.”

    2. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      On the subject of SF con banquets, the song “Bouncing Potatoes”, written by Poul Anderson about the banquet at the 1966 Westercon, was still sung in fandom at least as recently as the 2018 Worldcon…(I haven’t been able to get to a Worldcon since, so I can’t vouch for more recent years.)

      Lyrics here: https://fancyclopedia.org/Bouncing_Potatoes

      I wish I could find an annotated version, since even I, someone who was not alive at the time, know additional details of what inspired several of those verses, but I have not been able to locate one online.

  108. Office Drone*

    My old office had a staff lunch once a month in honor of the office birthdays that month. Everyone was expected to take turns on the monthly Birthday Committee to arrange for the meal, set up, and clean up for the lunch.

    One month, I was on the committee and everyone (except me) decided that they liked the sandwiches offered by a nearby caterer. (I had no problem with the food, I just wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea.) But I was delegated to set up a “tasting”—just so the committee could make a final decision, I was told.

    The caterer was taken aback at the idea of a tasting for an office lunch but agreed, and we all went over and tried out the sandwiches. The food was nice. But when we got back to the office, the majority decided that the sandwiches weren’t “special enough” and wanted something else.

    And because I had been delegated to set up the “tasting,” I was left to explain to a now angry caterer that the committee would be going in “another direction.” I think she suspected that the committee just wanted free food. Frankly, I couldn’t blame her.

    After that, I made sure not to get roped into setting up anything with vendors. If anyone wanted to “sample” food for birthday lunches I helped plan, I insisted that person be the one to deal with the potential vendors.

    1. Gumby*

      Wow. And this is why we paid for the food we ate when doing a BBQ tasting for a company party. I think the place did a mix/combo of things that you couldn’t normally get in one meal for us, but we paid for the meal. There may have been an “if you end up ordering from us we’ll take the cost of your meal off of the order total” situation. Or maybe not. (I was along to give opinions not to actually organize anything. It pays to be friends with the office manager!)

  109. Cedrus Libani*

    In college, I was an instructor at a biology camp for high school students. Towards the end of the program, we had an awards ceremony at a nice Italian restaurant. For whatever reason (my money is on…well, money) the catering was standard American fare, meaning burgers and hot dogs, though these were not things the restaurant typically sold.

    We were staying in a dormitory. Shared bathrooms. Let’s just say those bathrooms were put to heavy use…every single person who ate the burgers spent most of the night in there. (I’m an omnivore but not terribly fond of cheap-ass burgers, so I only ate the hot dogs. The vegetarians were fine too.)

    Most of the campers were flying home that morning, which must’ve been an adventure. But there was also an extended program, what we affectionately referred to as the “Big Bag of Dead Animals” – that’s exactly what it sounds like, each camper would be given a variety pack of dissection specimens and would spend the next several days working with them. It’s got quite a smell to it, even at the best of times. These were not the best of times. The day started with me, the lone healthy adult who was supposed to be crowd control for the med/vet students rather than the main instructor, and a couple of students. As the day went on, people would trickle in, nope right back out, attempt to watch and/or teach from a safe distance out in the hallway, then have to go lie down, etc. It was…memorable.

  110. LemonDrops*

    I previous job I had just gotten promoted, and normally the office holds a small little party in honor of one’s promotion. Around the same time though, my office had another co-worker leaving to another branch across country. I was approached and asked if I was interested in sharing my congratulation party with his farewell party. Of course I said yes. I also said that I’d be out of town for a certain week looking for housing in prep for a move to a new position myself.

    Time passed. I didn’t hear anything else about the combined party, so I left for my house hunting trip with a bit of a shrug. When I came back from my trip I heard what had happened – the office ultimately decided to throw a breakfast and a lunch for me, my coworker who was leaving, and another co-worker who had another celebratory event. Turns out they didn’t coordinate it at all and none of the three guests of honor were actually at any of the parties. It was just another food day at the office!

  111. fiona the baby hippo*

    I worked at a trendy digital media company that had a massive open floor plan that flowed directly into a massive open lunch room/kitchen area. Because it was a trendy company, free food was always flowing in. Sometimes it was stuff for everyone with the entire office taken into account, sometimes it was up for grabs to all but incredibly limited, sometimes it was for special meetings only certain teams were invited to. It bred a kind of chaotic free-for-all energy that was both fun (who knows what you might find!) and cut-throat. Since it was a common space with no formal reservation system that was made known to the rest of us, it also felt like a place where any and everyone could set up food for the office. Which means that, when a particularly popular fast food chain emailed me and offered to set up a nacho cheese fountain for us, I of course said yes. It was a hit, nacho cheese went everywhere, we all helped clean it up, and I got in trouble from the founders for doing something so “off-brand.”

