can I opt out of AI assistants in meetings, potlucks with food-restricted coworkers, and more

by Alison Green on October 29, 2024

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Can I opt out of AI assistants in meetings?

In large Zoom meetings, I’ve noticed a coworker using an AI assistant to transcribe and take notes. While I understand the desire to use these kinds of tools on an ease and accessibility level, everything about AI, from privacy to environmental, squicks me out beyond belief. I’ve yet to speak during these calls, but I wonder if there’s any standing for me or another coworker to ask these tools not be used?

Your coworker may not even know the AI is there. Some AI tools, once turned on for one use, will start attending and transcribing meetings without being specifically requested each time (see this letter for an example).

At this point, any employer that hasn’t already communicated a clear policy about the use of AI in meetings and other work needs to, so you could raise the issue on your team or within your organization and ask for a clear policy on when AI use is and isn’t okay, and point out the potential security risks if the data from meetings is stored outside your company. Assuming this is an outside AI tool and not something proprietary to your company, in many organizations using it this way would be considered a security risk.

2. Hate group bumper sticker in the company parking lot

One of my employees has a large sticker from an anti-government extremist group on his truck. I want to ask him to either remove the sticker or park his truck somewhere that is not in the company parking lot (we serve a lot of government entities, and these folks tried to kidnap the governor!). My HR team is telling me that I can’t do this because it violates the employee’s freedom of speech, but do I seriously have to let him advertise his hate group at our place of business?

“Freedom of speech,” as a legal concept, applies to the government not being able to restrict speech, not to private employers having rules about what is and isn’t okay to be displayed on their property. From a purely legal standpoint, a private employer absolutely has the right to tell an employee that they can’t display an offensive sticker in their parking lot.

Whether or not your company will allow you to do that is a different question. If your company isn’t willing to back you up, or tells you directly that they’re not willing to prohibit offensive stickers in their lot, they’re allowed to take that stance. They don’t have to take that stance (so HR is wrong if they’re implying their hands are tied), but they can choose to. But you might have better luck escalating this to someone who isn’t HR.

3. Potlucks with food-restricted coworkers

My government workplace holds potluck and other food-related events a few times a year. It’s nothing big, but those who attend like them. There are a few folks who don’t attend because they have food restrictions (gluten-free, vegan, etc.). It’s fine if folks don’t want to attend, but I don’t want anyone to feel excluded! Some others bring their own food or just come to sit with us. The last time we had a potluck, I searched for a recipe online for a vegan, gluten-free dish to share. I made sure to let folks know that I made a special dish so they felt included. It was a new challenge for me, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

My colleagues who host the event say they would love to have people with food sensitivities bring dishes that meet their dietary needs to share as well. We have enough people with different preferences that there should be some variety if a few of them bring something to share. Should the burden be on those with dietary restrictions to bring a dish that meets their needs? Is it helpful for the rest of us to bring dishes with others’ needs in mind? I don’t want people to feel pressured to attend because I made a specific dish; I just want them to feel included. We also print out recipes to share and to let folks know what ingredients are in each dish.

This varies by person. Some people with food restrictions will be delighted someone went out of their way to provide something they can eat. Others may be wary about eating it (ask any vegetarian who’s ever heard a dish described as “vegetarian” only to find out it contained chicken broth); they’re not willing to risk someone got the details of their restrictions exactly right. Some may be happy to bring their own dish so they’re assured there will be something there they can eat; others are happier opting out altogether because they don’t want to discuss their diet at all, or simply don’t like potlucks. All of which is to say: there’s no one right answer here. The only way to know for sure is to talk to your colleagues and ask what they’d most like.

All that said, you sound thoughtful and kind, and I’m sure your food-restricted coworkers appreciate you thinking about them!

4. My coworkers talk about me like a pet

I’m an introverted and quiet person and I rarely participate in non-work conversations with my coworkers. I’m not rude — I participate when I’m directly addressed. I just usually keep to myself otherwise. My coworkers definitely know me as the quiet one, but nobody’s ever complained.

My issue is this: sometimes, when my coworkers are chatting near me, they’ll speak for me in a way I can only explain as the way people will talk about their pets, attributing reactions and opinions to them as a way to comment on the situation. “Fluffy says, ‘Fish? I love fish!’” That kind of thing. They’ll be complaining about something and then say, “Ha, Morgan thinks I’m crazy” or “Morgan’s over there like ‘you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.’” And I’m not involved in the conversation at all, let alone thinking or reacting the way they say.

I don’t really know how to respond when this happens. Should I correct them? They’re not talking to me, just around me. I don’t want to create a fuss if this is normal and they’re just joking around, but I find it uncomfortable to have opinions on something I wasn’t even paying attention to attributed to me.

I think you’re reading it wrong! They’re not really attributing those opinions to you; they’re trying to acknowledge your presence. They don’t want to talk around you as if you’re not there and it’s almost certainly meant as a warm/funny way to not seem like they’re ignoring you. You don’t need much of a response to it — you could just smile and say “no, no” or “ha, not at all” or any other non-committal but reasonably warm response you’re comfortable with.

5. I was promised a bonus but haven’t seen it yet

I was lucky enough to be asked to come work a conference overseas for my job. I did great, and got a lot of good feedback emailed to my manager — hurray!

During the conference, the organizer (who works at our company) mentioned that all of the staff (me included) working the event would get a bonus. She and I even talked about what I should spend my bonus on.

I never did receive it. I checked with a coworker who was also at the event, and he got his already. I’m pretty non-confrontational, and I don’t want to come off as greedy or money-grubbing, but I’d like the bonus! What’s the best way to ask about it?

It’s not money-grubbing to ask about a work payment that you were told you would receive, especially when you know someone else already got theirs. Talk with the organizer and say this: “You had mentioned everyone working at X would get a bonus, which I really appreciated. Do you know when we’re likely to see it come through?”

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  1. nnn*

    #1: In addition to a clear policy about the use of AI in meetings etc., employers also need to have a clear policy on the use of recording/transcription in meetings (whether or not they use AI), so people can calibrate for how on the record/off the record the meeting is.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I mean the fact that a meeting isn’t being recorded doesn’t mean that it’s off the record. Frankly when a client calls me because they “didn’t want to put it in an email” that’s the moment I immediately start taking notes for myself.

      2. Antilles*

        Yeah, there’s basically no such thing as an “off the record” meeting in a workplace. Somebody on that call is almost certainly taking notes to aid their own memory or to send out minutes/action items, etc. And of course, there’s no way to prevent someone from using their cell phone to record the voices coming out of their computer speaker without you knowing.

        1. allathian*

          Yes, but if it’s a two-party consent jurisdiction, they could get in trouble if they divulged the recording.

        2. Observer*

          Yeah, there’s basically no such thing as an “off the record” meeting in a workplace

          That’s true. But there is a difference between a conversation and something you put in writing. It normally gets used differently and definitely gets treated differently, and it’s not unreasonable to expect that to happen, unless otherwise notified.

          And of course, there’s no way to prevent someone from using their cell phone to record the voices coming out of their computer speaker without you knowing.

          True, but that can have a lot of consequences.

          “reasonable expectation of privacy” is a real thing. It’s not reasonable to expect people to act is though that doesn’t exist because someone might do something to breach that.

          Now, people should be careful and keep in mind that some people do act in bad faith. But lets be clear that doing something like that *is* bad faith.

        3. Lizzianna*

          Yeah, but there is some nuance. At least in government, personal notes are not considered official records. Official meeting notes or a transcript of a meeting could be (although this is not my area of expertise, and I don’t know if the case law has been tested since the advent of AI transcription services). So I could disclose what I heard in a meeting if I wanted to, but the likelihood of me being compelled to provide my personal notes are fairly low.

          That said, I assume that any conversation I’m having with someone outside my org is being recorded and apply the same rule I apply to email, which is not to say anything I wouldn’t want to answer for in the Washington Post.

      3. allathian*

        Yes, this! It may not be admissible evidence the way emails that can be subpoenaed are, but it’s not off the record by any means.

    3. BW*

      I just watched a video recording of a meeting with AI close captioning turned on.

      When the name “Jody” was spoken, the AI transcribed it as “God.”

      Every time the speaker said, “Thank you,” the AI transcribed it as “F*** you.”

        1. Jam on Toast*

          I had a video meeting where AI auto-captioned Ladies and Gentlemen as Ladies and genitals in the transcript. It was very amusing.

      3. RPT*

        Speaker: X gives me the heebie-jeebies.
        AI transcription: X gives me the CBeebies.

        (note: CBeebies is the BBC’s service for children’s programming in the UK.)

    4. PurpleShark*

      At my recent annual physical, my physician’s office wanted me to sign off on using AI to transcribe the notes from the visit. I was uncomfortable with this so I did not sign and asked to speak with someone to get more information. My questions included if a third party was doing the transcribing and where is this information stored. Will it be used for purposes by the external company if they do not have my permission (who owns this and am I signing it away with the form they give me). Who checks to see if the information is correct. In the end I did not consent because it seems a little too shady. Conversely when I went for my annual visit to the eye specialist and I asked if they were using it the physician’s assistant recoiled in horror and exclaimed AI to was too risky for that. My physician even said when addressing my questions that AI draws its own conclusions and puts them in the notes. It has its applications but I do think we have to be very careful with the information we share and consent among participants.

      1. CJ*

        The best part about that is there’s been headlines the last few days that the Whisper software a number of hospitals and such have been using for medical transcription? Makes. Stuff. Up. (Also has a history of some racist hallucinations, for the cherry.) So, yeah, your gut check on not consenting was 100%.

      2. Too Legit To Not Quit*

        My mom and stepdad are very obviously of different races, and my mom is about 10 years older. He had surgery, my mom and his sister were with him. The AI generated discharge notes said “patient was with his mother and sister.” Hell hath no fury…
        Good for you though, it IS creepy in a medical context and it’s being shoved down out throats without a discussion and like it’s flawless.

        1. Too Legit To Not Quit*

          Ugh, nesting fail again. Was in response to the commenter about his doctor using AI transcription.

    5. RagingADHD*

      I think folks are responding to the idea of “on the record” in a legal sense, but there’s also the level of informality, familiarity, or confidentiality one might use in a 1:1 or small group meeting, that you would not use if your remarks were intended for a wider audience, or for senior leadership, etc.

      There are plenty of appropriate, work-related topics that are not intended for the whole company to be privy to.

    6. IheardyoubutI'llreaditlater*

      I use AI transcription in zoom meetings and I always ask meeting participants if I can use it – but as a hard of hearing individual, this is another piece of accessibility that has made my participation in meetings so much better. It takes a lot of work to watch, hear, understand and then take a note – I’m already behind. I understand the issues with AI and the pitfalls – but this has worked so much better than captioning (wildly inaccurate at times) and while I am fluent in ASL, I, for lack of a better term, pass as hearing. So while I acknowledge the issues, I also wanted to acknoweldge how glorious it can be and how it makes virtual meetings so much less draining. Now, if you’re a mumbler – then yes, the AI captioning comes on too!

      1. OnlyHelpfulWhenItsRight*

        The problem is it lies to you. It gets stuff wrong a lot and it makes stuff up. Transcriptionists helpful; AI transcription is not.

        1. SnackAttack*

          To be fair, all transcription services use some kind of AI. AI has obviously been growing and changing a lot lately, but the tech has been around for years and is integrated into a lot of services you use.

    1. Literally a Cat*

      I’m not from US so I can be really off here. If it’s a bunch of people naming themselves after comic characters, yeah, the (lack of) judgement of displaying that sticker is really something.

      1. DJ Abbott*

        They’re doing everyone a favor by showing exactly what they are. And yes, it’s not the best judgment.

      2. Seeking Second Childhood*

        For the benefit of people outside the US, Michigan is nicknamed the Wolverine State. I believe the Marvel Wolverinre character is secondary.

        1. Wilbur*

          Wolverine (the marvel character from the X men) is Canadian. His name is taken from the animal. Wolverines do not typically live as far south as Michigan. This might be apocryphal, but indigenous Americans may have started calling European settlers “Wolverines” because they’re a huge pain in the butt.

          1. fhqwhgads*

            The university of Michigan sports teams are the Wolverines. That’s the Michigan connection. Not to do with the X man or the presence of the real live animal.

          2. bestbet*

            I believe Michigan’s association with wolverines originated because of the amount of fur trading that happened through there. Regardless, the wolverine is widely associated with Michigan, and lots of schools or businesses (or hate groups…..) located there have wolverines as mascots or referenced in their name.

            1. just some guy*

              There’s also a 1980s movie, “Red Dawn”, about a Communist invasion of the USA. The guerrilla resistance fighters call themselves “Wolverines”, which I think has a lot to do with RL anti-government orgs calling themselves the same.

    2. BellaStella*

      In the letter #2 I think going above HR is a good idea. Clarifying the freedom of speech misinterpretation and getting the C suite to explain that to HR would be my first step as well. Further, these groups are more than likely to cause addition issues between Nov and Jan and I would be very anxious if I worked with a person supporting known entities that carry out crimes like noted in the letter. Just as most work places run by competent leaders have policies on not wearing overtly political clothing, they also can and should state that in this firm’s policies that because they serve government agencies that this kind of over political statement is not ok and he removes it or is sanctioned or something with a write up. Personally if I was HR I would also be concerned for other employees safety as he may have other bad tendencies too.

      1. Kevin Sours*

        The problem is that all too often people say “we can’t do this” because it’s more palatable than saying “we don’t want to”. I fear that is the case with HR here.

    3. Hexiv*

      Googled the Michigan kidnapping case and yikes – if this is in fact what OP’s employee has on their car, isn’t the employee actively displaying like, gang affiliation on their car? Because I’m reading here that several of the conspirators were charged with “membership in a gang,” which would imply that the US government has judged this group to be a gang. That feels different than being in like, a weird local militia or the Tea Party. Can OP go to HR and explicitly say that the employee has gang symbols on their car?

      1. Maggie May*

        I want to push back a smidgen here – this group is in fact a fringe local militia group and the kidnapping plot was at best half-baked and at worst egged on by an FBI informant. There’s a great podcast going into this whole thing called Chameleon: The Michigan Plot. I don’t doubt that Gov Whitmer was terrified and freaked out by the news, but the actual danger that it posed is truly unknown.

        Not that it’s great for an employee to display this, because at the very least it could make other employees or clients feel unsafe.

        1. Lisa*

          Whether or not the group was at all effective isn’t relevant; the employee is displaying support for their intent.

        2. Observer*

          the kidnapping plot was at best half-baked and at worst egged on by an FBI informant.

          Why does that matter *in this context*? Yes, I get it that legally it matters – of course it does. And even in terms of the Governor’s safety it might matter.

          But for this purpose, no it does not matter at all, in my opinion. The fact is that there was a group that was actively (though fortunately ineptly) trying to kidnap the Governor. If they were in fact egged on by an FBI informant, then I don’t want them convicted – entrapment is a real thing and we do not, as a society, want that to become a way that any law enforcement operates. But, morally / socially / judgement-wise? It doesn’t matter. The fact that these people signed on to the idea to the extent that they actually tried to make it happen speaks volumes about them and it’s perfectly reasonable for people to be freaked out by people who support them. And also, perfectly reasonable for any non-governmental employer to forbid those insignia at work.

        3. Elle*

          Yeah, most people aren’t really worried about kidnapping plots unless the kidnappers really know what they’re doing- said no one ever. Let’s not downplay attempted political violence?

        4. IEanon*

          That was a great podcast! It really made me rethink the whole case, and how it was covered by the media. I do think, in the end, this coworker is showing poor judgement, but the plot itself is not as cut and dry as it was presented.

          I am not someone whose sympathies lie with these militias, and even I came away from that podcast feeling that the FBI had done them dirty.

          1. Those it protects but does not bind, vs those it binds but does not protect*

            I’d be more sympathetic if that sort of grace were ever shown to left-wing groups, but it isn’t. I’m also reminded of how we all learned that a bunch of white militia guys can take over government property with guns, and not be convicted…meanwhile it’s legal in some states to mow down Black Lives Matter protesters with your car.

        5. Helewise*

          I don’t think we should downplay this. Plotting violence against a public official is a really, really big deal, even if the people plotting aren’t likely to be good at the intended violence. They conducted night surveillance on her family home, and had weapons including explosives. The fact that its fringe doesn’t make it innocent.

    4. Ellis Bell*

      Isn’t this the kind of thing that should be reported to anti terrorism authorities? I admit, I’m not too familiar with the kidnapping story or with what the anti terrorism plan looks like in the US, but that sounds like it goes beyond hate speech (which is bad enough and certainly reportable on that angle alone) and into territory where it needs eyes on someone who is associating themselves with violent criminals. In the UK, under the Prevent strategy, I would have to report extremism of this kind to a designated mandated reporter at my government workplace and there’s a national reporting line to use in addition if I feel I’m not being taken seriously. It is not the kind of thing I would report to HR; national security is more serious than matters of personal judgement or professional appropriacy. I feel like this might be a private company where anti terrorism strategies might not be as well known as it is in government agencies?

      1. Insert Pun Here*

        None of these things are crimes in the US, though if the company does business with the government in such a way that employees require a security clearance, all of this would definitely be relevant to maintaining/revoking that person’s clearance. But no, hate speech is not illegal. Speech that incites violence is, but “inciting” is fairly narrowly defined and a bumper sticker wouldn’t qualify.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          I probably haven’t made myself clear; I wasn’t actually referring to anything illegal having happened yet, I was referring to the reporting of suspicious and potentially illegal or dangerous activity.

          1. Genevieve*

            I mean, there’s already been a whole investigation and the cases have made their way through the legal system. There’s nothing else to do. I assume the appropriate agencies continue to monitor anyone they think is a potential threat, but it’s all done. People can associate themselves with the group with them if they want.

          2. Genevieve*

            To clarify, if OP sees something that falls under potential terrorism, sure, they can absolutely report. But a bumper sticker doesn’t qualify. Neither would the employee talking about how they should have kidnapped the governor. IANAL, but the bar is really high for speech. Of course if OP feels like they have reason to believe the employee is actively plotting something they can report, but there are very few things the employee can say, short of “hey I’m making concrete plans to kidnap the governor,” that would qualify.

          3. A Book about Metals*

            What suspicious or illegal activity though? Just displaying a bumper sticker isn’t that

            1. Ellis Bell*

              It’s my understanding that it’s easier to prevent extremists from grooming and misinformation of recruits at the bumper sticker stage than it is at the “in so deep” they have violent plans stage, but it requires a prevention focused framework to look into it. Possibly I’m misunderstanding the nature of the group, but the kidnapping of a governor sounded quite extremist to me.

              1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

                In the US, this would be a huge overstep. There is freedom of association, even in terrible groups. You must have an overt act for the authorities to act. A mere bumper sticker is not enough.

                The people involved in the plot were charged, some found guilty, some acquited. You cannot presume everyone in the group knew about or participated in the plot.

                But yes, in this case, a private employer can ban the display of affiliation on company grounds.

                1. just some guy*

                  How does this square with USC 50 S843? From my reading, this bans membership of the Communist Party and of any other organisation seeking to overthrow federal or state governments by force.

                2. Joron Twiner*

                  To just some guy: easy. If it’s Communist it’s illegal, if it’s fascist or corporate it’s fine /s

              2. Insert Pun Here*

                You’re right about how deradicalization works (generally), but in the US that’s not something that’s initiated by police/the judicial process generally, unless and until an actual crime is committed. In the US, associating with a group (even a criminal group) is generally not in and of itself a crime. As far as I know, most of the groups doing deradicalization work are nonprofits.

                1. Insert Pun Here*

                  For example: the US designates Hamas as a terrorist organization. It is illegal to materially support Hamas (by sending money, for example.) That is a crime. It is not illegal to say that you agree with Hamas, nor is it illegal to attend a meeting where people talk about how great Hamas is.

                2. Ellis Bell*

                  Would it be seen as inappropriate for a private employer to support those nonprofits in their aims, as part of serving government clients or to use them as a resource generally if they suspect radicalisation is happening? I’m just wondering what OP could do to nip a situation in the bud where more of these little bumper stickers crop up, or the message takes a different format because the bumper sticker is banned as inappropriate. I’m scratching my head a little about whether this would be a horribly inappropriate overstep into people’s freedom of association, or whether it’s fine so long as it’s not coming from the government.