  112. Candy(wo)man*

    Not awry here, but a previous job had a Thanksgiving potluck. Tuesday before Thanksgiving, management provided the turkey, employees brought sides, desserts and accoutrements, no work got done that afternoon, there was usually enough food that whoever was in the office on TDay Eve got a second lunch. Good times.

    I regularly made a candy that other folks enjoyed, and they would confirm that I was bringing every year. Then one year we moved offices, and there was radio silence on the potluck. I went on vacation mid-November, the potluck having not been mentioned at all. Until I am hiking a volcano and get a text from my manager “[Boss] says you’re fired.” Somehow in the 5 days I’d been gone, the potluck had been scheduled, planned, and executed, a week earlier than usual, and I was not there with candy.

    (This is probably a good time to mention that I had a good relationship with my manager and my boss, and was in no way worried about being fired.)

    I came back to work the following week to a score of (good-natured) emails saying “Candy?” and a petition on the company wiki signed by 37 people, asking for candy.

    In the interest of office camaraderie, I made a quadruple batch of candy in mid-December. It was gone in an hour. (This part did go slightly awry. Pro tip: when using the giant stand mixer, the powdered sugar goes in first, not last, unless you like powdered sugar cat paw prints all over your apartment.)

    I still get messages from former coworkers saying they miss the candy.

  113. LabRat4Life*

    Working at a state public health lab, and we once were rewarded with a potluck catered by a well known sandwich chain whose name resembles a means of mass transportation. Everyone enjoyed their sandwiches and went about their days. Then we were all sick for the next 3 days. The irony of the public health lab all getting food poisoning was not lost on us!

  114. Jenna Hunterson*

    A few years back, my grandboss decided we should have a Thanksgiving potluck. I got on the sign up sheet fast enough to get a spot for dessert, which I was super pumped about. I love baking pies, and had been dying for an excuse to make pies for my colleagues; we can’t eat in our office due to the materials we work with, so we aren’t a place where people will randomly bring in treats.

    I make completely homemade pumpkin pie. I made the dang pumpkin filling myself! I bring it in with a can of whipped cream because, well, convention says pumpkin pie needs whipped cream, and I didn’t have a mixer to use to make homemade at the time, so canned would do. Put the pie and whipped cream on the buffet and leave to go get in line. From across the room, I see a completely clueless colleague (CCC) pick up the can of whipped cream and proceed to spray it all over my pie BUT he didn’t shake it first, which meant a bunch of runny whipped cream juice came out instead of normal whipped cream. Who does that?! There are people (me) who don’t want whipped cream on their pie, or want to apply their own whipped cream. If I’d meant for it to be served with whipped cream on it instead of being self serve, I would have done that before putting the pie down, CCC. Anyway, no one (including myself, it looked gross and like I’d done something wrong to it) wanted to eat my pie with runny whipped cream, so I ended up taking the entire thing home, soaking up the runny stuff with a paper towel, and scooping out the rest of the whipped cream so I could at least eat the filling and bottom crust. I honestly think the worst part is that CCC didn’t even eat a slice of it himself.

    I may still be overly salty about this and have a slight grudge against CCC.

    2. violin squeaks*

      This is family related, not work, but the levels of saltiness are the same and it’s about pumpkin pie.

      Last year I signed up for and made an absolutely gorgeous pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, complete with pie-crust leaves and homemade sugared cranberries on top. It was wonderful. My sister brought a small store-bought pumpkin pie that she had not signed up for. That in itself made me a little mad, but what sent me over the edge was when my teenaged daughter went to get a slice of pie, my sister’s boyfriend cut a piece of the crappy pie and insisted she take it.

  115. Cookies For Breakfast*

    When getting to know my new colleagues at a fully remote workplace, two of them, Bill and Bob, told me they were vegan. Neither is in my team and I speak to them very rarely.

    Shortly after I joined, we had an in-person team event, and planned for people to bring in snacks from their parts of the world / different cultures. I made a biscuit recipe from my home country. It suits many dietary restrictions, but vegan it is not (it involves egg whites). Many people were bringing food, so I figured there would be something for everyone.

    On the day, I added a post-it note next to my biscuits: “no gluten, no dairy, no nuts”. Sounded clear enough to me.

    I then sat down to eat. I was next to Bob, who asked what my biscuits were made with, and established he couldn’t eat them (there were, indeed, plenty of other things he could go for). Right then, Bill walked past us with a half-bitten biscuit in hand, looking very pleased, thanking me because he liked it very much. He didn’t stop to chat, so I didn’t stop to think.