                3. Insert Pun Here*

                  @Ellis Bell— legally, yes, it would be fine for this company to, idk, compel their employee to attend some sort of deradicalization training if they want to keep their job. (Assuming it’s a private company.) I do think that would widely be perceived as a bit of an overstep. They can also, of course, simply say that certain kinds of messaging are not allowed on company time/on company property. But the implied threat to this employee is economic (they may lose their job), not legal (they may go to jail or be compelled to participate in a program of some kind.)

                4. Ellis Bell*

                  @Insert Pun Here. Thank you for the answer! I can see how it might be vastly simpler to just tell an employee to knock it off.

              3. LW#2*

                I have no reason to believe the employee was part of or even informed about the actual illegal activities of the group members who were part of the plot. It’s obviously showing poor judgment to display the logo, but I don’t think he’s a threat to anyone. It’s closer to showing a Don’t Tread on Me flag next to a pro-gun sticker than membership in an actual terrorist organization.

                1. Cohort1*

                  I was thinking that the problem is that that sticker reflects poorly on the company. If I’m John/Jane Public passing by on the street and see that sticker or one with a swastika or “Harris is a C*nt,” or “Muslims Hate Jesus,” I would certainly think poorly of this company. If I was coming to do business with that company and came through that parking lot, I would definitely think twice. Are these people I want to be associated with?

                  Perception is important. Stickers with routine political stuff like “Vote for ___” and “No on L” are expected and part of our national dialog. Stickers for hate/terrorist groups or “Jan. 6 , Coming Soon,” or profanities/vulgarities aimed at anyone are just not OK. It’s not if this is legal, it’s does this reflect poorly on our company?

        2. Thegreatprevaricator*

          Yeah this was my thought. An organisation that planned to kidnap a public official would likely be considered a terrorist organisation in the UK. Showing affiliation with a banned group wouldn’t be acceptable and probs would get reported.

          1. Genevieve*

            I think this comes down to our extremely (one could argue overly) broad first amendment protections, which explicitly include free association as well as free speech. I don’t think we have “banned groups” as a concept (someone who knows more can correct me if I’m wrong). Associating with certain groups can get you surveiled and put you under closer scrunity, but I can’t think of an example of someone getting in trouble just for belonging to a group, even after members have been convicted. The people who carried out the Oklahoma City Bombing were closely connected to the Michigan Militia, which is still alive and active and stockpiling weapons. The KKK unfortunately very much still exists, and being a member is not a crime. Again, there could be something I’m missing, but by and large we just don’t have a concept of banned groups here.

            1. Ellis Bell*

              I’m confused; if surveillance and scrutiny are acceptable actions, then that is taking action isn’t it? It’s a reaction of caution and concern. I didn’t mean to suggest people be taken off to jail just for joining the wrong group or following the wrong influencer.

              1. Elle*

                I think one of the problems here is that, in the US, we have so many different people kind-of sort-of threatening violence (either for their own specific ideological reasons or in line with right wing fascism, which is obviously becoming very popular) that there is a lot of disagreement about who to take seriously. There are a lot of people genuinely afraid of “antifa,” for example, completely unaware of how ridiculous that is, simultaneously defending literal hate speech against immigrants and LGBTQ people. Meanwhile, actual government-sponsored oppression of free speech is happening in Florida. I would not look for logic here.

      2. RagingADHD*

        The employee may well have already been reported to the FBI for the bumper sticker, or even other activity, and the LW could report them as well. The employee may be on a watchlist.

        Or the employee could be cooperating with law enforcement to infiltrate the group. Or (most likely) the employee is a blowhard who thinks it’s “owning the libs” to drive around with that sticker on their car.

        None of those things are going to have any impact on whether or not the employee is displaying the bumper sticker in the company parking lot. The FBI isn’t going to call them up and say “Hey dude, you gotta take that off your car because you’ve been reported!”

      3. MigraineMonth*

        The US government’s law enforcement branches, particularly the FBI and Homeland Security, does monitor domestic extremist groups, and it certainly is already aware of the one referred to in the letter. (We can be certain because, as in what seems to be the majority of terrorist plots thwarted by the FBI, the plot was only possible thanks to the help of the FBI informant.)

        Historically, law enforcement has been very focused on monitoring or disrupting left-wing movements such as the Black Civil Rights and Anti-War movements while being members of right-wing groups such as the KKK and White Citizens Councils. There has been some recent efforts to shift the focus to also monitor anti-government militias.

    6. Bilateralrope*

      I wonder what the companies marketing/PR department will think about the possibility of a picture of that car, in the companies parking lot, going viral.

      I doubt they want to have to clean up that PR mess.

      1. Genevieve*

        Now that, for better or worse, is absolutely something that could prompt a company to act. But there are no guarantees and I don’t know that OP want that kind of attention on their workplace. It’d definitely be a gamble, in a lot of ways.

        1. MsM*

          I think the idea is more that if HR won’t listen, OP should go to comms and see if they’re willing to make HR listen.

          1. Observer*

            The idea is sound, but I would be surprised of Comms could over-ride HR. *But* If the LW kicks it upstairs, this is definitely something to point out, because the CEO or whoever (who out ranks HR), is likely to take the point to heart.

      2. Paint N Drip*

        Good point, but even just OP’s mention of serving gov clients, that is NOT a good look! Optics, OP’s C-suite, optics!!

    7. It's Marie - Not Maria*

      Michigan based HR Professional here – 99% chance this is a Michigan based OP and they are talking about supporting the Michigan Militia.

  3. nnn*

    #3: At a minimum, there should be some mechanism for everyone to be informed what dietary restrictions exist within the team (ideally in a way that lets individuals keep their own dietary restrictions private, e.g. “We have team member who follow gluten-free diets” rather than “Jane has celiac disease”) so any potluck participant who is interested in doing so has a fighting chance of something that meets everyone’s needs or that meets more people’s needs.

    The problem with the “they would love to have people with food sensitivities bring dishes that meet their dietary needs to share as well” approach is the people with food sensitivities are making food, but don’t necessarily get to try a wide variety of food. Meanwhile, those without food sensitivities get a chance to try a wide variety of food.

    I know potluck cooking is challenging (I’m terrible at it myself!) so not everyone is going to have a potluck-appropriate recipe in their repertoire that meets everyone’s dietary needs, but people should at least know going in if something as simple as leaving off the bacon bits will make their contribution more accessible.

    1. Jym*

      Re: polucks. I have a knife and large cutting board that I store separately from my other dishes and wash without my regular linens. I write the food prep out on a card including a note about how I prepared the food including the ingredients and brand names for condiments used. I learned this from someone with a severe celiac issue. I prep a vegan, gluten free meal and figure I’ll cover some bases that way. It’s never going to be perfect for someone with severe issues but I think it’s a low fuss way to be inclusive as someone who has no restrictions myself. It was fun learning recipes!

      1. Seconds*

        Thank you for going to this amount of trouble to be inclusive!

        I’m one of those who is gluten-sensitive enough that I would not be willing to eat this food, but even so, I would be very grateful for your willingness to take this seriously and go to such lengths.

    2. Disappointed Australien*

      There’s also a a range of food restrictions, from non-physical like kosher or (many) vegetarians through to celiac where a slight slip by someone who doesn’t have a wheat-free kitchen could make a coworker very seriously ill. Some of this stuff is sensitive, ranging from “I am not ready to announce my pregnancy” to “I don’t feel comfortable telling you I’m Muslim” (or vegan, or any other commonly-marginalised group).

      Potluck organisers should accept that the people not participating have reasons and that’s the end of the work-safe discussion.

      On that note “bring your partner” has all those problems plus a bunch of relationship arrangements are also the subject of prejudice. It can be as trivial as “my opposite-sex partner is taller/shorter than me” or as ugly as you want to get. Or the famous “can I bring both my poly partners to a work event” post.

      1. metadata minion*

        Exactly. I can easily cook vegetarian or vegan food, or food where I’ve cleaned my kitchen and been careful not to put any gluten-containing food in the recipe. I can’t cook for someone who keeps strict kosher, and I would feel nervous cooking for anyone who can’t handle trace gluten because I do a *lot* of baking and my kitchen just kind of has ambient flour at this point.

        2. Bumblebee*

          I just learned about ambient gluten – we’ve done things like decorate cookies or have a gingerbread house competition before and when I brought it up one of my committee members told me that would make it impossible for her to attend. I had not realized we’d accidentally been excluding her (and a few others apparently) but now I do, so we’re doing something non-food-related.

        3. Coffee Protein Drink*

          Exactly this. Even those trace amounts can be dangerous for some people.

          It’s almost impossible to have a dish everyone can eat at a potluck. The limitations of keeping food at a safe temperature and the variety of sensitivities and restrictions are limiting. My solution is to ask before I decide what to make, do the best I can with the restrictions and label what is in the dish.

      2. Great Frogs of Literature*

        It depends. The people not participating may not trust anything prepared in your kitchen. Or they might wish they could participate, but they can’t eat anything unless they have an ingredients list. (I know OP said they print out recipes, but in my experience, that’s vanishingly rare.) It’s worth asking if there’s an easy accommodation that would make the event accessible, or if they prefer to sit out.

      3. fhqwhgads*

        Yeah, the people choosing to bring their own just for themselves, or not partaking in the stuff other people made to try to accommodate them are doing it for self preservation. It’s not worth the risk.
        Sure, for some people, it’s not that big a risk, and those are likely the ones who are already comfortable-ish enough to participate.
        But it’s important when trying to be inclusive to not accidentally loop around to intrusive. Don’t put your coworkers in the awkward position of having to say to a colleague “sorry I can’t trust your kitchen or your cooking”. It’s true, and some people will probably say it anyway out of need to get the point across, but it’s not a fun convo. And some people will be needlessly insulted. I’m not saying you’re unclean. I’m saying if you’re not living a life that’s normally concerned with cross-contamination, I can’t trust your level of diligence about it.

      4. RagingADHD*

        I get your point, but I am really not loving the way you equate the idea that vegan eating is non-mainstream with the ways that religious and ethnic minorities are marginalized through outright religious discrimination, public harassment, and violence.

    3. Beth*

      An additional challenge with potlucks and dietary restrictions is cross contamination – can you really guarantee that no crumbs from the biscuits on the next plate over got in your gluten-free pasta bake? Or that no one used the chicken tongs to grab a vegetarian corn cob?

      All you can do with potlucks is make sure people know you want them there if they want to come. Some people will opt out because they either don’t want to join or don’t trust it. But the act of asking if there’s anything you can do to make it accessible, in and of itself, shows you’re thinking of them and trying to welcome them.

      1. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

        Cross-contamination is also an issue in the kitchens where the food was prepared. Lots of people aren’t careful about always using a clean utensil for each ingredient at home, so various ingredients can become contaminated over time.

        As an example, growing up, I was taught to always put the peanut butter on the sandwich before the jam, so that you could use the same knife for both. The logic being that peanut butter is shelf stable and jam goes in the fridge, so some peanut butter in the jam is fine but not the other way around. No opened jam in my childhood kitchen would have been reliably non-contaminated by peanuts and wheat from the way we made PBJs using it. Even now, my dad has a butter dish with an included butter knife that he also uses to spread the butter on toast, so someone with a wheat or gluten issue would not be able to eat anything he cooked that he added butter to since there are always breadcrumbs in his open stick of butter.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          I think if I were trying to cook for someone with an intolerance, I would do a full kitchen cleaning and then only use newly opened ingredients and freshly washed utensils. I would still be very uncomfortable cooking for someone with life threatening allergies, because I can’t guarantee there’s nothing airborne in my kitchen. There’s an open bag of peanuts in my cupboard, for example.

          And if I had a severe intolerance or allergy, I don’t know that I would trust my colleagues to not forget anything. The stakes are too high.

          1. CityMouse*

            As someone who cooks for someone with celiac, I first clean with a new sponge and either paper towels or newly washed towels and I put foil down on baking pans. I also will open new ingredients (particularly peanut butter, butter, jam, anything in that realm.) But it does make me worried I’ll mess up (and I have in the past with an additive I forgot to check, I caught myself after it was cooked and didn’t the dessert to my friend).

            1. Gamer Girl*

              Yes, and soy sauce and vanilla extract often have sneaky gluten in them. I used to work somewhere with a ton of dietary restrictions, and the ingredients list plus keeping vegan stuff on one table, GF on another, and so on really helped reduce the risk of cross contamination.

              I mean four tables, each in different corners of the room. Iirc, there was also a policy to use a fresh plate at the GF table. Two colleagues had extreme illness for days after even a small amount of accidental wheat years ago, which was what kicked off the completely separate tables.

              1. CityMouse*

                Yes, the additive in question was vanilla. It said “bourbon” on it and I felt like an idiot for not thinking about it, but it did allow me to catch my mistake before I served it to her. She was pregnant at the time so being super careful.

                1. WantonSeedStitch*

                  FWIW, Bourbon vanilla isn’t vanilla that contains bourbon. It’s vanilla from a specific type of vanilla bean from Madagascar. Of course, if it said “bourbon-barrel aged,” that would be different.

                2. Bumblebee*

                  Even if one ingredient had contained alcohol, it all cooks off and there’s no reason for pregnant people to avoid it.

                3. ThatGirl*

                  Bourbon vanilla does refer to the region, not the alcohol in use. Most vanilla extracts DO use alcohol. But it’s such a small amount that it wouldn’t be a concern for 99% of people. (The main exception I can think of is Muslims who keep very strict halal diets, and a small handful of recovering alcoholics who are so strict about it they even avoid alcohol-based extracts.)

            2. DireRaven*

              As someone with celiac, when I’m visiting someone who does not keep a gluten-free kitchen and I have to cook or prepare foods in their kitchen, I always go out and buy new condiments (unless it was a squeezable in the first place), peanut butter, jelly, and butter. I always get a different brand of butter than what they use (and label it) and get squeezable condiments – even though I don’t use those at home. And yes, lining everything and washing everything is standard.

          2. Sam Osa*

            You can purchase a pre-made dish from a gluten free vegan restaurant or market and bring that. If it’s a trusted source, no one will have to worry.

          3. It's Marie - Not Maria*

            I have a friend with multiple severe food allergies. When I do any cooking for her, I follow a similar procedure. She is grateful, and so far, has not had any reactions.

      2. Freya*

        Don’t get me started on people using the knife that was used on the blue cheese to cut off a slice of the lactose-free camembert that I can eat with no consequences! (Blue cheese gives me migraines – I react to penecillium roqueforti but not anywhere near as badly to penecillium candidum – and I’m congenitally lactose intolerant, so the day I found out that my local supermarket stocks Unicorn Lactose Free Camembert was a very good day!)

      3. amoeba*

        Yeah, in that case I think it would be a really crucial difference if somebody on the team has celiac or if it’s people following a gluten-free diet for other reasons! I’d say the latter can be accommodated quite easily, but with celiac I’d probably assume they’re just not up for dishes prepared by other people at all.
        Although from what I understand, this can also vary widely from person to person, so anyway, it would be good to find out whether it’s just “don’t use any gluten in this specific dish and I’ll be fine” or “if anything with gluten in it has been prepared in the same kitchen, it might kill me”. (And in the latter case, I’d be happy to bring them something store-bought but would not be happy to take on the responsibility to prepare a dish for them!)

        1. possibly*

          Not necessarily. My daughter is gluten free, but not celiac. Accidental gluten can affect her for 2 or 3 weeks. Celiac is a very specific immune response, but gluten intolerance may be due to other things.

          On the other hand, a friend calls himself gluten intolerant, but can eat small amounts of pasta every few days, and soy sauce with impunity.

          1. Rainy*

            I had a coworker years ago who was gluten-free because gluten was an asthma trigger, and my mother is gluten-free because of her Hashimoto’s. Neither of them have celiac disease.

      4. Golden*

        Yup, 100% this. I have celiac and quit eating at these types of things when I saw a coworker put his cake plate down so hard it flipped a ton of crumbs into the fruit tray.

        I think “nothing about us without us” is a good way to look at these types of events, and I’m glad you included your last sentence about asking the person impacted. Some people (myself included) are just never going to eat at these events, and it can be really uncomfortable when people, with the best of intentions, try to make something specifically for me without asking first to really understand the limitations.

      5. Nightengale*

        This brings back memories of the hypoallergenic hummus

        A friend who is celiac with multiple food allergies/intolerances and I went to a potluck. I don’t keep strictly kosher but don’t eat pork or shellfish or milk and meat together. Mostly I just eat vegetarian at events

        We decided to make hypoallergenic hummus. All ingredients my friend could eat, also vegan. We added some store bought rice crackers and went off to the event

        Where first a piece of cheese fell in
        Then wheat bread crumbs
        and finally a hunk of ham

        thus endeth the hypoallergenic hummus

      6. Smithy*

        I do think that aside from restrictions people have – a lot of people don’t trust the cooking of people they don’t know well or are dieting with an intention to lose weight and aren’t looking to share either of those facts with their coworkers.

        In those moments a lot of people may defer to other reasons that they feel more comfortable sharing with a group. Saying that they keep kosher or are avoiding gluten may feel more comfortable as a way to side-step for other issues they’re never going to share with the group. I’ve seen this my whole life with my mother who’s been calorie counting forever. Now she also does keep her version of kosher, but it’s not Chabad level by a long shot. However, she genuinely believes it’s more polite to turn down food by saying she keeps kosher instead of just declining because she doesn’t snack or finds the food on offer to be “too unhealthy”. So if someone were to update their donut run and include Chabad donuts, my mom would still be looking to avoid them.

        A potluck that’s infrequent, staff led and not used in lieu of an employer catering an expected meal (i.e. lunch during an off-site training) – aiming to be inclusive is great, but I think it’s also helpful to keep in mind that some people will never want to participate and may be holding their full reasons closer to the chest.

        1. Rainy*

          I am allergic to all the Fabaceae except peanuts and chickpeas, and that one is hard to explain to other people. Soy is a major one I have to mention because some form of soy is in basically everything–except that I’m only allergic to soy protein. So soybean oil (except the fancy cold-pressed stuff, which gets a little protein leakage) and soy lecithin (an emulsifier that substitutes for egg yolks) are fine, and “hydrolyzed soy protein” is so processed that it’s past the point where my immune system recognizes it as soy protein, but “de-fatted soy flour,” which has become the in thing to put in baked treats (in order to boost the protein stats in the nutrition info and make the treat look “healthier”), is extremely dangerous. I have had people mislead me about ingredients in the past because they see me eat something with soybean oil in it and assume I’m lying about my soy allergy.

          1. Bryce*

            My sympathies, I come at a similar thing from the other side with my peanut allergies. Everything’s different levels of risk that I’m navigating, and the best way people can help is by listening and answering questions I ask, but so many people want to be “active” in their help and so take control away from me.

      7. learnedthehardway*

        Exactly. I have a family member who has celiac disease. She travels with her own food in portable fridges, and is VERY careful about what she eats. There is no way she could eat anything at a potluck – even with the best intentions in the world, cross-contamination is bound to happen. She has to be SUPER careful in restaurants to make sure the chef understands how serious her condition is – she could end up in the hospital if she eats anything with wheat gluten.

        Another family member has a severe allergy to peppers – everything they eat is prepared from scratch because virtually all commercially prepared foods have some kind of peppers in them. If you see “spices” in a list of ingredients, you don’t know what that contains.

        At the same time, I would not suggest that someone on a really restricted diet bring food to a potluck. A) cross-contamination is a big risk, and B) often, these diets are really expensive to maintain.

        Instead, I would encourage people to bring food for themselves if they can’t eat potluck food, and would try to ensure that at least some team-building events are not food-oriented.

        1. Analyst*

          The worst part about “spices” is the companies will often refuse to tell you as well. Drives me nuts (IBS).

    4. Azure Jane Lunatic*

      I have enough weird intolerances that I usually forget one or two when I’m trying to list them out without looking at my notes, but I don’t have anything that would kill me with a small amount of cross-contamination. The thing that would help me most at a potluck is a full list of ingredients for each dish. Not necessarily a full recipe (containing amounts and methods) but whatever items got put in. Even if they supposedly “cook off”. (I know at least two people with a hospitalization level inability to process alcohol, including the un-evaporated portion of the wine in the stew.)

      It wouldn’t help everyone, but creating a potluck policy that everything either has the ingredients listed, or is a prepackaged food with its label available, would definitely help me. (If there are people who are precious about Secret Ingredients, at least make them write out certain types of ingredients and then “undisclosed ingredients” so people could decide their comfort level with that dish.)

      1. AcademiaNut*

        That’s my usual approach. Generally I have a sign indicting present of eggs, dairy, alcohol and onions (the most commonly restricted foods where I live), plus a full list on the side. What I can’t do, though, is guarantee that my kitchen is free of cross contamination with things like gluten and peanuts.

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          Yes, my labels point out the main EU allergens, but the sheer nature of my kitchen means I would never declare a dish “gluten free” etc.

          Contamination is a huge issue for anyone with any food sensitivities at all. You get to know red and green flags (the former includes Not Enough Serving Spoons, whereas the latter might include separate tables for “free from” dishes).

        2. WantonSeedStitch*

          Yeah, I’ve put notes on potluck dishes saying something like “no gluten ingredients, but made in a gluten-using kitchen” so people can decide their own tolerance for risk. Some people are more or less sensitive to it than others.

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        The general policy where I am (neighborhood potlucks, not work) is similar – main ingredients and major allergens, even in small amounts, get listed, and we put our names on the card so people can ask about other ingredients. If I make anything without gluten ingredients I’ll note that my kitchen contains gluten and I can’t promise no cross contamination.

      3. commensally*

        Anyone who want to try to make an inclusive potluck, the first thing should be requiring everyone to bring a card with a full ingredients list to place by their contribution. It’s not particularly burdensome once people get used to actually doing it (and something like “A can of Campbell’s tomato soup” or “worcestershire sauce” is usually fine without listing all the sub-ingredients, as people will already know if they can risk that kind of thing.)

        It covers everybody and doesn’t require anybody to divulge things. If Susan from Accounting refuses to give up the secret ingredient to her grandmother’s crab dip, she can put SECRET INGREDIENT – CHECK WITH SUSAN on the card.

        1. EmF*

          This is what I do, and I include on the card that “the kitchen this was prepared in was cleaned beforehand, but is regularly used to prepare food containing (wheat flour/eggs/soy/dairy.)” – I can’t guarantee that cross-contamination hasn’t happened, and also my kitchen might not meet religious requirements for people who would typically have more than one kitchen for that purpose. I’ll do my best and beyond that all I can do is make sure people have the required information

      4. Chirpy*

        One group I’m in likes to make historical recipes for potlucks, and most people will include ingredient lists because some of these foods are pretty unusual, and there’s a lot of food intolerances in the group. It’s really great, and I’ve started including a list at every potluck now.

    5. MK*

      But people with food restrictions are limited in the variety of things they can eat in general, it’s nit something specific to potlucks.

      1. Spiders Everywhere*

        If I’m cooking a dish, and everyone’s eating my dish, and I don’t get to eat anything else, I’m not attending a potluck, I’m catering.

        1. MK*

          Ok, but then it sounds like potlucks aren’t suitable for people with food restrictions, since cross contamination is an issue and you can’t be confident that dishes are labeled correctly. Plus, I wouldn’t count on the average cook to be able to make a tasty vegan/gluten-free dish.

          1. Bunch Harmon*

            I worked at a place that had quarterly potlucks. Not everyone brought home cooked food – there was always fruit, a veggie tray, and bagged chips. I’m gluten intolerant and generally wouldn’t trust other people’s home cooking (when I was newly diagnosed, my own spouse once tried to make a GF cake and used baking spray – oil and flour – to grease the pan). I would eat the dish I brought and anything else that was safe, and focus on the team bonding (which was the whole point).

          2. Fierce Jindo*

            Gluten free and vegan are hard restrictions if you’re committed to making an unusual variant of something that normally isn’t gluten free or vegan. They’re easy if you’re choosing a recipe from the restricted universe of things that are naturally gluten free or vegan.

            1. Emmy Noether*

              Yes, I think if the task is to make one vegan or gluten free dish, any dish, that’s something an average cook should be able to do. There are common dishes that are naturally that, or easily modified to be that by leaving out a non-essential ingredient. That’s a better bet than trying to cook an unfamiliar “replacement” ingredient. I frequently cook “accidentally vegan”, or rather would-be-vegan if I left off the finishing parmesan and/or butter.

              It’s modifying a specific non-vegan/gluteny dish, or serving a variety of nutritious dishes that take work and experience. Also the combination of vegan AND gluten free is harder.

              1. Golden*

                The combination of vegan and gluten free is also really expensive, especially appetizers! I (celiac) tried to make something to suit myself and some non-strict vegan coworkers and I feel like every recipe I found called for cashews, which are $! I ended up making some black bean and avocado situation that ended up being fairly popular.

            2. Observer*

              They’re easy if you’re choosing a recipe from the restricted universe of things that are naturally gluten free or vegan.

              Not necessarily. For one thing, it’s way too easy to wind up with a wrong ingredient without realizing. The example of cooking spray above is perfect – most people who are not used to this stuff are just not likely to even check for gluten in cooking spray.

              Then comes the issue of cross contamination in the kitchen. Because my kitchen is strictly kosher, I can guarantee that my dish is totally lactose / dairy free, if I choose because I won’t use any dish that gets used for dairy as well as being sure about the ingredients. But gluten? I don’t know.

          3. amoeba*

            For the first part – yeah, probably not if it does rise to the level that cross-contamination would be a problem. Even if everybody was perfect in their own kitchen, I’d be so worried about spoons getting mixed up when serving or whatever! The majority of food restrictions aren’t that sever though, so a lot of people would still be able to take part in and enjoy a potluck.

            For the second part – really? There are so many dishes that “average cooks” prepare all the time that are naturally vegan/gluten-free, it’s not some kind of weird fancy special cooking! Just make a nice green/cucumber/italian pasta salad without dairy for the vegans – the first two would actually also be gluten-free. And for just gluten-free, anything that doesn’t contain grains – a chili, any kind of soup, most salads unless it’s pasta, a nice cheeseboard, whatever!

            I mean, sure, you do also have to check your condiments etc., but… it’s really not that hard or exotic? I’m a flexitarian and I still prepare dishes that happen to be vegan and/or gluten-free all the time.

            1. Rainy*

              Just because a reaction “isn’t severe” doesn’t mean I want to trigger it! I have a couple of allergies that won’t send me to the ER, but I *will* spend the next six hours in the toilets longing for the sweet release of death.

              1. catastrophegirl*

                This! I had the hardest time for years convincing my family that sneaking onions into the food isn’t a problem “because I won’t notice it”. I had to completely stop eating their food and explain multiple times that “No, it won’t kill me, but every time I eat something you cook I get to spend the next TWO DAYS trapped in the bathroom so it’s not worth it for me to be polite and eat it anyway.” And yes, they really did sneak onions into the food by putting them in a blender so I wouldn’t notice the pieces, but then bragged to a mutual friend about getting away with it. My horrified friend told me immediately that what I had long suspected was true.

          4. Potsie*

            That is why it sucks to be pressured to attend and bring food to share. I don’t want to pay to feed my coworkers while I can only eat my dish and even that I can only have at the beginning because someone is bound to mix up spoons at some point or hold a roll over the bowl.

            1. Rainy*

              Yup. I did that *once*–before I even made it to my dish, it was gone, and I couldn’t eat anything else at the potluck. I never bothered again.

          5. Observer*

            Ok, but then it sounds like potlucks aren’t suitable for people with food restrictions,

            Indeed.

            It’s nice that people want to be inclusive. But it’s really important to understand that this stuff can be *really* tricky. And a potluck is the kind of thing that is inherently difficult to make inclusive for people with food issues.

          6. fhqwhgads*

            Correct, potlucks are not suitable for people with food restrictions, since cross contamination is an issue and you can’t be confident dishes are labeled correctly.
            People choose their level of risk acceptance. “Everyone participates” cannot be a measure of success.

    6. Ellis Bell*

      I think that in addition to noting your dietary needs, there could also be a “suggestions of things I can confidently eat” list. So instead of phrasing negatively what you can’t eat, you can let people know what you can eat, and take out all guesswork. Those who are extremely limited in what they can eat can simply say “I can’t take any risks at all; please don’t plan to feed me” and others might say “unopened packets of certified x-free Brand Name work great for me” or “I’m alcohol free, so just a good selection of soft drinks for me!” Personally, as someone with a significant but low risk gluten intolerance, it’s beyond easy for other people to accommodate me; it’s simply that they don’t know how. There are foods I wouldn’t risk eating at all, and there are other foods that I can tell are safe just by looking at them. There just needs to be communication sometimes.

      1. Observer*

        I think that in addition to noting your dietary needs, there could also be a “suggestions of things I can confidently eat” list.

        In theory, that’s a great idea. But people who don’t live in that world make mistakes. All the time. I’m not even talking about the people who decide that “a little couldn’t hurt. It’s SO little.” Or even the people who claim that “the alcohol boils out” in situations where that’s not completely true. But it’s also people who miss the nuances. eg Someone says “I can eat GF oats.” Suzy misses the fact that the oats need to be marked as “GF” because oats are not, in fact, always completely gluten free. And the next thing you know, Suzy has brought in something with non-GF oats, while she insists that her dish is actually gluten free.

        Suzy in this case is not a jerk. She just missed a detail. The problem is that this “little” detail is actually crucial.

    7. CityMouse*

      My close friend has celiac and has been burned by people telling her something hoke made is gluten free enough to the point that she’ll only eat home made food made be certain trusted people (celiac groups also have restaurant reviews specific to gluten issues). It’s not out of malice, people make mistakes with cross contamination or additives that have gluten (like soy sauce). I’ve messed up myself but managed to catch my error before serving it to her.

      I’ve also cooked vegan food but I’ve also learned there are certain products in grey areas as well where people disagree as to whether they count.

      And then of course at potlucks things can get accidentally cross contaminated by someone putting the wrong spoon in something.

      Anyway, potlucks are a minefield and asking people who aren’t familiar with a restriction to cook can backfire. Ultimately the person with the restriction has to determine their own comfort level.

      1. Paint N Drip*

        I don’t have any life-threatening or seriously impactful food allergies, only intolerances that make my life uncomfy for a day or 2 – I still usually don’t prefer food prepared by other people. If I had celiac like your friend (or any anaphylaxis allergies), I don’t think I would trust homemade foods either, the risk is SO high! The intentions can be so good, but A) most people don’t have a gluten-free kitchen so all of their STUFF is contaminated and B) most people don’t fully understand allergies (or understand the gravity) and make simple contam errors (spoons, handling a different product, etc.)

        My husband works in a produce kitchen, and the higher-ups keep wanting to add more and more additional products (like, boiled eggs or crackers) to increase the value-added produce products (snack trays, etc.). The other employees don’t have food safety certificates (he does, and has the lived experience of my food issues), don’t have an innate understanding of allergies, and TPTB aren’t getting why ‘just adding crackers’ is such a risk. Now customers complaints are coming to the bigwigs with contamination concerns, a kid was hospitalized! All of a sudden now we understand why crackers are an issue…

    8. BW*

      I don’t trust other people to get my dietary restrictions correct. I bring my own lunch, and sit and chat with everyone. I get to enjoy the potluck and enjoy food that I can eat.

      I do this when we have a team outing at a restaurant, too. I check the menu, and if I can’t eat anything there, I just bring my own lunch. The restaurant not going to refuse to seat me because we’re a big group.

      1. Observer*

        The restaurant not going to refuse to seat me because we’re a big group.

        The restaurant may or may not refuse to seat you. But they may very well not allow you to bring in your own food. In many cases, that *are not allowed to*. They are not being malicious, but they really can’t do it.

        You’ve been fortunate, it sounds like, but this is a real issue.

      3. fhqwhgads*

        The restaurant is violating health codes if they let you do this, btw. Do it at a potluck, but I don’t recommend continuing to do it at a restaurant.

    9. Chirpy*

      Some people just aren’t safe eating foods made by people who aren’t used to working with those restrictions. Wheat flour can hang in the air for 24 hours, so a severely wheat/gluten-free person could still react to a “gluten-free” recipe made in that time frame. Some people will react to gluten residues on clean dishes or appliances. And an awful lot of stuff has hidden gluten or wheat in it- many spice mixes, for example. And sometimes, at a potluck, a dish gets contaminated just by having the allergen nearby (someone uses the bread tongs in the gluten-free dish, the cookies are too close to the peanut butter, etc.) so some people are never going to be comfortable joining.

    10. Sam I Am*

      I agree. Have everyone write a card with the ingredients list on it. If people don’t want to share “secret” ingredients, the participants can skip that dish. Ask everyone to bring a serving utensil for their dish, as well.
      I doubt you can avoid the sort of cross contamination that can make some people quie ill at a potluck, which is a great reason to keep attendance voluntary in a super breezy way. An ingredients list and each dish with its own serving utensil is a fairly middle-of-the road way to deal with it all, and keep the organizer from feeling like they have to stay on top of everything.
      I really like that some people just bring food for themselves to come and join the group for breaking bread, that’s really inclusive.

      1. RunShaker*

        I thought I saw on news in last couple of days that a bunch of people got sick from a workplace potluck…. I love potlucks but I’m not so sure now. I’ve never seen a potluck at my current company which I think it is due to our hybrid work schedule. OP this is great question.

        1. Beka Cooper*

          Years ago, before I met my husband, he got food poisoning from some chicken at a cookout organized/attended by most of his coworkers (small retail shop). They ALL got sick from the chicken, and had to call in sick, and the only people who could work for a week were the ones who hadn’t attended. He has been paranoid about grilling chicken ever since, and obsesses over it with the meat thermometer when he does grill it.

        2. fhqwhgads*

          It wasn’t even a potluck. It was just one person brought in something they’d cooked to share.

    11. WillowSunstar*

      One way to make sure there is food for the food-restrictive people: Have a couple of people bring a large veggie tray and/or fruit tray, and make sure to put the dip on the side so they know it’s optional. I’m always the one who brings a veggie or fruit tray to the potluck because I’m usually on a strict diet at the time.

      1. Observer*

        Again, it depends on the food restrictions and how severe they are. For some people that would work. For others? Not necessarily.

        For one thing, there are plenty of fruits and vegetables that people have severe problems with. My son is severely, dangerously allergic to apples. Put any fruit on the same tray with cut up apples, and he can’t touch anything on that tray. I( know someone with a similarly severe reaction to tomatoes. Put slices of tomatoes on a veggie platter, she’s not touching anything on the platter. And that’s just allergies. There are other food issues.

        Then you have the problem of keeping the platter pristine. People use the same utensils that they used for something else, stuff drips, bit and pieces fly.

        I’m not saying that this could never work – it may be worth talking to people at your workplace. But do understand that this absolutely *not* a sure fire way to handle food restrictions.

      2. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

        There is no magic “food that works for everyone”. I am so allergic to peppers that cut peppers being eaten by other people near me may mean I have to leave the room (depends on ventilation). Veggie trays, veggie pizza, and sub sandwiches have all caused me to have to walk out of catered meetings. The worst was when I had to leave a meeting where I’d presented at a breakout session that morning and really wanted to network further with some of those folks over lunch, but the catered pepper-containing lunch drove me out of the entire conference since it was served in the same room as the whole-group after-lunch session so I just had to tell my boss I was leaving due to peppers (at least she knew me well enough to not have to ask follow-up questions when I told her).

        For small groups, you can survey everyone and try to make things work in the intersection of food needs. For larger groups, I think the key is to:
        (a) not prepare, serve, or eat meals in the same room you’re having other things in so people like me don’t miss the rest of the event
        (b) keep everything as separated and labeled as possible (I will make myself a sad cheese-only sandwich with no veggies if it’s a build-your-own with reasonable attempts to have the veggies later in the line that the cheeses, but I probably can’t eat any premade sandwiches since I will not trust that the cutting board was decontaminated between, say, cutting the peppers and cutting the tomatoes, or the knife between cutting types of sandwiches in half)
        (c) be in the space with the best ventilation possible and don’t cram people too close together (I don’t want to police what the person next to me is eating, but my airways beg to differ)
        (d) don’t make food events the only way to socialize (there are people at the new worksite that I’ve been at for over a year that I have never socialized with because the only large-group social mixers we have are potlucks)

        1. Rainy*

          I had to leave a staff meeting once because someone peeled a clementine during the meeting. Orange oil is an asthma trigger for me, and it doesn’t take much in the air for me to start coughing and gasping for breath.

        2. dogwoodblossom*

          Also just like, a party where the only thing i can eat is a veggie tray? Great. Woo hoo.

          I was just at a family gathering where people were like “the vegetarian option is this bowl of lettuce with ranch dressing, enjoy!”

      3. fhqwhgads*

        This does not make sure. Someone touches the bread. Now they touch the celery. The veggie tray has now been glutened. And that’s just one example.

    12. Who knows*

      Problem is, most people think they understand dietary restrictions, but in fact they do not.

      My son had anaphylactic, Epi-pen carrying allergies to dairy and egg until he was about 6. At age 9, he’s outgrown the dairy and can eat foods like baked goods that contain egg, but not like a scrambled egg.

      You’d be surprised at how many loving, well-intentioned friends and family members forget that butter is dairy, or that they cooked something IN butter. Or regularly forget what foods are allergens, or think gluten-free equals vegan. It’s a lot, and I’m not talking about unintelligent people here. I always carried a lunchbox of safe food and it was a nice bonus if there was something he could eat (i.e. plain tortilla chips, packaged vegan food with ingredient lists).

    13. Biology Dropout*

      I know people get mad about store-bought things at a potluck, but as someone with a lot of food restrictions who also mostly keeps kosher, the potlucks I attend where people bring prepackaged things are amazing!! I can see the ingredients! I can have my own little bag of popcorn or box of raisins that nothing weird has fallen into! You can see if it’s kosher! I would love to normalize bringing prepackaged things to potlucks for this reason!

  4. Seltzer Fiend*

    I once ended up in a breakout session on a Zoom call with two notetaking AI assistants and one other human. So. Uh. Yeah. That’s a slightly dystopian thing that happened.

    1. niknik*

      Anyone remember that scene form Wall-E where the autopilot comes ever closer behind the captains in their photographs in the captains quarters ?

    2. Is AI the End?*

      Honestly, AI recording and recapping the work meeting is my favorite application of it.

      I take notes, but just enough to jog my memory. AI does a much better job than I have. It’s also not taking away anyone job’s but enhancing it.

      To me, the dystopia will occur when AI takes away jobs. And unfortunately, I don’t see it not happening since that is why companies are spending so much upfront. They will reap the rewards when they no longer have to cover HC which is a continuous “expense”.

      Now it can be argued with every new technological advance, new jobs have opened up. However, I feel the end goal of many companies is to have as little workforce as possible.

      Yet, who will buy the products when the masses don’t have a job and cannot buy anything?

      1. Seltzer Fiend*

        We can all have our definitions of dystopia. Being asked to complete a group task with a bunch of AI notetakers is hilarious but unsettling low-stakes artifact of modern civilization, like a reply-all fiasco on a slow Friday.

    3. JMC*

      So far I haven’t seen anyone use AI in our meetings thankfully, because it’s really a form of cheating. I will write things myself thank you.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        While I think there are many reasons to be wary of AI, how is it “cheating”? If you prefer to write things yourself that’s fine, but for some it’s beneficial to have something there that can do it for them.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          I don’t view it as cheating in terms of “I’m not doing work I paid for”, but it does spoil half the point of notes for me. I learn and retain best when I take my own notes; the process of actually typing/writing things down is what solidifies it for me. No AI note-taker will be helpful for that!

      2. Aaak it's Cathy*

        I’m very curious about how this is cheating in the context of transcribing a meeting? Transcribing software packages have been around for a long time, even in the healthcare areana where we are limited to only using products vetted, approved, and purchased by our org. If this AI came up with novel solutions to items discussed in the meeting, maybe that’s cheating? But if its just giving you a better transcription of the meeting than older generation software, whats the problem? I’ve recently started using it because it can run at the same time I’m taking notes for myself, because the pieces of information that are important to me often miss key points that are more important to other attendees.