    I didn’t realise what I’d just seen until later, at the pub, when Bill launched into a passionate speech about why everyone should embrace veganism. Mortification scenarios ran through my head. Do I tell him? Here, in front of everyone? Privately? Do I just keep quiet? Of course it’s my fault, why didn’t I write “contains egg” alongside all the other things on the post-it note?

    I barely knew the man, so I kept quiet. I convinced myself that maybe, just maybe, he was a vegetarian who hadn’t yet fully committed to a vegan lifestyle, and knew what he was doing. And readers, that was the case. But I learned that in an unrelated situation, over a year later. In the meantime, Bill’s delighted face as he bit into a biscuit haunted me every time I made the recipe or saw him.

  116. Green Goose*

    I have a light-hearted one:
    Background: I lived in Seoul, South Korea for a couple of years and pizza places were really popular. But, their style of pizza is not what you would expect if you grew up eating pizza in the US/Europe. The pizzas tended to be really sweet, and there would be toppings on it that sounded like a Ninja Turtle pizza (corn, sweet potato paste, potato wedges). For example, the first time I had pizza and garlic bread I was a bit horrified to find that the “salt” on top of my garlic bread was actually sugar. I know plenty of people in Korea loved sweet pizzas but I never adjusted and neither did my friends.

    One of my Scottish friends was surprised by her boss and coworkers with a pizza party for their employee Christmas. They said they specifically picked pizza since my friend was Scottish, so they wanted to pick a food that she “was familiar with and would remind her of home”. She WAS so excited until they opened the boxes and the school had opted for pizza that had the crust filled with custard (it was not supposed to be a desert) and the toppings were a seafood medley with custard and ketchup drizzled all over cheese and sauce.
    She said she had to sadly gulp down a slice of the most horrible pizza she had ever eaten because she didn’t want to hurt their feelings and they were all so excited that she got to enjoy a “real Scottish Christmas” party.

    1. Peon*

      Oh gosh, I can just picture it! I had a lovely Russian host family server me a “proper American meal” of cold fried chicken and boiled potatoes for breakfast. But at least it was tasty, I don’t think I could have faced custard AND ketchup AND seafood on a pizza.

  117. Mystic*

    Here’s one for you. Catered.
    I work government, and due to Hurricane Ian we had to travel around the state to assist people. We’d be in tents, and then there was employee tent a little bit aways from where all our clients were. Employees were supposed to get breakfast, a morning snack, a lunch, an evening snack, and dinner-all catered, all free. Sounds good so far.
    There was no morning snack, but that’s fine, lunch will be good…lunch was hotdogs and a bag of chips. Some got 2 hotdogs, some got one, some were warm, some were cold…and we ran out before the people at the end of the rotating lunch schedule got theirs. They ended up having to run out and get some subs for them or they had to skip lunch. There was some chips for the evening snack. I don’t remember what the dinner was, but i’d heard more of the same-not the best.

  118. Mayor of Llamatown*

    This isn’t a potluck story, but…

    At my last job, our team was the scapegoat for so many things. Our budget was miniscule. No matter what we did, there was never enough money for anything.

    We had a huge system replacement we had to do a ton of work to prepare for. Think like a year’s worth of it taking up 90% of our working time. No one was pleased about there being a change – not our team, not the team it impacted, not the end users. But in the end, we really went above and beyond to get the change implemented, supported it through the transition phase, and it happened very smoothly. We were all exhausted and burned out, but we all felt satisfied with how it went. Gold stars for us.

    Site director said she wanted to have a celebration lunch for it. She promised food ordered in from a local Mexican restaurant that was a favorite of everyone. We get into the meeting room and the buffet is kind of small…we all help ourselves and sit down, happily eating and chit chatting for five minutes, and then…

    Site Director turns on the overhead projector. There’s a PPT. She’s sharing the strategic plan for the next year. Full of projects that have insane deadlines, no budget, and unachievable objectives. More of the usual. And the presentation goes on for 45 minutes. In the end, we had five minutes at the end to ask questions, then we cleaned up our lunch and went back to our cubes.

    My direct boss said later that the only way the Site Director could get away with buying us lunch was to turn it into a strategic plan presentation. And then instead of just quickly running through the slides, she took up the whole meeting – whoops, I mean party (/sarcasm). She never even mentioned the successful project or said thank you.

    I’m so glad I don’t work there.

  119. Dry Erase Afficionado*

    Years ago, I went to a holiday party with my boyfriend. It was at a club downtown that they had rented out, and there was a locally famous musician scheduled to play. Dinner was set up on buffet tables on the second level and there were tables scattered about, but definitely not enough for the number of people in attendance. And there was an open bar. Multiple, in fact.