    4. Blackcat*

      I haven’t had it happen, but I have had colleagues have students send pre-programmed chatbots into Zoom offices hours. As in, they send a bot to ask a set of questions rather than attend themselves.

  5. hohumdrum*

    If it helps LW4, I am not an introvert, nor am I quiet, and most of the time I am the center chatty cathy in any personal/non-work conversation, and people absolutely do this to me on the rare occasion they are talking near me and I’m not participating. Alison is 100% right, it is just an awkward way for them to make sure they acknowledge your existence.

    I’ve never felt like they were treating me like a pet, I do find it vaguely annoying for other reasons, so I usually just respond in the vein of “haha no, I’m just focused on this project, you’re good!” or whatever when they do the “hohumdrum is sitting over there thinking we’re crazy hahaha” bit.

    1. a bright young reporter with a point of view*

      Yess. I can understand not totally vibing with their approach, but it’s basically the same as Gregarious Brad going “oh whaaaat? Jessica in the HOUSE!” when he sees you at the party or activity. I don’t know if there’s a nice way to ask them to stop but it really is well meant.

      2. LW 4*

        My workplace is full of Gregarious Brads who do the “call out your name every time they walk by you” routine, so this makes sense.

        (And I recognize that the Brads of the world are doing this to be friendly, but every single time it happens, I turn around to see if they need something from me, only to find they’re already gone. I hate it. I guess I’ll file the “Morgan thinks I’m crazy” comments into the same category of well-intentioned irritants.)

        1. linger*

          Brad: “LW4 is sitting there thinking we’re, like, crazy.”
          LW4 interior monologue: “No, just strange and irritating… but probably well-meaning.”
          Narrator: “Just one reason LW4 avoids saying things out loud in meetings.”

          1. linger*

            I mean, it sounds like you may all be stuck in a feedback loop conditioning LW4 to further silence.
            But in truth, either they’re accepting your non-verbal presence as it is, or (if you want to break out of the loop) they may expect some similarly-pitched joke response. Which is very much a “know your audience” thing; not sure I’d go with “No, just tasty with fava beans and a nice Chianti”, but YMMV.

        2. Elaine Benes*

          Another reason that they might be doing this is that they’re self-conscious in how they sound in whatever conversation they’re having- maybe they’re worried they sound too catty/shallow/unintelligent in whatever story or jokes they’re telling to the other coworker.

          Sometimes when people can’t read someone, they assume or fear that the person is silently judging them. Which is more about them than you, but they might just be looking for a quick reassurance response from you that you don’t care what they’re talking about/aren’t judging the conversation- I’m thinking responses like a light “haha, no definitely not, i’m in my own world over here” or “what? no way I would have done the same thing, you’re definitely not crazy.” will give them a quick reassurance that you don’t mind them chatting / don’t care about what they’re talking about / not judging what they talk about. And hopefully over time they will need that reassurance less. I can imagine thinking a very quiet person isn’t participating in talking with my group because they are internally rolling their eyes at everything we talk about, but if they few times they did talk they made it clear they weren’t thinking like that, my brain would re-set to assuming they’re just quiet.

          It’s like when super drunk people get self-conscious around the sober person at the party and look for reassurance that they’re not being an annoying drunk/making poor choices/embarrassing themselves. The sober person isn’t doing anything to give this impression, they’re just not drinking, but sometimes people can interpret a person going against the social grain as a judgement of the social grain.

          1. LW 4*

            This actually might explain why I’m getting these comments so often, as my desk’s location is right by the unofficial “stop to chat after coming back from the bathroom/breakroom” spot. Thinking of it as an expression of awkwardness over having their conversation next to the resident introvert makes a lot of sense. It hadn’t occurred to me they might be looking for reassurance they’re not being annoying. Thanks.

            1. celestialisms*

              Oh, in that case then I honestly wouldn’t even attribute it to you being an introvert– it’s purely the location. They’re attempting to acknowledge that they know they’re impinging on your space and they know it’s potentially annoying (whether bc of conversation volume, length, or topic), and also signaling that they’re not ignoring you deliberately. They may also be trying to draw you into the conversation and/or give you an opening to tell them to go away. I’ll do this kind of ‘acknowledgement of existence’ when I’m having a conversation right near an admin or other person who is tied to their desk and can’t get away from the convo.

              Typically all you need to respond with is ‘you’re fine’ or something similar, but if you want to get a laugh, agreeing with their statement (in a clearly joking tone) usually goes over well.

              1. CTT*

                Agreed! LW, I feel like you’re turning this into a “me vs them” situation when it’s not – they’re acknowledging your existence and welcoming you to join the conversation if you want to. It’s not as beholden to introvert vs extrovert as you’re making it out to be.

      3. Falling Diphthong*

        I can understand not totally vibing with their approach.
        And a lot of people are still not feeling they have their social cues working fluidly after the pandemic isolation.

    2. I Would Rather Be Eating Dumplings*

      Also voicing that this has happened to me and I wouldn’t describe myself as especially quiet.

      What OP is seeing is likely her colleagues self-consciousness and awareness that they can be heard by people who aren’t part of the conversation; it can feel a little awkward when you imagine what you sound like to others and that’s why the silly comments.

    3. ASD always*

      Yeah, my usual response is along the lines of a cheery “oh don’t mind me, I was miles away!” as I’d only tune in when hearing my name. Though sometimes it’s a useful opening to participate if I do have something to add, so I see the social value in the approach.

      1. lomibear*

        “Ha, Morgan thinks I’m crazy.”

        *smiles* “No, Morgan was thinking about waffles.”

        Mmmmm, waffles.

    4. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah, I’d encourage OP to rephrase quite a few things internally here. One would be their definition of “addressed directly”, because if they are using OP”s name in their presence, they are almost certainly addressing OP and giving them an opportunity to join in. There are levels of directness, and this is one of those where it’s not so direct that you have to answer, but it’s direct enough that you almost certainly can if you want. The other thing I’d consider rephrasing is whether the issue is actually related to being quiet or introverted, because those are two different things. Introversion/extroversion relates to how you get your energy, not by how often you speak. You can be very talkative and sociable, and still be introverted; it’s just that the interaction costs you some energy after the fact, or you can be an extrovert who is at a social loss of how to join the conversation in a certain situation, even though you feel a need to be energised by conversation. I’m an outgoing introvert whose sister is a shy extrovert. The reason I bring up the distinction is because it’s not clear whether OP is simply misunderstanding the cue, and they want to join in, or if they find being potentially included in conversation more often to be a draining concept.

      1. LW 4*

        They definitely are different things, but I’m both quiet and introverted. I’m perfectly happy to keep to myself all day as long as I’m not offending anyone by doing so. I’m also not great at interpreting social cues. I was worried my coworkers’ comments might be indirect jabs at me for not participating or that they really thought I had these opinions for some reason. But the responses seem to indicate this is just something people do, which is a relief.

        1. Seashell*

          Personally, I thought they were jokes about you not participating. Maybe not, but it’s possible.

          I am a quiet person who isn’t crazy about small talk and tend to be seen as quiet, but if you’re that far outside the office norm, you might want to push yourself to do a little more chatting when possible.

          1. MsM*

            Yeah, my mother in law is one of those people who never met a silence she didn’t need to fill, which unfortunately creates this dynamic sometimes where she says something I don’t know how to respond to and just keeps going until my husband steps in to rescue us.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              My previous manager would run 45 minutes over on a 30-minute meeting without actually saying anything new. He could have made a fortune in a job where he billed by the hour.

        4. Hohumdrum*

          Hey LW, wrt to your concern that they’re taking jabs at you- I just want to flag for you that sounds maybe like baggage left from school or maybe a former toxic job that may be making your life harder now.

          I talk a lot because I’m shy, and it’s how I expel nervous energy. I got made fun of a lot in school for being too weird and annoying for that reason. When I first started working, I did not realize this but unconsciously I carried the assumption that the work social interactions were going to be similar to school, and it impacted how I interpreted my coworkers in ways that I regret now.

          In my experience as an adult, people aren’t taking jabs at you for not talking, they’re worried you don’t feel included/acknowledged. It’s not middle school anymore, they don’t actually care if you’re quiet. A lot of them probably also identify as introverted or feel out of place in the office, just their expression of that might not be the same as yours.

          I mean if Brad does things to you that are more clearly jabs then yeah, assuming that’s his deal is smart. But I just wanted to throw out there for you that from where I sit that seems like an assumption based on your own feelings vs what’s happening, and it might be worth just checking on that because you might be generating your own stress about office relations that you don’t need.

          P.S. before there’s a long derailing comment thread- of COURSE adult bullies exist and tons of people have stories about offices that ran like middle school I am not saying it doesn’t happen I’m just saying that’s not the majority of adult interactions and so entering spaces with fellow adults with the mindset of a 7th grader trying to get through algebra without incident is not ideal.

          If I’m totally off base LW feel free to disregard! Just something I went through that I wanted to put out there in case it rings true for anyone else. I’m sure for many it won’t and that’s fine.

        5. Workerbee*

          Yeah, it is just something people do. Especially those who would find it uncomfortable i f they themselves were within hearing distance of a conversation they weren’t part of. They may well be attributing to you what they’d like to hear themselves.

          A lightly jovial: “Ha! You said it, not me!” could go a long way to reassuring them, though I understand that takes energy, and it’s a shame you have to do it at all. But hopefully it’ll gain you some time & space before they do it again.

        6. pinyata*

          I’ve been the recipient of these “Morgan’s over there thinking X” comments in the past, and the assumption was usually that I was disagreeing with them or judging them. I always felt like it was a commentary on them thinking that I do judge them when that wasn’t the case, and it felt condescending. So I understand your feeling like it was a jab. It is helpful to hear that this is “just something people do” and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything except maybe including the non-speaker in a joking way.

      2. Student*

        I wish people would stop “correcting” introverts every time they describe themselves as quiet. For a lot of introverts, both things are part of their identity and it feels really invalidating that every time someone uses the words “introverted and quiet” they get told they misunderstand their own characteristics.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          If you read my comment carefully, it’s not a correction, but a clarifying question as to which one “the issue is actually related to”.

        2. Pescadero*

          Introverts may very well be quiet. Introverts aren’t quiet BECAUSE of their introversion though.

          1. DOW*

            The willful misunderstanding of introversion/extroversion online really deserves some sort of dissertation.

    5. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      Adding to this, I’m the person who attributes, “Bob is thinking, (agree with my feelings on cereal).” I do it to acknowledge, hello, fellow human. I’m speaking in your space, would you like to join, should I take it elsewhere?

    6. Linda*

      I’ve gotten the “Linda over there must think we’re crazy!” treatment pretty often, and I’ve had a lot of success with jokingly agreeing with them. The trick is to highlight how you weren’t paying attention until you heard your name, with tone and body language:
      “Haha, Linda must be thinking about how wrong we are!”
      ‘What? Yes! Yes, of course, you’re totally right… I’m sorry, what was the question?” or whatever variation seems to fit your workplace.

    7. Annie2*

      Agreeing with others here. I’m sure I’ve made a few “Morgan thinks we’re crazy” type comments in my time and it is 100% just a way to throw a softball to Morgan to acknowledge her presence and give her a chance to join in if she wants. It feels ruder to me to talk in Morgan’s area and not acknowledge her at all. Any reasonable response is fine.

  6. PepperVL*

    Another reason people might avoid food at potlucks is cross contamination. Some allergies/conditions (especially peanut allergies and celiacs) can be triggered by the smallest amount of cross contamination. And for those people, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the recipe is 100% compatible because if the knife you used preparing it was used to spread peanut butter or cut bread and wasn’t perfectly cleaned, they can’t eat it. And if Suzy from accounting uses the same spoon to dish up the casserole with bread crumbs and the gluten free dish, the people with celiacs can’t eat either dish.

    And that’s not even getting into the complexities of things like assuring the colleague who keeps kosher or halal can eat at the potluck…

    1. Happy meal with extra happy*

      I think this is where being aware of any food restrictions on a team and adjusting based on those specific restrictions is crucial. For example, someone on my team can’t eat dairy, so if we get pizza, we order a tomato pie as well (which they like). But, no one on my team has celiacs, so right now, we don’t have to get gluten free items.

        1. Nodramalama*

          Well I think thats why you don’t make it a mandatory thing and if people don’t want to make something, and don’t want to eat, they don’t.

      2. J.F.*

        I agree that whether the reason is personal or medical, sometimes people are just going to be out. For example, I have an anaphylactic food allergy. I would appreciate the LW’s consideration, but the risk of accident or contamination is just too high.

        1. Ashley*

          I also suspect more people are going to be opting out of potlucks or leery of potlucks for awhile after the news of 40+ co-workers ending up in the hospital after a potluck.

      3. Jennifer Strange*

        That’s a good plan when you’re getting catering, but for a potluck it’s trickier unless someone brings something purely store bought with the ingredients listed on it.

    2. ComplianceChick*

      I avoid them purely from a food safety standpoint. Unless the office has a surefire way to keep these foods in the safe temperature zones (hot/cold) for the entire morning until lunchtime, then chances are we’re all having casserole with a side of salmonella. And even then – no way to know if it was kept safe at the preparer’s home prior to coming to work. Did they wash their hands sufficiently? Did their toddler sneeze all over it? I hear that TikTok jingle playing in the background…”you can’t eat at everybody’s house…”

    3. Not That Kind of Doctor*

      Yeah, I’ve had a couple of coworkers with celiac over the years, and I wouldn’t try to feed them out of my kitchen. Not because I wouldn’t make the effort, but because at least one of them told us about how she couldn’t get it under control until they threw out all ingredients and porous utensils, containers, etc (maybe everything that touched food, I wasn’t 100% clear on that part), scrubbed the living daylights out of the kitchen, and started from scrstch.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        I have a couple of friends with celiac disease and I have a few others with major gluten intolerances. I would never, ever cook for them. It’s just not worth the risk. And this is a good thing for these relationships, because my friends appreciate that I am not dismissing their health issues.

        When I make food for potlucks or other shared situations, I list the ingredients on a card. I started doing that because I made something for an event that had almond milk in it and no one would have guessed. Cooking for others, especially for people you don’t know well, requires some extra thought and a willingness to understand your own culinary limitations.

      2. Observer*

        she couldn’t get it under control until they threw out all ingredients and porous utensils, containers, etc (maybe everything that touched food, I wasn’t 100% clear on that part), scrubbed the living daylights out of the kitchen, and started from scrstch.

        It sounds pretty much what people who want to make their kitchens Kosher need to do. Some stuff gets tossed, other stuff (like metal ware) gets boiled or torched (after a THOROUGH cleaning), depending on how the utensil was used.

        By the time you are done with that process, you’ve got no traces of anything. But if that’s were someone is at, they would be nuts to eat from the kitchen of someone who uses gluten containing ingredients on a regular basis.

    4. Croque Mademoiselle*

      At this point, I have fully embraced a bagged salad with dressings/toppings on the side as my “potluck thing”.
      I love to cook, but between germophobes, health conscious people, allergies, and food restrictions, this is the easiest way to be inclusive and bring something that most people can eat.

    5. Rincewind*

      And then you get people like me, who say “I’m gluten and dairy sensitive” but it’s an IBS trigger, not an allergy. So it’s really unfortunate when on Tuesday morning I passed up homemade donuts because of being gluten-free, and at Friday’s potluck I want to eat the mac n cheese. Because Tuesday afternoon I had an important meeting and didn’t want to feel sick, but I’m willing to spend part of my Saturday on the toilet in exchange for an amazing dish.
      It ends up looking like I’m lying or trying to be special.

      1. Smithy*

        In the grand scheme of things – I do think that lots of people’s food choices are like this, even with people who “eat everything”. Whether it’s for health, religion, ethics or just personal preference many of us have our “sometimes foods”.

        Someone who keeps kosher or halal most of the time but if traveling to a unique location will eat specialty pork products. Vegans who’ve decided that oysters ethically fit within the vegan diet. The examples go on and in someone’s family/social life those moments can be worth discussing, but at work it regularly isn’t.

        For better or worse, I think that part of making a potluck truly inclusive is acknowledging that there are people who won’t want to participate by eating. And so whatever can be done to make those spaces inclusive (really strong coffee/tea/drinks selection?) for non-eaters can only help.

    6. JMC*

      Potlucks, which started out well are now becoming a terrible thing to do all the way around. People have food sensitives like never before. We are still in a raging pandemic. No thanks. I don’t ever want to be in one again. My husband is not participating in his work potlucks anymore either it just gives us the ick.

  7. Viki*

    Find out what your company’s policy is on A.I. if the company is fine with it, you don’t really have a leg to stand on.

    Conversationally, I find it fascinating how AAM crowd is very anti A.I. note-taking, as I have found in my field, and my company we are actively working on training an A.I assistant. It’s always interesting to see how the world out of my corner of the industry.

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      I think there are a few of us who are pretty anti AI in general, but I feel like people here are mostly fine with AI note takers (or at least not wholly against it). Every time there’s a question about how to organize yourself / stay organized in meetings / help with auditory processing / whatever, a handful of people usually suggest using an AI transcription service without getting too much push back. I’d probably describe people here as mostly neutral about it and I’m usually surprised how long it will take someone to bring up criticisms of it in the comments, to be honest.

      1. Freya*

        I’m violently anti-AI, but I work in finance, and commonly people are talking about using AI in ways that would potentially violate privacy laws here in Australia if I did it at work. It’s not worth the risk to me, especially since it’s faster for me to look up the legislation than to ask generative AI to give me a summary!

        1. MK*

          AI hasn’t really reached a point where it’s truly more functional than more traditional methods. I think a lot of people use it for the novelty more than the convenience.

          1. TechWorker*

            Disagree for certain things – I work on some stuff where my previous way of getting information was Google where you’d then have to sift through man pages, random help websites & stack overflow questions & answers to try to work out the right way to use some tool. Our AI assistant can give me a sensible answer immediately (and this is generally stuff I can then easily verify via other sources as needed, because I’ve found out the name of the config option or whatever). Definitely more functional & a faster workflow.

            1. Freya*

              The usual thing it’s suggested to me as a solution for is processing timesheets on public holidays. The main reason those timesheets aren’t done using an app is that the worker is working in restricted/secure areas where they can’t have their phone anyway, so it has to be a spreadsheet, and we have to process them manually instead of writing a macro to process them because they’re IT people and are forever modifying the spreadsheet so it doesn’t match the template (to make it ‘easier’ for payroll). And in any case, AI is not the right tool for the task, a program with defined parameters that then talks to the accounting program is!

              And even if we had a program to do that, and let the program automatically talk to the bank without human oversight (which would be a security risk that might invalidate insurance…) banks don’t process payments on public holidays anyway!

              (usually the reason I’m rejecting the timesheet is because it says they worked on a public holiday and they didn’t also provide the required evidence that a supervisor signed off on it beforehand)

        2. Nodramalama*

          Well also AI is vulnerable to hallucinations so it’s summary of legislation could very well be incorrect.

        3. JMC*

          Same here. It’s cheating and it’s theft, pure and simple. In AI art it steals from every other piece of art out there, and in writing well that’s the cheating part. NOPE.

      2. Agent Diane*

        I don’t think transcript “AI” is necessarily a problem: it’s a tool that has existed for a while which has been rebranded as AI.

        Generative AI can get in the sea.

        1. Audrey Puffins*

          Whoever named it “generative AI” is a marketing genius, it makes it sound way more impressive than if they’d more accurately named it “fancy autocorrect”

          1. Nodramalama*

            Well it’s because generative AI is designed to create something new. Which incidentally is why inaccuracies in content may very well be a feature not a bug

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

          “Tech behemoth OpenAI has touted its artificial intelligence-powered transcription tool Whisper as having near “human level robustness and accuracy.”

          But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. Those experts said some of the invented text — known in the industry as hallucinations — can include racial commentary, violent rhetoric and even imagined medical treatments.”

          https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

          I would touch AI transcription with a 10 foot pole for work purposes at this point. Every program that touts AI integration for advanced usage, I turn that off/ignore it as quickly as possible.

          1. Wayward Sun*

            Eventually there’s going to be a massive scandal around one of these tools, like when certain Xerox copiers were found to be changing numerals in copies.