    The line to get dinner was excruciatingly long. We waited in line for more than 45 minutes, including snaking up the stairs in line, while people with full plates were trying to get down the stairs. But people kept leaving the line to get drinks since there were more bars than food lines. By the time we got to the buffet tables we were well and truly drunk and approached a table to find a chaffing dish with like 3 gray pieces of turkey, the crusty dregs of mash potatoes warmed over sterno, and nary a cheap ass roll in sight. And there were still 50+ people in line behind us.

    There was just a complete disconnect between the number of people, the venue, and the catering layout and quantities.

  120. ragazza*

    Not really a story about a disaster or hilarious shenanigans, but at a former employer, I remember a catered lunch where all of the men left their garbage on the conference table for someone else to pick up. All of the women put theirs in the trash can IN THE ROOM and cleaned up after the men.

    2. StarTrek Nutcase*

      I have experienced this but at the 2d occurrence made an agreement with only other female that we would not touch the men’s leavings ever. Later, a supervisor (M) mentioned the mess that was left and I clearly said I don’t bus tables for others and that I and female coworker had bussed ours. He said it was such a minor thing and I said “I agree and so I’m sure the men can handle it”. (At this late stage of my work life and at 50+, I stopped caring about being the “nice girl”. It was liberating.)

  121. ABJ*

    Not a potluck but this Halloween we had a voluntary office wide lunch to see of everyone’s costumes and decorations. (We’re a big Halloween office).

    My department had planned to do a group potluck but ditched the idea for this lunch. Under 40% of the staff came. Once we got there, we were each given one small slice of pizza. I figured I’d get another slice from the leftovers but at the end there were 3 slices left.

  122. ??*

    company A was a smaller company bought out by a much bigger company-company B. company A had always had fun things for their employees, they rented out a theme park for employees and their families, and always had nice catered events for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
    Company B did away with all that and grudeningly allowed company A to have a potluck for Thanksgiving. someone bought in cheap deli meat, with a sign that said ‘From Company B’. it was all funny until a rep. from company B showed up to the potluck.

  123. Coffee Time*

    I worked at a childcare center where we requested that parents not send peanuts or peanut butter in their child’s lunches- a rule that’s pretty common in spaces with school-age children! Parents are generally aware of this rule! We hosted a Thanksgiving potluck, and families signed up to bring food. One of the categories you could sign up for was cooking a turkey provided by the center (you come pick it up, cook it at home, then bring it to the potluck). We only had 10 turkeys, and one parent took 2 of them. He arrived that night with beautifully cooked and carved turkeys, and (thank goodness) off-handedly mentioned to a staff member that he had cooked them both in peanut oil. We quickly whisked the meat away from the serving tables and to the back of the prep kitchen, adding big “peanuts!” signs on the containers. We ended up giving that meat to staff to take home with them, and fortunately the potluck had enough non-deadly meat and other sides to satiate the families and children who attended.

  124. Jules the First*

    The most memorable office catering disaster was the year my then-employer threw a black tie holiday party for almost 400 staff in the basement of a museum (very hip), which was nearly pitch black, and decided that passed cocktails and food were a good idea. Servers circulated the room with neon cocktails for several hours before the first tray of food appeared, so we were reasonably smashed by the time food arrived. At which point it became blindingly obvious that the caterer and the party planner had experienced a failure in communication. The food turned out to be little dishes of mac and cheese and little cones of ribs on the bone. There were no utensils, no napkins, and no tables. But we were all very hungry and mostly drunk. So the party quickly degenerated into a picnic on the concrete floor where we ate gloopy mac and cheese and sticky ribs with our fingers as the servers tiptoed through the crowd in the dark trying not to step on anyone while the hungry hordes tried to mug things off the trays without getting up. Judging by the state of my dress the next morning, I’m not sure who I feel more sorry for, the museum cleaning crew or the staff at the drycleaner next to the office who must have cleaned upward of two hundred barbecue-stained tuxedos that week.

    The most memorable good office food experience was the year (at a different company) our big boss’ wife decided it would be fun to have a whole hog for the Christmas party dinner and our in-house chef/catering manager somehow managed to roast a whole hog *in one of our meeting rooms on the 12th floor of an office block*. While also producing a full menu of sides and a divine vegan stew for our non-meat eaters with a single portable burner and a compact microwave. He was a legend.

  125. Just me, Vee*

    I’m late to the party, but just remembered years ago, the department I worked in had a potluck. A coworker brought a crockpot of Shrimp Etouffee. BUT, there was no free outlet in our department in which to plug the crockpot. What did she do? She plugged in into the outlet in the ladies bathroom! And then got offended when no one wanted to eat any of it.

  126. Sarah*

    One year, as a team building activity, my company had us go to a local farm that was one of the big attractions of the city, and the activity was for us to prepare our own 1890’s style meal working with a wood fired stove, campfire, and other 19th century tools and skills. They broke us into groups and each group prepared a part of the meal. The worst part was was that it was outdoors on a 96 degree day, and some of the work was strenuous and difficult. The people who worked there were supposed to be there to help but if you asked them questions they were super vague and kind of patronizing. There were SO many issues, like not enough cooking utensils, the campfire stove took way too long boil water for the potatoes, and… one person literally had a heart attack and had to go to the ER. When we finished we had to sit on picnic tables outdoors, and we all looked ragged like we’d BEEN through something traumatic. Then after all that, we all had to clean the tables and wash all the dishes, take the trash out, etc. Almost no one was into it, and we haven’t done a team building activity since.

    1. Caliente Papillon*

      This has got to be the worst team building activity I’ve ever heard of! Why on earth would anyone ever want to cook food like in the 1800’s?! There’s a reason there has been progress.
      And the heart attack?! Was that in the middle of the day? Did everyone just get back to work after that?

      1. Cedrus Libani*

        Honestly, I would’ve been into that event, but it’s not the sort of thing you can do with a big diverse group that’s not pre-selected for a common interest. There’s a reason that events that have to appeal to everyone (team-building events, weddings, etc) have a reputation for being bland and boring; that’s what they’re supposed to be. Save the flavor, whether it’s historical re-enactments, bacon-themed potlucks, or whatever, to people who have given informed and enthusiastic consent.

      2. Sarah*

        Right?!? It was like an episode of The Office gone wrong. Not everyone even knew about the heart attack until the end, and when we found out we were horrified. She ended up being ok, but that could have taken such a dark turn.

  127. QOTM31*

    A previous company went on an employee engagement campaign that revolved around food potlucks and contests. That February they decided to have a Valentine baking competition. Various senior leaders were asked to judge this; I was asked but sadly, so very sadly, I declined due to my nut allergies. My boss and grandboss both ended up being judges, meaning they both had to sample over 30 of the ultra chocolatiest desserts employees could create. It was Valentines Day – everyone did chocolate overload. Every single one. Both bosses came out green, sweating, and went home early.

  128. Turkeycastrophy*

    It was a hunting event (deer culling at a state park) with a catered meal. I took one bite of the main dish – turkey – and didn’t care for it. But one bite was enough. I and the majority of the employees (except the vegetarian) as well as the hunters became horribly ill. My boss opened the fridge containing the turkey the next day and the smell of rotted meat just filled the room.

    Ends up the caterer had left the turkey in her car for HOURS unrefrigerated. She took out the whole park for days.

  129. Semi-retired admin*

    I’ve been a vegetarian for over 25 years. I do eat eggs and dairy, so I’m really not that hard to accommodate, and am typically ok with salad and bread if that’s all that’s available. At the party honoring my retirement after 20+ years, the plan was a spread of appetizers. The chef on staff who was doing the catering did not want to make the menu vegetarian. The person organizing pushed back, he relented and said he would do one vegetarian appetizer. She told him that wasn’t good enough since, you know, it’s a party for a vegetarian. He ended up making two vegetarian items. TWO. At my own party, on a table loaded with apps, there were just two things that I could eat.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      As an event planner, I’m cringing at your story. Fortunately, I’ve never had to yell at a caterer, but in this type of situation, I very much would yell. And then find somebody else willing to provide enough food for the person who was being honoured.

  130. nnn*

    Not so much “go wrong”, but kind of weird:

    Jane joined us mid-career, and, without even taking a minute to read the room, dove head-first into event planning, including monthly potlucks (which we’d never had before her arrival.)

    After a couple of potlucks, some of us pitched the idea of a hybrid potluck, where you can either bring a dish or contribute money, and the money goes to ordering pizza or sushi or whatever makes sense.

    The hybrid idea was very popular, with most people opting to contribute money.

    Including Jane.

    Starting from the second month after the hybrid idea was pitched, every single month Jane would be like “~*~Potluck signup!!!~*~” and every single month she’d contribute money. It soon became more of a “monthly pizza party except Maria brings her amazing brownies instead of chipping in for pizza”, but Jane was still calling it a potluck.

  131. Jasmine*

    A very hospitable young woman in our congregation often hosted dinners. At one gathering all the food was on the table and starting to get cold. I asked the hostess if we were going to eat soon. She said the person who volunteered to bring plates had not arrived. She had called her and she replied that we should start without her! I advised the hostess to use any and all odd serving dish she had in her kitchen so we started. Later told her, If you know someone is always late have them bring dessert or fruit.