        3. Ann O'Nemity*

          Yes, transcription tools have been around long before ChatGPT. The current wave of concern around using these tools is partly due to heightened awareness of data privacy, security, and AI ethics. Also, the way they are integrated makes it more obvious when they are being used.

          I agree with all the advice that companies should have AI policies in place, but I also want to caution that for some of our coworkers, these transcription tools are a necessary accommodation.

          1. fhqwhgads*

            Yeah, I think part of the heightened concern with AI transcription is knowing the AI in question is really a language model and not wanting whatever was said and then transcribed to be used to train the model. Whereas “old” transcription software, folks weren’t really concerned about what they said being in any way retained by the software or repurposed by the software. Not discussing the merits of said concerns or lack thereof, but it makes a ton of sense to me why someone would be concerned about, say, chatgpt or bard transcription, but not something that was purpose-built for speech to text.

      3. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

        I don’t like AI. Firstly, it’s not intelligent so it’s mislabled and secondly I have massive concerns regarding privacy and copyright.

        However. Use of it to transcribe audio where the recording it only being stored in a known location and can be deleted upon request? No issues.

    2. Beth*

      If this isn’t a proprietary tool–if it’s the standard zoom assistant, for example–and you want to have a leg to stand on in asking people not to use it, talk to your IT people directly and ask what they think about security. I bet they’ll have some concerns that you can use as an “I’d rather not” excuse, even if company policy as a whole permits the assistant.

      1. AVP*

        Yes, I’m a contractor/outside agency, but I’ve had good luck with pushing back on these from the outside.

        I don’t like them because, frankly, sometimes i want to use the Zoom after the client has left and I’m terrified of my post-client conversation somehow being sent to them directly. And I work on some controversial issues that touch legal, too, and you really don’t want an AI recording of those (especially one that’s not perfectly accurate by nature)!

        But it’s been okay to say “We don’t use these in our firm because of the security risks, I’m going to drop this participant off the Zoom, I’ll send you meeting notes if you really need them.” I try not to make it a big deal and everyone tends to go along with that.

    3. Nodramalama*

      Use of external AI is 100% banned in my company for the very simple reason that our IT cannot verify that they complies with our internal security processes, privacy policies and laws.

    4. Arrietty*

      I’d have absolutely no problem with AI note takers if I knew for certain that they weren’t feeding back the content of the recording to train a LLM. But I don’t trust the tech firms not to do that and lie about it, so I don’t trust AI note takers.

    5. RulingWalnut*

      I push back strongly on using AI to write notes that I send out as being “from me”. But as someone who does a lot of long and technical customer calls, the AI tool we use is fantastic for audio transcription. I completely ignore all the “highlights” and “outline” and other AI features but my work would be dramatically impacted if my company didn’t use the tool anymore.

      If you don’t want to be recorded in general I think it’s fine to ask not to be in small unimportant meetings. And if you ever feel that someone has misrepresented what you said in a meeting you should push back regardless of whether they used AI or not. But I do think opting out of things like audio transcription is a hill not worth dying on.

    6. Person from the Resume*

      I am fairly anti-AI in the sense of chatGPT doing the thinking for people. (And people not even giving the output a common-sense review.)

      *** I’m not even sure I think chatGPT is a “real AI.” It doesn’t actually think. But it wasn’t coded, it was trained so that makes it a generative AI? ***

      But I don’t know why people are upset that transcription tools (which have existed before) got a bit better than they used to be through use of machine learning. They’re still not that great because we use a lot of internal acronyms that it doesn’t catch.

      Also I guess you need to check where your data is stored and how it is used, but that should be for any tool and not just AI ones.

      1. Elsewise*

        For me it’s privacy and not being able to review the privacy policy. In LW’s situation, it’s another employee who added the AI assistant to the meeting without asking anyone else. That means only that coworker knows where the data is stored and how it’s used, assuming they bothered to check. I’ve seen AI assistants “follow” people from meeting to meeting without anyone knowing they were going to do that. That means that because someone got an FYI invite about a meeting, but didn’t attend, their AI notetaker will show up. No one in the actual meeting knows what this app is or what it’s doing, or who’s going to receive the transcript.

        I’m pretty anti-AI, but most “AI” stuff is just branding. I used to have a voice recorder on my phone for taking notes for myself. It would transcribe my voice notes, not always super well, but well enough that I could often re-transcribe it without listening to the recording. Then it rebranded as AI. The only change I noticed was the privacy policy, which suddenly disappeared- anything you said or wrote could be used to train AI, stored in whatever servers they wanted, sold, etc., and it started asking me for permission to use my microphone and camera even when the app was off. I deleted it pretty fast after that. I’ve seen the same brand turn up in Zoom meetings, even when the person who “added” it isn’t there to ask questions about it. That makes me pretty nervous from a privacy standpoint.

        My organization has a culture of asking for consent to record a meeting, or making it clear on the invite that the meeting will be recorded. But because it’s new, we don’t have the same policy for AI notetakers, which may or may not record.

    7. Temperance*

      I support AI note-taking. If anything, it frees up a junior person to actually participate and learn instead of just capturing minutes.

  8. Educator*

    OP1, consider that note taking support may be an accommodation for this coworker. People with many common disabilities have been using transcription software for support since long before AI–AI has just made it a lot easier and better. That does not negate your concerns, but it might make you want to lead with curiosity rather than complaint.

    2. LlamaLawyer*

      Came here to say this! I have several clients that need to use this kind of tool as an accommodation for a variety of reasons related to disabilities that they have.

      1. This one*

        Out of curiosity, how do you deal with the companies’ concerns in these cases?

        Every AI company right now is hoping they can make use of the prompt data and/or passive listening data. Like “Assume you are a salesperson at an accounting SaaS company. Develop a sales pitch for PWC” where the AI gives a smart response that is inclusive of all the times it has sat in on your strategy meetings.

        There’s no AI startup in the world whose valuation doesn’t include the financial reward of them abusing data like that. And if you are using a personal account – well, it’s too bad your company hired the wrong person, but good luck getting them to scrub that data.

        And it’s not even scrubbing data. The data is gone once a model is trained on it – it’s transformed into a random set of numbers called weights that can’t be predicted in advance. But those weights will happily spit your strategy back out at anyone who asks once it’s been trained, even if you couldn’t pinpoint where or how that data is stored. And in court someone smart will slightly sabotage the prompt to argue that it’s just chance that the model spits out strategy – sometimes it spits out gibberish! They just won’t go over the fact that a domain expert who has enough of a feel for the AI model can eventually get it to spit out strategy. And a random expert brought in to testify likely won’t be able to coax it out of the model unless they are both a domain expert and have some experience probing this AI too.

        1. Leaving academia*

          Not the person you asked, but a lot of these concerns can be addressed by looking closer at the technology and user policies. I know in higher education, there’s typically certain tools that are approved by disability services for this purpose. It’s essentially really good voice-to-text, which has been rebranded as AI. Now, there are newer/other services that are collecting and training on data, but a lot of these services aren’t from AI startups and have pretty good privacy protections. They also aren’t free, so part of having an approved list paying for the license (and sometimes hardware).

        2. toolegittoresign*

          It depends on what tools you use — note taker AI isn’t built to be conversant. It wouldn’t be useful for the note taker to put data from your call into the summary for another call. That’s not what people use the service for. The company that provides the note taker may use the data to build products and services it thinks you might also use, but unlike the chat AI, there’s much less risk of it regurgitating your data to another user.

        3. Observer*

          Out of curiosity, how do you deal with the companies’ concerns in these cases?

          It depends on the tool. Like, no one in my org is allowed to use any free “ai” tool for anything that has any information at all, because we *know* that those tools are giving you the service in exchange for using your data. So, not that’s not acceptable.

          But some of the tools (especially the paid ones) do not slurp up your data. Not because they are angels but because it’s the business model. And there could be legal implications if they take money with an explicit promise not to take you data then take it anyway, because that could be breach of contract.

          That’s an extremely important issue. I trust Google to not leak or sell my data. Not because I think they are angels out to serve me out of the goodness of their hearts. But because it’s how they make their money. I trust Apple to keep my data safe, *today*. But for years, their security was actually pretty bad. But then there were a few high profile breaches that literally threatened the company because a lot of high profile folks were talking badly about Apple in ways that were beginning to affect perception and sales. And the cleaned up their act. Hard. And effectively. etc.

          So what IT / CyberSecurity folks need to do is to look at the company. Is this a company that explicitly promises to no use your data? *And* is this a company that has earned your trust in their competence and understanding of the need to honor these promises?

    4. ItLies*

      I’ve yet to see AI transcription that is anything close to accurate, and most of them flat out make up stuff to boot.

      1. Sara K*

        Nobody who uses these transcription tools for accommodation purposes (they’ve been around for a lot longer than the current ‘AI’ nonsense) expects them to be 100% accurate. They are expecting to get the gist of what was said in a meeting in circumstances where they can’t always hear or process what’s being said in the moment. The deaf people I work with are very skilled at looking at a wonky transcription and working out what was said at a meeting or asking for clarification when needed. Don’t assume that people with disabilities don’t understand the limitations of the tools they use. In my experience they are very aware of them.

  9. Not your typical admin*

    I run our monthly potlucks at our church, and help out with a big annual one my kid’ sports association does. At church we don’t have anyone with severe allergies where we have to be worried about cross contamination, but do have have a lot who are gluten or sugar free. I include a separate section on the website we use to sign up for people to bring allergy/diet friendly food and then make sure to label it. At the athletic banquet, we have one family with a severe gluten intolerance, so we have a separate table for gluten free food. We thankfully have several people who avoid gluten for other reasons, so we wind up with more than enough food for that category.

  10. DD*

    LW#2 (I’m assuming you’re in MI) Is it just me or is the real problem that you have an employee who is a member/supporter of a far right violent militia group who plotted to kidnap/kill the female governor in part because they were upset about COVID measures taken in the state? And your employee is proud/brazen enough about it to advertise it with a big sticker on his vehicle?

    Maybe I’m overreacting – If I am an employee I’m not comfortable working with him and if I’m a customer and see this in your parking lot I’m looking for a way not to work with your company.

    2. Bilateralrope*

      It might not just be one employee.

      I suspect that the HR person using the “free speech” excuse did so because they want to defend the sticker without admitting that they agree with it.

      1. HonorBox*

        I’m not sure I’d jump to that conclusion. It could be that HR is concerned about the reaction and how it might create some sort of slippery slope where they’re now dealing with bumper stickers instead of other things. Not that having a problematic bumper sticker should not cause concern, especially given the customer base, but if this particular bumper sticker is ruled out, can someone have a Trump or Kamala sticker?

        I said in a comment below that it might make more sense for leadership of this business to set out some sort of overarching policy about how people can express their political views in public.

      2. Observer*

        I suspect that the HR person using the “free speech” excuse did so because they want to defend the sticker without admitting that they agree with it.

        I would be surprised. Given how poorly many HR people are trained in the relevant legal concepts, I think that it’s *far* more likely that the HR person is just incompetent / doesn’t know the law. That’s especially likely because of the fact that the company works with government employees.

        That sounds counter-intuitive, but it actually makes sense. Government agencies *are* actually limited in how much they can push back on employee speech in ways that private sector employers are not. Because the government cannot constrain or punish people for legal speech unless there is a direct safety issue or a direct effect on the work of the government agency, and firing someone or disciplining them at work would qualify. So, it could be the the HR person thinks that those rules also apply to them, either in general or because their government clients are not allowed to move their business over something like this.

        1. LW#2*

          Seeing how many times I’ve had to explain to HR that, as an employer, we aren’t covered by HIPAA, I think this is accurate.

      3. LW#2*

        I’m LW#2, and this is a Michigan site, but it isn’t where I or HR is based. I’m super sure my HR isn’t supportive at all, which is why I’m struggling with the fact that they refuse to force the guy to at least park elsewhere. I was out at the site on a visit, and I don’t think any of the local management even knew what they were looking at, since not everyone is well versed in alt-right imagery. I suspect HR’s concern is that there could be enough other employees (not HR, line-level folks) who are supportive of 2A/militia stuff that they might be worried about a ripple effect of making one person mad about having to remove a sticker and having that trickle through the rest of the workforce.

        1. Wayward Sun*

          A friend of mine used to work for a Ford plant and drove a Toyota. He had to park in the back. Surely if that’s legal making this guy park somewhere else would be legal too.

    3. DJ Abbott*

      Yes, me too on both counts. If I had to work with that employee, I would be extremely cautious about talking to himor ever being alone with him.

    4. Elle*

      Apparently this isn’t a problem and we’re all just crazy for thinking it is. He’s just exercising his freedom of speech, doncha know. And those “kidnappers” were totes entrapped. /s

      In seriousness, I would take HR’s answer as a strong hint that my workplace is not as safe as I thought it was. This queer would be interviewing.

  11. KateM*

    Should the burden be on those with dietary restrictions to bring a dish that meets their needs

    Why would it be a burden for anyone to bring a dish that meets their own needs? I’d think they make/buy such dishes all the time, and what would be a burden was for a vegetarian to bring meat dish, instead.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I assume they mean because the entire point of a pot luck is to try other people’s food, and if they can only eat their own dish they may as well not have contributed and just brought their own lunch

      1. Emmy Noether*

        Also, if you bring a dish to a potluck and it’s the only thing you can eat there, you have to make more of it, because there has to be enough for everyone to try and for you to get a whole meal. And you have to get your whole portion early, because otherwise maybe there won’t be enough left. Plus there’s the risk of someone cross-contaminating it (using a serving spoon from a different dish, etc), and suddenly you have nothing safe to eat. So maybe you also have to bring a backup meal/put some in a separate container.

        I mean, it’s probably still the best option for someone with restrictions that wants to participate. But it’s more work, and they’ll miss out on eating a variety of food they did not have to prepare (sort of the point of potlucks).

        1. KateM*

          It would make more sense for people who have the same kind of restrictions to cooperate so they can try each others’ food, and maybe it would be worth to restrict others eating those.
          (The rule in our family has been “first everybody gluten-tolerant eats THIS cake, and only when the only cake left is gluten-free will THAT be for everyone’s grabbings”.)

          1. WS*

            Yeah, my cousin is coeliac with two life-threatening food allergies on top, and this was not fun for him in the 1980s! It’s much better now, but there’s only a small number of people he can trust to make things genuinely free of those items, and that’s the rule that we use whenever he and the two gluten-intolerant-but-not-coeliac people are at a family gathering. “When A is done with that, then B and C can have some and only then can everyone else try it.” But this is much much harder to manage in the office than in an extended family.

          2. Ellis Bell*

            We have an informal tradition of bringing cakes or food for the last days of the half term, which was on Friday. I’m gluten free, and my colleague has a Celiac daughter, so I get to eat a lot of her new baking recipes or leftovers, and vice versa. On Friday, she was so apologetic that she hadn’t brought anything for me to eat like she usually would! I had brought in cornbread and oat raisin/chocolate chip cookies for others to try (I enjoy shaking up people’s perception that gluten free food is odd or difficult), and I just laughed and told her she was not my personal baker, much as I would like her to be.

            1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

              As someone who isn’t gluten free but has multiple extended family members who are, I don’t think it’s odd! I think most people who aren’t gluten free (including myself) just can’t sufficiently remove the risk of cross contamination – there is a LOT of flour in the house, and I can’t guarantee a speck isn’t floating in the air.

              1. Ellis Bell*

                That part is definitely a sticking point, but I guess I work in a culture where it’s more “bring in biscuits” or “Let’s have crisps and dip” than people being expected to actually cook something. In those situations people still behave like they can’t possibly work out which packets are safe to buy, even with it literally being spelled out on the packet. That said, sometimes they don’t know what specialized brands/food types taste good because they haven’t tried them personally, and sometimes they don’t know which regular items are actually naturally gluten free.

          3. 1-800-BrownCow*

            Yes, because all people with food restrictions love having the spotlight on them and their food restrictions.

            I avoid all company-wide potlucks and event meals because every single time I have to deal with a million comments/questions/advice/etc. about my food restrictions. It’s exhausting and annoying.

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        The point of a potluck is usually to spread the cost of providing a meal amongst the participants, in a “pay what you can” way that also allows people to make sure there is one thing they can eat.

    2. Dahlia*

      It would be a burden to buy/make a big enough dish to serve several people while you can eat nothing else at the potluck.

    3. Literally a Cat*

      I treat making food with restrictions as a fun challenge, so I love doing these. I think there is also an element of worry of by making special requirement food, it can feel like pressure to the person to eat it. But people totally can be both a vegan and really really hate legume, for example.

      My usual approach is, hey, let’s say the vegan food is there because I like making vegan food. Whether there are vegans in the room or not, I would still be making the vegan food anyway. I hope it’s less stressful?

      1. EchoGirl*

        This is a problem I run into. I’m vegetarian and also have sensory issues, and for some reason people seem to think vegetarian entrees need to be complicated. They’ll happily put out a non-vegetarian main course that’s just e.g. roasted chicken with a few spices, but the vegetarian alternative always has to be a casserole with 30 ingredients or something similar, which I can’t eat because of my sensory issues. It’s bad enough when it’s catering or something, but if someone made that specifically for me, that’s a super-awkward conversation to say the least. Even people who are trying sometimes get it wrong.

        If it’s a potluck, I’ll cook something I can eat and then just eat what fits with me of other people’s contributions, even if it’s mostly sides and desserts. But if I’m the only vegetarian in the office, I don’t want someone cooking a vegetarian dish specifically for my benefit because they might get it wrong. (If you just have a vegetarian recipe you’re dying to try, by all means knock yourself out. But don’t badger me about why I’m not eating it.)

    4. I Would Rather Be Eating Dumplings*

      This is just a turn of phrase, similiar to “burden of proof”. The OP is using it to mean responsiblity, not implying that it’s some awful task.

    5. Beth*

      I mean, most people don’t turn up to a potluck thinking they’ll need to bring all of their own food.

    6. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

      It also can be tricky to bring something that can be a “main course” for you but that other attendees will be willing to eat a bit of as a “side dish”. I mostly run into this as The Only Vegetarian At Thanksgiving (I have since opted out of that particular fun time), where no one other than me wants to eat most of the things that have enough protein in them to be my main course, so I either have to bring a “side dish” that no one likes or a “side dish” that people will eat but that I need to supplement with a separate main for me. It’s also tricky at potlucks since a lot of the more crowd-pleasing things I can make are soups, and there are never soup bowls at work.

      (Before I gave up, I eventually settled on making a bean salad for Thanksgiving, which at least had protein in it and other people would eat. However, bean salad and a roll is a pretty sad meal and these were the kind of people who would dump chicken broth into the extra pan of stuffing “since the broth is already open and we need to use it up” even though that was supposed to be the stuffing I could eat, so I eventually decided against this particular bonding activity with the extended fam for that and many non-food-related reasons, such as The Time Cousin So-and-So Insisted On Bringing Her Cats Along To Our House Even Though We’re Allergic and a different branch’s aunt’s child-rearing philosophy of “it takes a village, ideally one that I don’t live in but can drop off my child at, so I hope you enjoy watching my kid at that upcoming event I just learned you were attending and told Timmy he was going to with you without asking you first”.)

    7. TheBunny*

      I think you are reading burden too literally here.

      Yes it can mean the big chore or task you are responsible for. But in this reading it’s really more “put in charge of” or “responsible for” or even “handles”.

    8. Irish Teacher.*

      Can’t help thinking this is a good reason somebody might bring “cheap-ass rolls,” even knowing somebody else is bringing Hawaiian rolls!

  12. Nodramalama*

    LW4 Omg I was so confused by the fluffy likes fish thing on my first reading. I agree with Alison, I don’t think the examples of what your coworkers are saying is similar to your pet example at all. I think theyre just trying to make sure you’re not feeling excluded

  13. Busy bee*

    As the parent of someone who deals with severe allergies, I say bring on the packaged food! It’s actually kinda great when there is packaged food at a potluck and we can just check the label instead of trying to hunt down the chef and hope they remember what they put in it. Of course, cross contamination is always a risk, and I appreciate that our church has a nut-free table. But I think sometimes people bring this unnecessary guilt about packaged food when it can be super helpful to some of us.