  132. Locke*

    At my office we get lunch catered once a week, which is a pretty great RTO benefit. Typically once everyone has eaten, anyone who particularly enjoyed the food will grab a doggie bag- we’re provided normal/individual sized takeout containers for this. Shortly after starting, a member of my team became notorious for literally just stacking up the large serving trays in a huge pile and carrying them out to take home. Every single one. I knew them well enough to tell you it wasn’t a financial thing, they just didn’t see anything wrong with it. They’ve been gone for 6 months now and it’s still remarked upon on occasion, lol

  133. Mrs. Hawiggins*

    I think I told this one once too.
    Mr. Tudball (aka my husband)’s company had a chili cook off. He loved to participate in years past but this year he had a serious lunch meeting with a vendor. He and his boss and a couple other managers went. They got the account.

    They were also six out of 50 people left in the building around 3:00 that day, who didn’t get GI episodes, an allergic reaction with swelling and hives, and a second degree burn on the person who forgot the Crock Pot was still excruciatingly hot.

    Gimme a cheap ass roll any day.

  134. food snob*

    I work for a small gourmet grocery store, whose owners once spent a ton of money on a local inspirational speaker to host a “customer service” seminar for our staff members. Our executive chef catered the seminar and had talked endlessly about his plans for the weeks leading up to it. He’d been butting heads with a lot of staff already because of his ego and lack of follow through, so a lot of people were downright gleeful at how totally disappointing that meal was. A very basic salad with an unsalted pasta dish consisting of half cooked tomato quarters and mushy squash. There were a lot of half filled plates when it was time to clean up!

  135. Chirpy*

    The last potluck we had at work was…bad. The woman who has often been seen coughing (no attempt to cover her mouth at all, ever, always a hacking cough) over platters of cookies and other food brought a questionable cold bean salad. The guy who brags about his brother the chef brought his usual massive sheet pan of slightly watery bland potato salad. Another guy brought a giant crock pot of watery, flavorless chili, talked it up all day, then asked everyone individually how they liked it. There was some kind of jello cottage cheese abomination….and that was it. Management brought pulled pork and tiny buns like always, but pretty much everyone has given up. There was only one bag of chips because most people didn’t even want to go that far. We’re not paid enough to spend money on our coworkers’ lunches and there’s been too many issues with people with horrible hygiene (one former employee was known to stick his unwashed hands in the dishes…he cleaned the bathrooms…)

    Basically, almost nobody participated so they wouldn’t have to eat anything.

  136. Ebar*

    I had two work Christmas dinners that went sideways. The first was a buffet affair in a venue far too small. Some people went for seconds before other had got firsts and the food ran out before everyone got fed. The other the venue obviously had too small a kitchen, food was coming out so slowly some tables were onto desert before others has received their starters. By the time the food reach my table the Chair of institute had left for another appointment.

    I ate her dinner as well as my own.

  137. Sam*

    This wasn’t a party, and wasn’t technically my employer’s fault, but I got food poisoning twice at a company sponsored lunch.

    It was my first job out of college, and they were giving us all some training before we started. There were some other issues with this experience that I won’t get into here, but they provided lunch for us while we were training. I’m vegan, and has been for a long time, and they agreed to provide vegan options for me.

    Before this particular training, we had some other onboarding stuff in a different location, and there were also some issues with that although I did not get food poisoning.

    The staff who were preparing the food were wonderful, and were trying their hardest, but when they asked me if I wanted some tofu or something for protein my employer was insistent that it was too expensive? Like, I’ll pay the $4 for a block of tofu for meals for a week? But whatever, I had food, even if it was mostly potatoes and broccolini.

    But at the second location they had the food catered from some local sandwich fast food chain. Not subway, but the same idea.

    The first day, I ate some of the sandwich before realizing that there was cheese in it. I didn’t eat the rest of it, and I let someone know about it, reminding them that I could not have dairy. They apologized and said they’d correct it for next time.

    Later that day, I started feeling terrible, bad cramps and nauseous and generally unable to really focus on the lessons we were learning about java. However, I just chalked it up to having accidentally eaten some dairy when I haven’t had any in years and lactose intolerance runs in the family.

    The next day, I double checked my sandwich before eating it to make sure there was no dairy anywhere. It looked fine, so I ate my sandwich and thought nothing more of it until a few hours later when once again I had really bad cramps, nausea, dizziness and that low blood pressure feeling where everything goes grey.

    I actually had to lie down on the floor at one point, and people were pretty concerned about me.

    Eventually it passed, but after that I did not touch any more of those sandwiches. I don’t remember anymore if I asked them for something else, if I brought my own food, or what, but I will not eat at Jason’s Deli in Arizona anymore.

  138. Sam*

    This wasn’t a party, and wasn’t technically my employer’s fault, but I got food poisoning twice at a company sponsored lunch.