    1. bamcheeks*

      Yes, I was thinking this. If your potluck is 100% homemade food and that’s the point, this won’t work, but that hasn’t been the case at any potluck or fuddle I’ve ever seen at work— maybe this is a cultural thing but where i am there’s usually only one or two homemade things and 80% is pots of hummus, picnic eggs, breadsticks, salad bits etc straight from the supermarket, and anyone who has food restrictions but who wants to take part can find a few things, and bring some free-from stuff if they don’t trust someone else will have brought it. Your potluck is much fancier than any I’ve ever seen if it’s all homemade!

  14. PotlucksLive?*

    I’m amazed by this discussion of potlucks as I thought they’d disappeared decades ago, partially because of just these issues of inclusion (food restrictions, disabilities, etc.). Certainly it would be considered a major liability and forbidden at any place I’ve worked in decades.

    Restaurants/trained professionals have a hard time getting this right – why would anyone trust random coworker?

    1. Spoony Neeson*

      I don’t know why but some people are just in love with office potlucks. Like, whenever they came up anywhere I’ve worked, there were always people who’d be like “HECK YEAH THIS IS AN AMAZING IDEA LET’S ALL START MAKING POTATO SALAD RIGHT NOW”. I think bosses sign off on them, despite counter-indications, because they’re good for morale?

      The last time my office decided to hold one, I hated the idea so much I called out sick that day, but my coworkers all claimed they had a blast.

      1. Allonge*

        One of the things to recognise here is that all social activities have counter-indications, people just have different preferences and tolerances on each.

        1. UKDancer*

          This so much. I have never worked anywhere with a potluck tradition probably because I’m in London where people dont drive so trying to bring food to warm up in larger amounts on public transport can be messy.

          We do have a regular summer picnic where people bring their lunch and often cakes to share. I am not massively keen and don’t always go but some of my colleagues really love it. Sharing cake is the high point of the thing. I really don’t get why but I accept they enjoy it.

          Different people enjoy different things I think and as long as things aren’t mandatory I don’t have to enjoy everything work does.

          1. Media Monkey*

            i think it’s not so much of a thing in the UK! i’ve only worked at one company where shared food wouldn’t always be provided and paid for by the company.

          2. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

            We have a buffet thing occassionally where people bring in whatever. You’re right, it’s mostly shop brought stuff although I mourn the loss of the colleague who used to bring in home cooked samosas and other indian food.

      2. hello*

        Not everyone thinks this way. Some people enjoy potlucks! Notice how the LW repeatedly mentions how they don’t pressure anyone into joining – they’re trying to figure out a way to make these potlucks (which are popular in their workplace) more intentionally inclusive.

      3. Wayward Sun*

        In some parts of the US it’s traditional — food is a way people bond. I grew up in the Midwest where this was very much the case. New neighbor? Bring them cookies. Funeral? Bring the family a casserole so they don’t have to cook while they’re grieving. It’s part of a culture where people had to rely on each other to get through hardships.

        That said, maybe it doesn’t belong in modern offices. Not everyone works at a place where they’re allowed to expense a group restaurant meal, though, so that might mean no get-togethers at all.

    2. Nodramalama*

      Clearly you don’t work in the Australian public service where there is a morning tea (a pot luck by any other name) literally every week

    3. Allonge*

      The nice thing about potliucks is that even if you think that way, there is one thing you know for sure you can eat – the food you brought. I have ceilac – I know some others at work who also cannot have gluten, so we have a little trust circle on this one, and it’s fun to try what others brought.

      That said, if all someone will be able to think about during the potluck is ‘all this food and I don’t know where it came from, most likely from icky kitchens’, that is not fun.

    4. Amy*

      We don’t do them at my workplace. But I always enjoy a potluck for other events.

      There’s something that’s just so fun about seeing such a random assortment of Bundt cakes, brownies, deviled eggs, coleslaw, baked beans and pinwheels. No restaurant would ever have such a weird combination.

      And knowing things were made in a home kitchen is generally a plus for me. There’s so much mass produced industrial food in the US. I want to eat food made with the love of a home baker.

    5. amoeba*

      The potlucks at my workplaces have always been amazing, so not everybody shares the same experiences, luckily. So probably they don’t disappear because a lot of people enjoy them!

      (We did always take care of people’s food restrictions, it’s easily done when everybody knows and likes each other! I mean, we didn’t have any super sever/hard to meet restrictions, but everybody was aware there were vegetarians and people who ate halal and somebody who was allergic to bell peppers, and there were always multiple dishes available for everybody. We would have done the same for vegans or people with different allergies, for sure.)

      Also – those are people I know and like and mostly trust, so no worries about disgusting kitchens, etc.

    6. Bella Ridley*

      What industry do you work in where they’d be a major liability and forbidden? My team is having a potluck on Thursday…they’ve been really common my whole life across industries and levels.

    7. Inefficient Cat Herder*

      I work for the government. Even though we’ve been warned that the water in our office is non-potable, taxpayers cannot be required to even supply us water. So coffee, food, paper plates, napkins, etc are out of the question. If we have an all day meeting it is brown bag or potluck.

        1. Governmint Condition*

          Unfortunately, everything government does requires funding approval. This includes compliance with labor laws. I have seen funding rejected by government for the most basic things. Even things courts have ordered be done have trouble getting funding.

          1. Heather*

            During covid restrictions over 18 months, we were required to stay on the floor where our office was located. It did not matter that only 3 of 7 floors had drinkable water. Those on the other 4 floors had no choice but to bring their own from home. It took almost all of those 18 months to get approval to add water stations on the other 4 floors.

    8. RIP Pillowfort*

      They’re definitely alive and well in the government sector.

      Any holiday party we have has to be potluck or catered without using the office budget because of policy. If we cater- we’re paying for it directly with our own money and you cannot attend without paying.

      The potluck part wasn’t as fraught because we weren’t adherent to “you have to cook it yourself.” We live in a major metro area so finding places to buy dishes that could serve our small group and fit with the group’s restrictions wasn’t difficult. That’s not always possible with a big group. But a small group? Absolutely can be done. We had a co-worker with food allergies bad enough that we just ordered her a meal from her favorite restaurant so they could still eat with us.

    10. judyjudyjudy*

      Some people might not trust a random coworker, and choose not to participate.

      I’ve liked all the potlucks I’ve gone to, not because the food was stellar but because the “the hang” was fun. But of course some people might get the horrors from socializing with coworkers.

      It makes sense to me that some people would hate every minute of a potluck, but lots of people still like them which is why they persist. No one should feel pressured to participate though.

    11. Tippy*

      I am way more likely to participate in a potluck than I am anything catered at my work. Bring me the brisket you’ve been smoking for two days, great grandma’s potato salad recipe and the 7-up cake you got the recipe for from some old woman at church, I’ll eat it all my allergies be damned. If I gotta leave this world it’s going to be from the seafood boil made from the crawfish my colleague’s daddy caught over the weekend!

    12. Potluck Grouch*

      I hate work potlucks, not for any food-related reasons. They always seem to happen when the company wants a bonding activity but doesn’t want to spend any money on it. So they shift the labor and expense to employees. So now I have to make something (when I struggle just to make myself dinner every night), figure out how to bring it on on the bus to work, take particular care about the ingredients for allergies, a likely extra trip to the grocery store, and then I feel anxious about my dish all day (did people like it? am I being judged? Did I forget to label a food allergy?). For many people, these are probably easily solvable obstacles. But I have a finite amount of time and energy to solve obstacles, and quite frankly, I don’t want to solve ones on my personal time that are there because work is shifting the labor and expense.

      Now if work gives me a half day off to go to the market, make my dish, and pay all expenses (parking and mileage to drive to work + groceries), I’ll happily do all of that. Until then, I always seem to have an important off-site meeting the day of a pot-luck or have PTO day scheduled.

  15. Parasite Paradise*

    In potluck related news this week: 46 hospitalized with food poisoning after employee pot-luck at Maryland seafood distributor.
    Ban all potlucks and food sharing in the workplace!

    2. Yay! I’m a llama again!*

      When I saw that story I immediately thought of AAM and whether we’d have commentary!

      1. ComplianceChick*

        Restaurants are food safety regulated. Betty’s kitchen with her sick toddler and cat that likes to sit on the counter and watch her make the potluck dish are not.

        1. Nonsense*

          You have been paying attention to the number of currently active food recalls in the US, right?

        2. Lady Lessa*

          And McDonald’s got hit probably by the producer of their sliced onions. Nothing they did wrong.

        3. Nodramalama*

          Yes, successful restaurants like Chipotle famously has high safety standards and people don’t get sick from eating there ever.

        4. Jennifer Strange*

          I’ve worked in restaurants. Betty’s kitchen and the restaurant kitchen might have more in common than you think.

        5. Observer*

          Restaurants are food safety regulated.

          In theory. In practice? Apparently not well enough.

          And that’s before you start with the deliberate fraud etc.

    4. illuminate (they/them)*

      The FDA still doesn’t have a complete list of products being recalled for potential listeria contamination by BrucePac, or of the schools and restaurants they sent meat to, after a couple of weeks since the recall was announced.

    6. Observer*

      Ban all potlucks and food sharing in the workplace!

      This kind of extreme reaction is the kind of thing that makes *reasonable* regulation so much harder. Because the idea that it’s even *remotely* possible or reasonable to get into banning food sharing is just not related to actual reality.

      That’s aside from all of the other comments that people have made about all sources of food.

    7. Sara without an H*

      I remember seeing this news story. While I wouldn’t go so far as to ban all potlucks, this is at least one reason why some people don’t like them. If you are trying to persuade reluctant coworkers to join you because you made a special dish, consider whether they’ve ever seen you leave the rest room without washing your hands.

      If you’re going to organize a work-place potluck, yes, make sure there’s a variety of food and make arrangements to keep it at the proper temperature. And please don’t pressure any coworkers who say they’d rather not join in the fun.

  16. Nah*

    The idea of an AI using permissions for one meeting to sneakily invite itself into others it was not supposed to be in sounds… Rather unsettling to me, to be honest. Also like a massive security flaw if it’s transcribing company secrets onto its servers, but just on a human level it kinda makes my skin crawl.

    1. Proper security*

      I mostly object to it’s forced inclusion in many products, apps and browers that have next to no viable alternatives now if one wishes to avoid it.
      It should be an opt-in case by case with the option to use it more broadly if someone wishes (and work permits). The total disregard for consent that is on display bothers me a lot.

  17. Brain the Brian*

    LW2, it is unfortunately quite possible that your company has deliberately decided they don’t want to ask the employee to remove the bumper sticker because they’re afraid of how he might react. In this political climate, that’s a valid fear to have, although I would argue that avoiding the issue isn’t the way to go from a business standpoint.

    1. BellaStella*

      Refusing to stand up to extremists especially when you are the one holding the power over an employee like this is partly how we got to this place but that said I understand the fear as it is real.

    2. MsM*

      I also get it, but the fact there’s valid concern this guy might be on that kind of hair trigger is all the more reason to not just wait around for something to happen.

    3. Malarkey01*

      I think a lot of companies don’t want to get into the middle of deciding where the “line” is between competing views. Some cases fall very clearly on one side or the other but I’ve had to deal with people complaining about BLM bumper stickers and tote bags, both sides of the abortion debate, and whether MAGA hats (a major party political slogan) can be in cars. I’m a big lefty but have seen a few things that I thought went too far on my side too.

      It can be legitimately hard to balance things, especially when some members of a group hold an extreme view but it’s not necessarily indicative of the entire group. I would guess that’s the most likely thing happening here

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        And I think many people misunderstand “being balanced” as meaning “if I ban bumper stickers relating to a right-wing group, then I have have to ban bumper stickers relating to some left-wing group or I’m not being fair” or even “then I’d have to ban all bumper stickers,” when really being balanced in this case would mean “then I’d have to ban bumper stickers of any group that planned to kidnap a political figure.”

  18. Varthema*

    In the first letter it sounded to me like the company belonged to the LW and had consulted their own HR – so it sounds like they can probably overrule HR, and while they’re at it, seek out some training for them because “freedom of speech” not including private entities seems like a pretty basic thing they should know?

    1. Myrin*

      You are right! I didn’t catch that at first – “my employee” can simply mean “my direct report” – but “my HR” and the letter’s last sentence do indeed sound like OP is the owner, which would definitely change the advice.

      1. Insert Clever Name Here*

        It could also mean there are several HR groups at the company and OP asked the one responsible for their group. But yes, if OP is the owner that does change things significantly.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          Yeah, i read it to mean “the one associated with OP’s team/location/department/whatever” not that OP owns the business.

  19. Nebula*

    It is absolutely unfathomable to me that this person is displaying support for a terrorist group and HR are like ‘Well, nothing we can do about it, freedom of speech’.

    1. Just a Consideration*

      I mean…I know we’re to take letter writers at their word, but it may not be an *actual terrorist group* or *the actual same group that attempted to kidnap Whitmer* but just a right-wing group that has similar outlooks or gets lumped in with them. Sure, people have good reason to dislike them all–but even the Michigan Militia disavowed the kidnapping plot and the group that planned it. So HR may be going “Yeah, you don’t like their politics, [and neither do we] but calling them terrorists is overreacting.”

      1. Nebula*

        Fair enough, to be clear I am the person who introduced the word terrorist to this discussion – I have assumed it’s the group we’re all thinking of, and the people involved in the plot were charged under terrorism offences. So in terms of the discussions the LW has had with HR I don’t think ‘terrorism’ has come up. Just to make sure this stays on topic for the letter in relation to what the LW has actually said.

    2. WeirdIdeasAboutFirstAmendment*

      My (private) college allowed Holocaust deniers to break all the normal rules and put up aggressively anti-Semitic signs on every door on campus – every classroom, dorm, cafeteria, student lounge, gym, etc – for ~3 months even though normally they only allowed signs/posters in a few designated areas and only for 2 weeks before they had to be torn down. When I complained about it I was told it was a first amendment issue and there’s nothing they could do. It was beyond awful, and it was a closed campus so there was no escape.

      1. Observer*

        When I complained about it I was told it was a first amendment issue and there’s nothing they could do

        They were either aggressively incompetent or lying.

        In a case like this, there actually is not a first amendment issue, because the rules in place are neutral to content. The fact that they allowed ONLY this content to break the rules is where there would be a 1st Amendment violation. Because they explicitly chose which viewpoint gets to be plastered all over the place.

        1. WeirdIdeasAboutFirstAmendment*

          Yes I know – hence my user name – but I was a lowly freshman with no power and had no success changing their mind. I would have hac to sue them.

      2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        What do you mean by “closed campus”? My high school used that term, but it meant that we couldn’t be coming and going between class periods (except at lunch). But we were underage in high school. Did your college campus really prevent legal adults from leaving the grounds?

        1. WeirdIdeasAboutFirstAmendment*

          I mean rural, at the top of a huge hill, tacis wouldn’t make the trip up the hill, freshman weren’t allowed to have cars at all and only a handful of upperclassmen did, and folks basically couldn’t leave except when family was visiting. They made it almost impossible to leave campus by design.

  20. Julia*

    #4 I know exactly what you mean. I hate it when people assume the know what I am thinking, but it doesn’t happen enough for me to make a thing about it so just smile and nod, smile and nod.

  21. A Book about Metals*

    I’ve been recording meetings/calls in one form or another for years. Using AI to do it has made it much easier and frankly more accurate. I’m not clear exactly what OP 1 is worried about but I think the concerns are a bit overblown

    1. Hroethvitnir*

      Probably the fact that most AI tools use your information to continue training said AI. Theoretically that shouldn’t be a big deal, but both individuals and businesses are quite right to have concerns.

    2. Nodramalama*

      Well I certainly would not be comfortable with you recording meetings with me without my permission, which I wouldn’t necessarily give. Furthermore, AI has a range of security, privacy, storage, copyright, and frankly accuracy issues.

      1. A Book about Metals*

        Who said anything about without permission though? This isn’t some big secretive thing that anyone’s trying to hide – the purpose is to help make the job easier.

        We use an AI recording/transcriber for meetings (yes, with permission) and it’s made certain aspects of the job far more efficient. And if you don’t trust the AI for accuracy you have the recording anyway

    3. Good Enough For Government Work*

      Besides what Hroethvitnar said, the machines powering AI use a huge amount of resources (particularly water) and are already becoming a major contributor to climate change. I have serious ethical issues with AI, but even bigger concerns about its impact on the environment.

      1. Observer*

        That’s not entirely accurate. It depends on which models and what kind of AI. And it also depends on what it’s replacing.

    4. Hyaline*

      AI was trained on copyrighted material that no one gave permission for those companies to use.

      Using AI now gives it permission to store and use your data, information, and creative work that you feed it.

      The ecological impacts of AI are frankly gross.

      The LW has plenty of reasons they might prefer to avoid AI in consideration of their ethics.

      1. A Book about Metals*

        “AI was trained on copyrighted material that no one gave permission for those companies to use.”

        What companies? That’s an extremely broad statement and not sure of the relevance to a meeting notetaker

        “Using AI now gives it permission to store and use your data, information, and creative work that you feed it.”

        That’s true for every bit of software that’s out there. Have you seen those EULAs?

        “The ecological impacts of AI are frankly gross.”

        This one admittedly I’m not up to speed on but yes could be a concern

        1. Hyaline*

          You said “the LW’s concerns are overblown.” I replied with ethical concerns many have about AI. You can disagree with those concerns or believe they are not a big deal, but LW says they are “squicked out,” which to me implies ethical issues with AI, and the LW wanted to know how to opt out.

          (Re your first question: OpenAI is one company that openly said “we can’t run our business without using copyrighted material for free.” When it comes to training AI on grammatical mechanics and fluency, a lot of LLMs but also “writing tools” appear to be using datasets that include such material. Even if transcription isn’t directly using those datasets now, the original development of the tech or the company may be. Long story short–if LW says they have issues with AI, they have issues with AI. You don’t have to share those concerns for the question of opting out to be a valid inquiry.)

          1. A Book about Metals*

            “You don’t have to share those concerns for the question of opting out to be a valid inquiry.”

            Agreed

          2. Observer*

            OpenAI is one company that openly said “we can’t run our business without using copyrighted material for free.”

            Yeah, OpenAI is not a company I would trust, to be honest. I was just listening to a podcast this morning about AI and some of what’s going on in the industry, and the person being interviewed about OpenAI and some other companies pointed out a couple of times that OpenAI’s director was fired for lying (and then re-instated). And that also, after talking a good line about safety and public good, has been methodically gutting their safety team.

            But not every company is OpenAI. Sure, they are all in business to make money, but some understand that they need to operate in a way that generates trust if they want to make money off businesses, who may very well have things like compliance departments and contract requirements that don’t allow for some of this stuff. (Mostly for pure self interest, but still these provisions exist.)

            if LW says they have issues with AI, they have issues with AI. You don’t have to share those concerns for the question of opting out to be a valid inquiry.

            Agreed. But as a practical matter, the LW is going to be much better off, and in a much better place to push back if they come with specific, fact based objections. “It squicks me out” is not something most managements will really be on board with, and I don’t blame them. Especially if the LW is correct that the tool is being used as an accessibility aid. Because a good manager is going to prioritize accessibility for staff over general discomfort from one or two people.

      2. Observer*

        AI was trained on copyrighted material that no one gave permission for those companies to use.

        Some models were, others were not. AI is not one thing.

        Using AI now gives it permission to store and use your data, information, and creative work that you feed it.

        Not necessarily. This is especially true of the paid services.

        The ecological impacts of AI are frankly gross.

        Again, not necessarily true. And also, in many cases, subject to change. One area that’s of great interest, for instance, is agricultural models that allow much more targeted watering of plants that is already beginning to allow some some farmers / some crops to *significantly* reduce their use of water.

    5. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Just this week there was a huge news story about OpenAI being used in doctor’s offices to assist with meeting transcription, only it was making stuff up wholesale and putting deeply flawed/incorrect information in people’s files, which I hope you’ll agree is a really big deal when it comes to people’s medical records. “Hallucination” is a huge problem with AI transcription, you’re just lucky if you’ve avoided it so far.

      1. Observer*

        Yeah, but that’s not about using AI in general. It’s using the wrong tool, with no guardrails in place.

        It’s like what’s been going on in some corners of the legal filed. There are *still* idiot. lazy lawyers who are getting in trouble because they are using ChatGPT and not checking their sources. At this point, it’s beyond belief that anyone could be that stupid, and it should be a firing offense.

        But there is now at least one service that will do this work and then run a check for each citation, to make sure that it exists. And the check seems to be accurate. I saw a story about a lawyer who used the service, but never bothered to look at the provided accuracy check. And got, rightly, slapped down by the court.

        The point being that some tools are better than others, and you also have to use some sense in how you implement / use it. And, sometimes it’s true that the tool is not ready for use. But actually, hallucinations are not that much of a problem for the better *transcription* software, which often doesn’t use generative AI at all, or only in concert with other tools.

  22. Thomas*

    #2, if you feel able to, I’d seriously consider bypassing my employer altogether and talking to law enforcement. It sounds like the group in question are that seriously dangerous.

    1. LookAtMeI'mTheManagerNow*

      It’s not illegal to display their sticker. Revolting and telling, yes. But it’s perfectly legal to display all sorts of revolting things.

    4. Observer*

      I’d seriously consider bypassing my employer altogether and talking to law enforcement

      Assuming that law enforcement are all angels, this is still a totally useless piece of advice. It’s legal for people to say pretty much anything, no matter how gross, unless you can show that what is being said is actual or direct incitement to violence.

      The Confederate Flag, the Iranian Flag, the KKK logo are all *abhorrent*. But it’s legal to have them and show them on your vehicle.

  23. Mad Scientist*

    LW #3, I don’t have the answers, but as a vegetarian, I just wanted to say thank you for thinking of us :)

    1. Ellis Bell*

      I swear, I was with a vegetarian colleague at a training event this year and they had promised there would be a vegetarian offer at the meal (no mention or requests to submit other dietary requirements, so I brought my own lunch), and they had let the omnivores have first crack at the buffet, so obviously there was no vegetarian food when my colleague got to the front. She asked very nicely if they could make her some more and this is what one of the catering staff said to her “Well, what do vegetarians eat?”

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I truly do not understand the persistent idea that the only person who will touch the macaroni and cheese is the three vegetarians catering knows about. And no one else would sully themselves with pasta.

      2. Blue Pen*

        This is the most annoying thing. I’m not mad at all that omnivores are eating vegetarian food, but if they clear those options before I can get to them, then… I don’t eat. Whereas anyone else can just have something else.

        1. Dahlia*

          I honestly feel like that’s on the catering. If we go to, say, a breakfast buffet and the options are pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, fruit salad, bacon and sausage, it’s not realistic to expect people who eat meat to fill their plates with nothing but bacon and sausage. That’s just not how people eat. It can be hard to tell the difference between “vegetarian option” and “side dish”, if there even IS a difference.

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

        I went on an all day charity event earlier this year that was billed as having 3 meals provided. At the training for the event, it was explained that they couldn’t handle any specialty food requests (I assumed vegetarian but also diabetic, celiac, etc) which was fine since the food was donated, it’s not a huge event, etc. I had emailed about vegetarian food, since I’m a vegetarian, but didn’t hear back, so I assumed once it was explained about specialty food requests that there wouldn’t be food for me. I ended up bringing a backpack of food so I could have, at least, PB&J and some snacks. Turns out, they were *shocked* that not everyone was eating their provided food and wondered why some people didn’t eat their donated boxed meals, given that it was specifically a group that would have health problems and vegetarians existed. At the very least, they should have not been surprised that less than 100% of meat based meals would be eaten, let alone everything non-diabetic and/or gluten based.

        1. Allonge*

          That’s really weird.

          Even an omnivore with zero allergies / sensitivities / other food-related medical issues can have 1. food preferences 2. an upset stomach or, horror of horrors, 3. days when a chicken breast (or whatever) is just not something they can eat.

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

            The whole event was strange- the food was the least of the oddities. It was free for half the participants, so I think the thought was, “We’re giving you this opportunity and free stuff, no one complain,” which no one did. There wasn’t much option to purchase outside food and even if you could, you might not have had time to eat it. Everyone could take a backpack, which I did, but that had to contain a lot of materials, not just my food, so it was sort of rock and a hard place. It was a good day, but I’m glad I won’t be repeating it.

      4. Mad Scientist*

        Yes, this is usually what happens, unfortunately. Funny enough, my husband (who is also vegetarian but doesn’t “look like a vegetarian” apparently) recently attended a work event where they did keep the vegetarian option separate to avoid this problem, and I think he was actually the only vegetarian in attendance, but when he went up to get his portion, they were like “Don’t touch that, it’s for the vegetarian” and he responded “Yes, I am the vegetarian” but they didn’t believe him! I mean, at least they were trying to be considerate but it was kind of hilarious. They just assumed the one vegetarian option couldn’t possibly be for the man with a beard… Gotta love stereotypes amirite?

  24. Friday Hopeful*

    If it is a potluck then isn’t each person supposed to bring something? Why are the food restricted people not bringing something they can eat?

    1. amoeba*

      Well, it might be frustrating if everybody else gets a whole buffet and you’re literally only able to eat what you brought yourself! I’d probably just bring my own food, wouldn’t really feel like cooking for 20 if I get nothing out of it in return…

    2. Nodramalama*

      Well they can but if they can only eat what they bring it’s not really a pot luck, it’s just their lunch

    3. Eldritch Office Worker*

      In my experience they’ll bring a meal for themselves and not contribute to the overall dish count.

      Which…I think is fine.

    4. Ellis Bell*

      You make a fair point; I actually do like to do this sometimes because I do like to cook and share my food, and I’m also confident about taking charge of the serving of it and to make sure it doesn’t get cross contaminated. But I’m only up for doing this very occasionally and it’s certainly valid to just feel annoyed that you’re cooking for others with no reciprocation if it’s being pushed on you. I know many people who hate cooking and don’t really want to contribute anything other than napkins and drinks; even then that feels like a pointless cost sometimes. There’s also lots of situations where the set up wouldn’t be sympathetic to avoiding cross contamination. I used to have a colleague who would dread this stuff because she had food sensory issues and IBS, so her lunch was almost Raymond Holt level of bland and she really didn’t want to discuss her food preferences with people at work. TLDR: don’t push potlucks at work or assume everyone will love them because they’re providing the food; sometimes though people might be really into providing food.

      1. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

        Also, the people who need to eat pretty bland food for it to be safe”will just get complaints and “suggestions” about the blandness of their dish if they make it for a crowd. For example not from my own needs for a change, consider someone on, say, a low-sodium and no alliums diet. They have to cook most things from scratch so they had to put in a bunch of effort, and then other people will just complain about how bland they are anyway.

  25. Just a Consideration*

    Yes, I know I’m stepping in it here, but–#2, I want to clarify, is this the *actual same group that kidnapped the governor* or is this a right-wing group that espouses similar politics and therefore you are saying “it’s the same people”? I ask because the political rhetoric in this country is such that almost any group that someone disagrees with is labelled a “hate group” and the extremist version of every view is trotted out by their opponents as the norm–think right-wingers claiming that every BLM protester is an armed and masked ANTIFA member bent on terrorism. If your HR and company in general are not amenable to asking the fellow with the truck to remove his sticker or park elsewhere, it may be that they see the line differently than you do on “it’s the same people” or have decided if it’s not an actual literal terrorist organization they are not going to value others’ comfort over his freedom of speech. (No, they are not *required* to support freedom of speech as a private entity, but plenty of people still do value it generally and when pressed will value it over and above other priorities. That’s not shirking responsibility, it’s making a valuation decision you disagree with.)

    1. Nebula*

      If it’s an ‘anti-government’ group in general then it’s just bad for business having that on show if they’re serving government clients. Taking the actual politics out of it, on some level it’s a bit like if someone had a bumper sticker saying ‘I hate kids’ when you have, say, schools and childcare facilities as your clients. Wouldn’t look great.

      The LW isn’t even saying they’re going to fire the person, just ask him to park his truck somewhere else. That’s not a terribly onerous requirement from employer to employee, and the comfort level of clients is valued over employees being able to say whatever they want all the time. Sure they can decide that the employees’ rights to have potentially alienating bumper stickers on show are more important than maintaining client relations, but it certainly would seem like an odd choice, to say the least.

      1. Angstrom*

        If not an outright ban, one could have a policy that political statements not be *visible* in the workplace. So if sticker guy backed his truck into a parking spot and it wasn’t visible to someone walking through the lot, that’d be ok.

        1. Automatix*

          The problem with this is that different people draw the line in different places. Although many people here wouldn’t regard, say, the Pride flag as political, millions of people would disagree. And would a sign saying “Black Lives Matter” be seen as political? What about one that says “Whire Lives Matter”? It’s a minefield and I don’t blame companies for abiding to the spirit, not just tbe letter, of the First Amendment and choosing not to get involved.

      2. Hyaline*

        Yeah, I’m totally in agreement that workplaces can make those policies–I think the problem often comes in when they *haven’t* made a policy and uh-oh, there’s a parking lot full of political bumper stickers but we’re supposed to draw the line at THIS guy. I know the line seems clear-cut to LW, but

        1. Hyaline*

          Heh submit blip–seems clear to LW, but it might not be so obvious and/or it could be trickier to hash out when you’re looking at “this thing you have brought up should be applied across the board and oh no we really should have thought of that before Contentious Election ’24.” So I can see why some places just fall back on “uhhh…freeze peach all around, then.”

          1. fhqwhgads*

            ‘nah. The “but it’s political” thing is a straw man. You don’t ban the truck with this bumper sticker because the sticker’s “political”. You ban it because it espouses violence. I’m sure someone will try to argue it doesn’t…because there’s always someone who’ll argue something…but it ain’t about the politics.

    2. Pescadero*

      Legally – there are no groups designated as terrorist organizations which are domestic, and there are no federal terrorism laws that apply to domestic terrorists.

      They are merely charged under state/federal law for the underlying crim (shooting a police officer, destruction of a federal building, etc.).

  26. Jay*

    One of the big things you need to be aware of with modern AI is the concept of AI Hallucinations.
    Basically, what can happen is that the AI will hit a quiet spot where nobody is talking and just….make stuff up to fill in the space.
    Leto’s Law (a YouTube program by a lawyer named Steve Leto) recently had an episode on an AI transcription program that was being used to take patient notes at a hospital.
    Everyone stopped talking for a couple of minutes for whatever reason, and the AI filled the space with a completely fictitious account of THE PATIENT GOING ON A KILLING SPREE!
    Have them watch that, and then think about what that machine is reporting that they said and did that they most certainly did not either say or do.
    What happens when, say, the AI, who was trained on tv dramas and internet creepypasta’s, decides that what your boring budget meeting really needs is a whole bunch of financial crimes to spice things up?
    That’s a thing that apparently can actually happen.
    If the notes are needed that badly, and no one there is willing to take them, make an audio and/or video recording, save it on a hard drive somewhere, and have someone in the office type up when they have the chance.

    1. Malarkey01*

      This is true and why I wouldn’t use them in a critical situation like medical transcription, but there’s a huge gulf between life saving medical services and low stakes personal notes for meetings.
      I find meeting transcription incredibly helpful to go back and do a search to reread what we said about something when working on day to day tasks without re-listening to a 2 hour meeting, and if I suddenly read the CFO said let’s kill Brian and hide the money I think I’m able to say weird I don’t remember that part of the meeting and move on.

      Speech to text has been around for years and I don’t think that particular feature is going anywhere but agree it’s not appropriate for every role.

      1. gyrfalcon17*

        It’s not so much the “CEO said let’s kill Brian” obvious errors, as the completely non-obvious errors, that nevertheless can have a very bad effect.

        I’m in one standing meeting where the convenesr uses AI to prepare the minutes, which is fine, but before using them, they should be reviewed and corrected after the meeting by a large proportion of the participants.

        This is because I find the AI not infrequently putting down a decision as the EXACT OPPOSITE of what we decided. Someone just going back to these minutes a few weeks later to refresh their memory for what to tell people to implement is going to be completely misled and steer the project in the exact wrong direction.

        1. Malarkey01*

          Well ironically I said CFO and you turned my quote into CEO – which tracks with my experience of the AI transcription being not significantly better or worse than a human note taker.

          It’s important to understand the risk and agree proofing work is a good idea which may be more or less crucial depending on the skill of your particular tool, but if someone came to me and said Jon shouldn’t get to use AI note taker for their personal notes because it might say insane financial crimes (your example) I wouldn’t be swayed.

    2. Nightengale*

      triples down on my resolve to resist administration’s attempt to make me use AI transcription to write my patient notes. . .

  27. HonorBox*

    OP2 – Your HR is indeed interpreting First Amendment rights incorrectly. And this is something that gets under my skin in a wider perspective too. Many, many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of First Amendment protections. That said, it seems like they’re not interested in taking this on. What I’m wondering is whether anyone from outside your organization has said anything, even in passing, that gives you the sense that they’re uncomfortable. If so, I’d point that out to higher up bosses. Then it isn’t fellow employees interpreting something – not to say that your discomfort with it should be less important. If you’re serving government entities and one of your “customers” feels like it is inappropriate, it is far easier to shut it down.

    All of that said, it might make sense to propose to bosses/HR, etc. that especially because you serve government entities, regardless of which side is in power, it might be helpful to add something to your employee handbook that outlines how people can and can’t showcase their own personal political views. My organization is government adjacent, and because we work with whomever is elected, we are told that while we can personally attend rallies, like posts on social media, contribute financially, etc. we are expressly forbidden from advertising any sort of political views in a local and public way. Because if you put a yard sign for Candidate A in your yard and Candidate B wins, we still have to work with Candidate B and don’t want to start off the relationship in a way that could be adversarial.

  28. OrdinaryJoe*

    #4 … LW, I really think they are trying to be friendly and include you. It’s awkward, for sure but it seems to be a fairly common thing in offices. In my office group (small-ish) chat that can range from everything from Work stuff to Fun stuff, if someone says something a bit off, someone will make a joke about what HR (who is on the chat) is thinking … “Oh no, now Mary is going to send you a note!” or if it’s about spending money … accounting’s name will get throw out … “Alice is just loving that idea!” Most of the time, the person who gets called out will pipe in with a comment or a joke of their own. I think the idea is to try to involve everyone.

    1. biobotb*

      I think it’s awkward primarily because the coworkers are trying to include someone who’s not interested. If the LW were wishing she could join in somehow, but didn’t see an entry point in the conversation, the coworkers comments would be an easy in. But she’s not, so it’s awkward. Of course, they probably feel awkward chatting with each other as if she’s part of the furniture, and are trying to alleviate that.

      When the LW said they talked about her like a pet, I thought she was going to say they used that sing-song tone lots of people use for their pets. But it doesn’t sound like they are, so the LW should let this go.

    2. TheBunny*

      OP#1

      Personally I’m neutral on AI. It’s coming (or rather it’s here) so I’m just dealing.

      But, AI is the dumbest it’s ever going to be RIGHT NOW. It’s literally learning every second. If you really passionately reject it, get involved in the conversations about it. Share your concerns. Now is definitely the time to make sure you are heard.

  29. LingNerd*

    LW3, one thing to know is that it might not be possible to include everyone. Some people have issues that are so sensitive and severe that they won’t participate in any potluck because the risk is simply too high. Part of the point of a potluck is that everyone is trying a bit of everything, which can result in cross-contamination. For one, utensils get mixed up and people may touch things with their hands if they don’t see tongs. Or someone takes a scoop of a lovely gluten free chili and ladels it right on top of their gluten-full homemade rolls, and now that ladel has had cross-contact with gluten. Many people with severe allergies also simply do not trust food made in someone else’s home kitchen. They have no way of knowing if you properly cleaned the counter after making your kids’ peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, or if you knew that most margarine isn’t actually dairy-free.

    So by all means, do your best to be inclusive! But don’t get too worked up trying even harder to include someone if they decline anyway

  30. L-squared*

    #1. You probably won’t be able to opt out. The most you’ll probably be able to do is not talk as you are. These things are pretty common now, as is just recording meetings. If its just transcribing things, it’s really not that big of a deal. Unless you are truly dealing with high level security things (which most people don’t). Also, it would come across odd in many situations. I’m in so many meetings, both internal and external, where its normal that someone asking to opt out would just seem off.

    #3. Personally, I just like to let people bring their own stuff. Trying to find a recipe that meets every dietary restriction AND is good, AND isn’t going to break the bank by me needing to buy all sorts of ingredients I’ll never use is a bit much for me. But, I’ll happily try your gluten free cookies, or your vegan treat. Also, too often people’s restrictions may offset each other. The nut allergy person can’t eat something made with the almond flour I mentioned, so now that makes it harder. If people want to opt out, let them. Or they can bring something they know they can eat.

    #4. I agree with Alison that you are reading this very wrong. They aren’t talking about you like a pet. That is, in some circles, a normal way to talk. I’ll be having a conversation with a coworker, and someone may not be invovled but can clearly hear it and I’ll say something like “And John over there thinks I’m an idiot and just isn’t saying it”. It’s just kind of a joke, nothing personal. The butt of the joke in that situation is me.

  31. Bananapants*

    Re: potlucks, it can be nice to bring a packaged food option with the label still on for certain food restrictions, so that people are sure about what’s in it. Of course potlucks can be tricky for folks with food restrictions even with that info, since cross contamination may be a risk (for celiac, crumbs accidentally getting in something can be a big issue for instance).

  32. 1-800-BrownCow*

    LW3, don’t feel bad if not everyone attends. It’s not on your shoulders to ensure everyone’s needs/wants are met. Some people, like me, are perfectly fine not participating. It’s much more than having foods I can eat. It’s concerns with cross-contamination, it’s being in the spotlight with people’s comments/questions, it’s limitations on options, etc. I cannot speak for every person, but I know many people that have food restrictions, like myself, that would just rather not participate and don’t like feeling obligated to participate because one person wants everyone to feel included. Honestly, the pushiness I’ve had from some people to make sure I’m included has led me to taking a PTO day during these “events”. I wish people would just take my “Thanks, but no thanks” as a final answer and leave me alone. Please know that inviting me to the event already makes me feel included, you don’t need to go out of your way or continue pushing me to attend.

    1. My Cat’s Human*

      Yep. My garden club’s monthly meetings include potlucks twice a year. I was happy to bring a dish i can eat, and just skip others’ food. But I’ve started skipping the potluck meetings because the same woman asked same invasive questions each time. Nice lady, and curious is a good trait in a gardener. But please don’t focus it on me.

  33. chiffonades*

    We had an advisor on a project have an AI assistant join and it made me feel uncomfortable if I’m honest. The advisors all sign NDAs as part of their participation so that our work is not shared around externally, and I don’t know where the AI assistant’s data goes. That company definitely didn’t sign an NDA with us and I have no clue if the discussions about our project go back as training material for the AI assistant.

    1. Observer*

      That is a question that someone should have asked the adviser. That’s a legitimate issue and one that you absolutely have standing to bring up.

  34. Not a Real Giraffe*

    LW5: We do something similar with our conference support team. The bonuses don’t come through until the promotion/pay raise/regular bonus cycle, which is like 8 months after our conference actually occurs. I agree with Alison to just ask for clarity, but don’t be surprised if there’s a long delay!

    1. fhqwhgads*

      That doesn’t really mesh with the part where LW5 spoke to someone else who did already receive theirs for this event though.

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

    #3 you sound like a lovely person and I’m so glad that you are trying to be mindful for everyone’s needs. I think the best thing overall is to allow people to do what they want. When inviting tell them if they have restrictions feel free to bring a dish that meets their own neeeds to share with the group. Or they can feel free to bring whatever they would normally have for lunch for themselves. Also let people bow out if they do not want to eat with everyone. You never know if someone has issues with eating in large groups (because of disordered eating, dental issues or something else). If you can, make a time that is not focused around food. Like maybe a short time after lunch for people to just talk.

  36. Sneaky Squirrel*

    #5 – Definitely ask, especially since you’re hearing that others got their bonuses. Sometimes bonuses get held up in administrative processes or clerical errors happen. I’m sure that when you inquire about it, the organizer will be concerned for you and want to ensure that it will be paid out in a timely manner.

    1. Nola*

      At my job bonuses are issued from a separate account so they’re checks and not direct deposited. They must be handed directly to a person – not put in an Inbox or left on a desk. Our accounting person will make the rounds twice on the day bonuses drop to distribute checks but if she can’t find you she locks them in her drawer in the locked accounting office until you come to collect it.