    It was my first job out of college, and they were giving us all some training before we started. There were some other issues with this experience that I won’t get into here, but they provided lunch for us while we were training. I’m vegan, and have been for a long time, and they agreed to provide vegan options for me (though I did offer to just pack lunches).

    Before this particular training, we had some other onboarding stuff in a different location, and there were also some issues with that although I did not get food poisoning.

    The staff who were preparing the food were wonderful, and were trying their hardest, but when they asked me if I wanted some tofu or something for protein my employer was insistent that it was too expensive? Like, I’ll pay the $4 for a block of tofu for meals for a week? But whatever, I had food, even if it was mostly potatoes and broccolini.

    But at the second location they had the food catered from some local sandwich fast food chain. Not subway, but the same idea.

    The first day, I ate some of the sandwich before realizing that there was cheese in it. I didn’t eat the rest of it, and I let someone know about it, reminding them that I could not have dairy. They apologized and said they’d correct it for next time.

    Later that day, I started feeling terrible, bad cramps and nauseous and generally unable to really focus on the lessons we were learning about java. However, I just chalked it up to having accidentally eaten some dairy when I haven’t had any in years and lactose intolerance runs in the family.

    The next day, I double checked my sandwich before eating it to make sure there was no dairy anywhere. It looked fine, so I ate my sandwich and thought nothing more of it until a few hours later when once again I had really bad cramps, nausea, dizziness and that low blood pressure feeling where everything goes grey.

    I actually had to lie down on the floor at one point, and people were pretty concerned about me.

    Eventually it passed, but after that I did not touch any more of those sandwiches. I don’t remember anymore if I asked them for something else, if I brought my own food, or what, but I will not eat at Jason’s Deli in Arizona anymore.

  139. Soupspoon McGee*

    Ugh, my office has potlucks and provides the meat entrees. We also work with vendors who provide lunches occasionally. I’m vegetarian, and I dread these things. I’m a good baker, but if I want to eat, I have to bring an entree that I can eat. It shouldn’t hurt my feelings that the office gestures to bring people together are exclusive, but it does.

  140. S*

    When I interviewed for my first job out of college, most of my interviews included lunch. For context, I am a female software engineer and I was interviewing at a lot of heavily young-male-dominated startups. Two of these meals were particularly disastrous:

    1. The hiring manager took me to a BBQ restaurant. I scoured the menu for something to eat that would not be too messy, but ultimately any BBQ is going to be difficult. He didn’t order anything because he was vegetarian. He proceeded to watch me eat pulled pork while he asked me to solve logic puzzles and riddles to “assess my critical thinking skills”. I didn’t get the job.

    2. Another place I interviewed took me to a literal hot dog stand. I had to sit in my business casual interview attire at a picnic table and eat one of those comically large hot dogs while trying to make small talk. I did get that job though!

    1. Wolf*

      I don’t get the pint of lunch interviews. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m either having a full meal or doing a full technical interview. Not both at once. Either give me an interview with a snack, or do the interview first, then a meal with smalltalk about the company culture.

  141. NotTheSameAaron*

    I spent a lot of time making a Jello salad dish for our yearly potluck. It went untouched all through the supper, but when I went to pick it up afterward, the whole dish was gone! I could never get anyone to admit to taking it, but I did have a good reason to just buy a small cake the next few years. If anyone asked why, I just brought up that incident and they would go silent.

  142. Jo*

    The secret ingredient was…plastic!

    Many years ago, a colleague made a crockpot dish for an after-work office celebration. The dish was delicious – every morsel eaten.

    Days later, the co-worker confided in me when he dropped his supplies in the kitchen early that morning, he plugged in the crockpot not realizing it on, in fact set on “high”. Inside the crockpot were the tomatoes he planned to use IN A PLASTIC PRODUCE BAG. At lunchtime, he went to assemble his dish so it could heat all afternoon. The plastic bag had completely melted into the now-cooked tomatoes. Not sure what to do (???), he just added the rest of the ingredients, let it cook all afternoon and served it!

    1. MJM*

      I’m read a lot of rude stories on this site, but for me this is the worst, allowing people to eat plastic cause he was too lazy to clean it out and start over or just not serve anything at all.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      It’s always fascinating to me when people just can’t see an alternative because their brain gets locked onto something. It clearly didn’t occur to your colleague to just go to the store instead of serving plastic to everyone!

      1. Artemesia*

        or just scrape out the plastic/tomatoes, wipe out the crockpot and go with the other ingredients if he didn’t have a can of tomatoes.

  143. Lindy*

    I’m the admin at a ~40 person in office. We get lunches catered pretty regularly. A few people recently have asked when we’re having a potluck. Every time my answer is “No. We are not doing that.” because of how many horror stories I’ve read at AAM (and because the pandemic taught me that people don’t wash their hands often or well enough).

  144. Wolf*

    We recently had an email. It said:

    * Please do not take buffets that aren’t for you.

    * Especially not when they’re for visiting business partners.

    * Especially not when said business partners haven’t had any food yet, and the buffet is obviously untouched and not leftovers.

    * Also, kindly return the coffee decanter.

    Since this email went to all staff, we’re really curious who had the balls to waltz into a meeting room, eat an entire untouched buffet and steal the coffee decanter. I get taking one sandwich (still rude if it wasn’t open to others, but I get it), but wtf is this.

  145. Euphony*

    I was working from home on Halloween when an email was sent to the whole department about free Halloween goodie bags for everyone in the office . Which was then closely followed by an email explaining that the skeletons were not edible!
    I spent the rest of the day imagining different ways someone might accidentally eat a plastic skeleton.

    1. Laura*

      My roommates once ate a giant bag of organic packaging material chips (made from starch), dipped in Nutella or salsa sauce. I don’t know why they thought it was OK to raid my room for snacks, but I felt they got their just deserts.

  146. taytay*

    An employee in my department regularly brought in her “famous caramel brownies”. The first time I saw them, someone hurriedly pulled me aside and strongly suggested I skip them. It turns out this home baker had been seen on multiple occasions cutting the brownies into servings and licking the knife in between cuts. Somehow just enough of them would get eaten each time to convince her to bring them in again.

  147. what and what??*

    My previous workplace was in a department that had a service function for internal employees (think like HR but different.) They proposed a potluck where they did consultations for employees. The name they proposed? “Pork and Support.”

  148. blueberrygoneplaid*

    This is more of a “things went right” but I wanted to share!

    I used to work at Disney World and was known in my department for baking treats. I had a large team that would gobble them up so quickly that I started doubling the batches, and eventually had to cut back on bringing treats to work or it would have become very time consuming and expensive!

    We always had to work on Christmas, as it was the busiest week of the year, and there was a real spirit of camaraderie amongst all the employees missing out on celebrations with family (who were often hundreds of miles away). In the spirit of the holiday, I decided to do an enormous bake of several kinds of cookies. I ended up with three enormous platters for my department’s three offices- one to bring to the front of the park, one for the in-park office, and one for the back entrance.

    When a manager saw me struggling to carry them all in from the parking lot, he helped me out for part of the walk until we had to split in separate directions. By the time I got to the first office, my team told me that he had enthusiastically radioed (inadvertently across the whole park’s comms system) to tell everyone that I had brought in cookies! Too bad I couldn’t bring enough for all of EPCOT!

  149. Garblesnark*

    I was temping in hell and got an invite to the company Christmas party. Unfortunately (?) I was booked the night of the party, but the invitation specified that clothing was required.

  150. Yzziefrog*

    We had a big-hearted Customer Service rep who loved bringing her home cooking at potlucks, and never understood why her dishes were always the ones with tons of leftovers. That was because she also had a massive TMI syndrome and could be heard talking loudly to anyone (including clients!) about her health issues – including her “exploding diarrhea”. She also was well-known for never washing her hands after going to the bathroom. And nobody could bring themselves to bring it up to her, so we just all walked by her casseroles and salads and avoided eye contact

  151. Texas Teacher*

    I taught at an elementary school and pot lucks had a couple of different problems
    1. The year the secretary screamed at me not to go into the room. I’m allergic to peanuts and a couple of weeks before, I had to go to the ER because a coworker eating granola with peanuts grabbed my harm. When the turkey they ordered was delivered, she found out it was fried in peanut oil – and was trying to warn me.

    2. For several years in a row at various pot lucks, 4th and 5th grade had gone hungry because the food was set out when Kinder and 1st went to lunch. We stopped bringing food. THe principal called us out because they ran out of food even earlier. We explained that we never got food so we weren’t bringing it.

    3. We got a new PTO person. She insisted on catered buffets. (There had been a mass food poisoning at an HS event traced to a parent’s dirty kitchen). She ordered enough food – and the buffet was replenished before each grade came to lunch.

    4. We were going to have a catered lunch on the last day of school after kids left. It was going to be mandatory – instead of letting us eat in our rooms while packing up. The principal (different one and a bigger jerk) wanted 5 Guys. The person organizing it told me she was going to see if she could have them make me a special meal. I told her it was ok I would just bring lunch, and that 5 Guys might refuse the contract if she asked them to accommodate me. She asked, they did refuse the contract, principal told everyone what a spoilsport I was. Cue another late Wednesday in District Admin HR – because a whole bunch of people went down to file complaints. (This was a near-weekly thing like I said the guy was a jerk) He ended up being transferred the next year. At that school teachers started filing complaints before the teacher return date.

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