      Ask your boss. Your money might be sitting around in an office somewhere waiting to be collected.

    2. Global Cat Herder*

      Especially since LW5 mentioned “international” … if that’s a different location of your same company, that’s usually different legal entities with different processes and different buckets of money, and it’s gotten stuck somewhere among all the transferring involved. They won’t know to unstick it unless LW points out they haven’t gotten it yet.

      1. LW5*

        I did ask!

        It is on its way, just being held up on approvals!

        I’m very grateful for the advice from Alison (and the script!) and everyone’s comments here.

  37. CommanderBanana*

    LW#2 – your HR is (surprise, surprise) wrong. That is not how “free speech” works. The text of the First Amendment is actually very clear about what the Constitutional right to free speech means. Also, “freedom of speech” does not mean “freedom from any consequences about what I said.”

    Employers have the right to restrict what employees say, wear, or display at their workplaces and can fire employees for things they say, wear, or display at their workplaces.

    It can get more complicated when you are referring to something an employee did or said while not at the workplace, not on the clock, not wearing employer branded clothing, and not representing their company, but employers absolutely do fire employees for things they say and do in their private life (the latest example of that is a Ravens fan who decided to attach a bunch of rival team fans on camera, he was quickly identified and arrested, and his employer fired him).

    If you ask this guy to take off his bumper sticker and he refuses, you could (theoretically) fire him, and he can sue you, but that has nothing to do with ‘freedom of speech’ as a Constitutionally-protected right. You can sue anyone for pretty much anything, and “jerkwads who have bumper stickers” isn’t a protected class.

    1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      Exactly this. Would this employee be allowed to express support for this group in front of government staff? If the answer is no, that means HR totally does understand that “freedom of speech” has limits.

      1. CommanderBanana*

        While I have worked with some HR folks who were very nice people, I have yet to meet an HR ‘professional’ who actually knew employment law (Alison excepted). I don’t expect HR ‘professionals’ to be employment lawyers, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect them to have a basic knowledge of the most important employment laws, at least in their state.

        The HR ‘professionals’ I have worked with were usually just people who did payroll and benefit enrollments and then just ended up in an HR position without any actual training or subject matter expertise, and they ranged from incompetent to actually malevolent.

        I now do not assume that anything an HR person says is accurate unless I’ve researched it myself, or run it past an actual employment lawyer, and I also won’t communicate with anyone in HR without it being over email, Teams, or with a follow-up email so there’s a written record they can’t later try to lie about.

        The damage I’ve seen crap HR ‘professionals’ do at places I’ve worked before is pretty impressive.

    2. Hannah Lee*

      LW2:
      “My HR team is telling me that I can’t do this because it violates the employee’s freedom of speech”

      ME: (Insert image of Peanuts character with ARRRGGGHHH bubble over their head.)
      This misinterpretation of the “freedom of speech” is SO irritating (especially since in the last so many years, maybe Tea Party era onward? it’s been misapplied SO many times to defend extreme right anti-democracy, anti-human rights rhetoric) and to have it come from people whose job it is to understand and communicate employment law, and official policies is so frustrating.

      ALISON:
      “Freedom of speech,” as a legal concept, applies to the government not being able to restrict speech, not to private employers having rules about what is and isn’t okay to be displayed on their property. From a purely legal standpoint, a private employer absolutely has the right to tell an employee that they can’t display an offensive sticker in their parking lot.

      ME: (blood pressure returning to normal)
      Thank you thank you thank you!

  38. Jennifer Strange*

    ask any vegetarian who’s ever heard a dish described as “vegetarian” only to find out it contained chicken broth

    I still feel bad about the time my husband and I made beer cheese for a party with our friends (one of whom is vegetarian). We assumed it was fine for her (it’s basically cheese dip! how could it have meat?!) Then we found out that Worcestershire sauce has anchovies in it. Who knew! Thankfully she was unfazed about it when we told her (she said as long as she couldn’t see the meat it didn’t bother her). But still, good knowledge to have going forward!

    1. Whatchamcallit*

      This is my curse as a vegetarian, the number of times I have explained caesar salad is not vegetarian because the dressing has anchovies!

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

        There are vegetarian and vegan options for Caesar dressing that is pretty darn good. Fody has a vegan Caesar dressing

      2. biobotb*

        I think some of the confusion comes from people who eat fish and describe themselves as vegetarian. Perhaps they should describe themselves as pescatarian, but don’t.

    2. Dahlia*

      Not all cheeses are vegetarian either. Some hard cheeses like Parmesan use animal rennet, which is not vegetarian.

    3. Freya*

      I was so disappointed when my then-favourite flavour of my favourite brand of chips/crisps added milk products to the ingredients list!

  40. Whatchamcallit*

    #3 oh yes as a vegetarian, I am a little wary of someone saying something is vegetarian if I don’t the recipe or ingredients. There are a lot of things people do not realize are not vegetarian, like gelatin, most parmesan cheese and white sugar. (if it’s made with bacterial rennet it’s vegetarian, but most is made with calf rennet. Gelatin is also in a lot of things like marshmallows that people don’t always realize. Organic white sugar, which is still typically a little brown tinged is fine, but any nonorganic white sugar is not, because the way they bleach it that color is with bone char.)
    Not to mention the number of people I’ve met who seem to think being vegetarian means I also eat fish. I usually give in to blissful ignorance and don’t ask questions on recipes but not everyone does.

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      Interesting! I knew about gelatin (and kind of knew about parmesan cheese?) but not about the white sugar!

      1. Lady Danbury*

        I didn’t know about sugar either. I don’t think any of the vegetarians I know knew white sugar wasn’t vegetarian. Or maybe they just don’t care because they definitely eat it!

        1. Aww, coffee, no*

          I was fascinated by Whatchamcallit’s comment about bone char, as I had a vague feeling I’d seen the Vegan logo bags of sugar. And, given that I’d used sugar without a qualm to make flapjacks that I supplied as a vegan offering in our recent cake sale, I wanted to be sure I hadn’t inadvertently messed up.

          So, I did a bit of googling, and apparently in the UK (where I am) white sugar from all the big brands such as Silver Spoon and Tate & Lyle is vegan (with the exception of Royal Icing Sugar which has added egg white) but in the US is indeed typically made with bone char.

    2. CommanderBanana*

      Yep – a lot of people have no idea that cheese made with rennet is not vegetarian, and a lot of imported gummy candies are made with beef-based gelatin. And many chicken and turkey sausages are put in pork casings.

  41. Bookworm*

    Letter 1 about AI: if a company has a clear policy permitting its use and meetings are recorded for internal use only, at what point does one employee objecting to AI use become a problem/burder for other employees? I’m very curious about this. Will companies start tell employees that AI use is non-negotiable?

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      I think this is a good example of how so many companies just aren’t good at actually thinking through their policies, e.g. before implementing an AI policy that says meetings are recorded for internal use, let’s interrogate the idea that meetings even need to be recorded*. I run a lot of Teams meetings that involve user training and people often ask to record them; not one person has re-watched the meeting recording later because it’s actually a terrible format to get any information from. So many people are quick to jump into AI without even examining their business practices, which just seems like bad management to me independent of the AI concerns.

      *Outside any requirements where this is part of an ADA accommodation, etc.

      1. Bookworm*

        I often participate in meetings where there is a clear agenda. I often have to take minutes. I’m a fast typist so that’s not an issue, but other people not so much. I work with a few people who are extremely anti-technology past about 1995 – no smart phones, still write checks for bills, had to be forced to use direct deposit for paychecks. I can easily see such an employee refused to take part of anything AI-related just because of their own anti-technology stance.

        1. Caramel & Cheddar*

          “Can’t type quickly” isn’t quite the same ethical quagmire as AI, in my opinion, but is certainly something that a manager can and should deal with as a performance issue in 2024.

          1. Bookworm*

            I’m early GenX. I learned how to type on a very stiff manual typewriter in 1982. I held a number of admin jobs during college and into the 90s that required a certain number of words per minute. The last time I was tested I was typing around 100 wpm. Many younger people in my office hunt and peck and don’t type anywhere as fast as I do. Some prefer to take minutes by hand. AI generated transcripts to assist with meeting minutes would be quite handy.

            1. Caramel & Cheddar*

              If I’ve been unclear prior to this moment, let me be clearer now: I understand your arguments, I just disagree with them. There isn’t really a number of anecdotes relating to technological illiteracy in the workplace that will convince me AI is the answer and not something that deepens the problem. You don’t have to keep explaining the existence of technophobes to me, as I am depressingly familiar with them myself.

              1. Bookworm*

                Do some jobs even require a certain level of keyboarding skills these days? I have no clue. But if someone’s primary tasks don’t require fast typing skills, do you really go tell them to “learn to type faster” for taking meeting notes?

                1. Caramel & Cheddar*

                  Some definitely don’t! But you made it sound like it was a problem that your colleagues can’t type fast, so I’m assuming it is important for those jobs that you yourself brought up as a counterpoint.

      2. A Book about Metals*

        That’s where the transcripts and summaries come into play. Nobody is going to watch an hour long recorded meeting but if the summaries are accurate that’s a massive time saver

        1. Caramel & Cheddar*

          As someone who used to take meeting minutes in a past life, which one might suggest are summaries of meetings, I love your optimism that anyone reads those either. If you want to use AI to do this work and your workplace allows it, go nuts. I’d just love if our colleagues gave more than ten seconds thought to what we’re being asked to give up to an AI vs the value of what we’re getting back out of it. “Meeting summaries” doesn’t meet the value threshold for me, though it sounds like it does for you.

          1. Bookworm*

            Using AI transcripts to augment personally typed/written notes to turn those into meeting minutes would be quite handy.

            1. Caramel & Cheddar*

              I don’t want my likeness or work product (visual, audio, textual, or otherwise) captured by an AI system when I don’t trust the storage of that data nor who it’s shared with, and definitely not so someone can get an error-riddled summary of a meeting. There are some areas where I have lots of control over my digital footprint and others where I don’t, so I try to do my best to ensure that breaches of my data are minimized if I can’t outright eliminate them. These tools ask us to give up really important pieces of ourselves that we get absolutely no compensation for.

              Similarly, I work in a creative sector and their are immense ethical concerns re: companies like OpenAI stealing from creatives without compensating them to feed their generative AI models. This dramatically impacts the work we do and the people we work with in a negative way.

              So what am I being asked to give up is: identifying information about myself, data autonomy, and ethical considerations, to say the least. If other people are fine losing all this stuff so that they can summarize a meeting, that’s their prerogative, I just wish they’d be honest about it.

              1. A Book about Metals*

                I wouldn’t want to give up all those things either – I guess i don’t feel like that’s happening with a meeting note taker.

                1. RPT*

                  If the note-taking app belongs to a company that is using the data it collects to feed its AI-and-or-LLM model, trust me, it’s taking ALL THE DATA: the video feeds, the audio feeds, the side chat, everything.

        2. RagingADHD*

          “If the summaries are accurate” is the kicker, though.

          I have never yet seen one that was accurate in capturing the most valuable information. Even the list of topics discussed is often way off base.

          1. A Book about Metals*

            I can only speak for the one we use (Fathom) which so far has very accurate summaries. I’m sure it’s a YMMV situation though

            1. RagingADHD*

              It also depends on one’s needs and what accuracy / relevance means in your context. My colleagues thought their AI summaries were fantastic, but they were not looking for the same type of nuances that I was.

              They were looking for stuff like due dates on the next round of status reports. That was pretty good and reliable.

              I was looking for stuff like how well the C-level leader’s vision was getting across to their direct reports, what aspects were getting pushback and why, whether the concerns were substantive or just resistance to change, which direct reports were bringing useful suggestions vs dumb ones, etc. I also needed to consolidate related ideas or conclusions that come up after the discussion has gone around and around several times, people change their minds, decisions have gone back and forth, and make sure the decisions were properly attached to questions that were very far apart chronologically.

              It’s particularly tricky when you have a strong personality who likes to make all their suggestions as declarations of fact, that the leader or a more influential speaker has to correct or walk back. Or let die in silence.

              I have yet to find an AI transcript that can capture that kind of info, because some of it is hard to express in text at all, even for humans. And if I have to be there live or listen to an audio anyway, the summary just doesn’t add anything.

              1. A Book about Metals*

                I’d say my needs were in between yours and just dates/next steps. I’ve found it good enough for the level of nuance we need, but I agree – I would not expect the platforms of today to be able to capture what you describe.

  42. This one*

    The first big landmark case where an AI company uses someone’s meeting notes to develop internal strategy for a competitor will be wild. I expect to see an acquisition of a floundering AI company sometime in the next 10 years, where the only goal of the acquisition is to get the AI to paraphrase the strategy notes of a competitor’s employee who used the tool religiously.

    If you knew that some key person on the batteries team at Tesla was constantly storing their ideas with an AI company and even making it summarizable/searchable for you – and you wanted to get a jump start on batteries – you’d maybe want to see how much that distressed AI company was going for,

  43. cxxxb*

    #2 I am a social worker in an agency that serves folks with mental health concerns, folks who are struggling with suicidial ideations, and survivors of domestic or sexual violence. about 4.5 years ago we hired a man who had a “TRUMP 2020: f*ck your feelings” sticker on his car. Being social workers, and like… knowing who we serve, this was not acceptable to me and a large portion of my coworkers. So we banded together to go to the C Suite to raise this issue (I mean really, at a mental health agency having that? we are ALL about feelings!). Our CEO stepped in and I am not sure what happened but I haven’t seen that guy since about 3 months after we raised the issue.

    So what I am saying is “talk to your other co workers, see how they feel, then band together”. and really if you’re serving government contracts and this is a group that tried to kidnap YOUR Governor, this could be a huge security issue too.

  44. CommanderBanana*

    FWIW, I work for an org that runs trainings that people pay to attend, and we do not permit AI assistants to be turned on in our trainings.

  45. Amy*

    Mom of an (adult) child with celiac. The problem with potlucks is if someone uses a utensil to dish out some regular trifle and then uses it to get some gluten free pie, then it’s possible that the GF pie is contaminated now. Personally witnessed this at the Thanksgiving dessert table, and my daughter spent the afternoon violently ill. She doesn’t attend the big family Thanksgivings anymore because it kept happening. Unless the holiday meals are held at my house, because then I can do the quality control.

    I don’t know the answer though- I don’t necessarily think that forcing dietary allergies (or preferences) on an entire office potluck is fair either.

    1. CommanderBanana*

      ^^ THIS. It’s not just the food, it’s the preparation, the utensils, how they’re served, etc. etc.

      I don’t eat pork for religious reasons, and I remember standing at the staff meal at an event where there was literally one thing without pork in it and watching my coworker pick up the serving spoon that was in a dish covered in bacon and merrily plunge it into the one thing I and the other Jewish and Muslim coworkers could eat.

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

        I hate this on so many levels. Beyond the allergy and religious reasons it’s just plain gross to use the same spoon or fork for multiple dishes. If you do that at home, fine. But don’t do it when you are at a potluck.
        “Thanks Jane for ruining the potato casserole because you used the Jell-O spoon! “

      2. SpaceySteph*

        I think its a good idea to set those specialty things aside to avoid this. A GF or vegetarian side table or something and a sign requesting those without restrictions allow those with restrictions to take first from that section to ensure they get enough and its un-contaminated.

        What I’ve personally experienced (as someone who also doesn’t eat pork for religious reasons) is that they ordered like 2 cheese pizzas and 6 meat lovers, and there was no plain cheese left by the time I got through the line. This is also why I always bring a lunch from home as backup.

  46. CommanderBanana*

    RE: the potlucks – a recent workplace potluck on the East Coast sent over 40 people to the hospital with food poisoning, sooooo…there’s that.*

    *I love food and I will happily eat potluck food if it’s something I eat, but I generally purchase food to bring now, because I have a dog and I can’t guarantee that any item of food made in my house is going to be 100% dog hair free, despite my best effort to keep the kitchen a dog hair free zone.

  47. Rincewind*

    #1 – Everyone loves hating on AI right now, and I wish there was more nuance about it. Auto-generated captions are a LIFESAVER for me. My hearing is normal, but I’m AuDHD and have some auditory processing issues. I have trouble focusing in meetings already and then you throw in mic issues, no cameras, and heavy accents – I might as well not bother to attend if I can’t make the subtitles work.

    1. ItLies*

      the problem is they’re wrong a lot of the time. and they make stuff up all the time. so you can’t rely on them.

  48. Ann Onymous*

    LW3, as a person with a peanut allergy, I appreciate that you want to be inclusive, but be aware that some people may still opt out. These are 2 actual conversations from my childhood that resulted in me having a reaction:
    ———-
    Me: Are there peanuts in the cookies? I’m allergic.
    Friend’s Mom: There are no peanuts in the cookies.
    (there were no peanuts in the cookies, but there was peanut butter)
    ———-
    My Mom: Is there peanut butter in the cake? My daughter’s allergic.
    Waitress: There is no peanut butter in the cake.
    (there wasn’t peanut butter in the cake, but there was peanut butter in the frosting)

    At this point in my life, it’s not just a matter of someone saying there’s no peanuts; it’s also a matter of me trusting that the person saying it actually understands what it means.

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      I have peanut allergies in my family and conversations absolutely go like this, it’s depressing. It’s surprising how many people can’t seem to make the leap from answering a specific question (“are there peanuts?”) to it’s broader considerations (“no, but there is peanut butter”). Heck, I’d even get into adjacent allergies that sometimes trip people up, e.g. “No peanut products, but there are tree nuts” but most people won’t make that connection either.

      1. Ann Onymous*

        And sometimes people make an unnecessary connection. My peanut allergy was discovered when I was a toddler, and my pediatrician drew a connection to tree nuts. I avoided tree nuts until I was in my 30s and got allergy testing done that showed my allergy was only to peanuts. I’m now exploring a whole new world of tree nut containing foods.

      2. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

        My favorite is when I ask at a restaurant if there are peppers in something because I’m allergic, and they offer to bring me their vegan and gluten free menu so I can order off that instead. I don’t know if that also happens to people who ask about peanuts, but it would not surprise me.

        1. Ann Onymous*

          It’s also kind of the opposite of effective since nuts tend to show up more often in vegan and gluten free dishes since nut milks/cheeses are common substitutes for dairy and nut flours are sometimes used as a gluten-free alternative to wheat flour.

  49. doppledopper*

    Re the quiet coworker: I agree with Alison that you are likely reading way too much into this. If this is a habit — if you find yourself basically reading people’s minds in a way that regularly results in beliefs that they are thinking bad things about you or have negative intent, I gently suggest pursuing therapy to help you figure out where this is coming from.

    Because the actual fact of the matter 90% of the time is that 1) other people aren’t actually thinking anything about you at all–they’re actually (like you) mostly occupied with themselves, and 2) when they are thinking about you, it’s likely to just be a passing thought (along the lines of “huh, interesting jacket, I wonder where they got that. well, back to my spreadsheet”) or something neutral or even positive. In fact I’d interpret your coworkers’ comments as attempts to include you in the office social life because they *like* you!

    (I have someone in my family with a pathological level of insecurity who has always interpreted almost every comment, conversation topic, and activity that takes place around them to somehow be a comment on their value as a human being–usually negatively. They are now in their 80s and let me tell you, it is not a good way to live. And wreaks havoc on relationships of all kinds.)

    1. Software dev*

      Not trying to speak for the LW here of course, but another possible explanation for their reaction is that if you take the coworkers’ comments at face value, it would mean that your coworkers are thinking you’re judging them, and it can be distressing to get the impression that people see you as judgemental. Personally I receive a lot of these comments as well (“[Name]’s just sitting there judging us!”, etc) even when I am part of a group conversation but haven’t said anything in a while. I have always worried about what impression I’m giving my coworkers, because if I take their words at face value, it means they think I’m judging them. I don’t think that’s mind reading; if anything, it’s my lack of mind reading that makes me think the comment is negative.

      I tend to take people’s comments literally if they’re not obviously being sarcastic or something. Maybe it should be obvious in this scenario that they don’t really mean it seriously, but I’m not great at social nuance so I never picked up on it. Reading these comments is kind of a relief, it’s good to know that people generally don’t mean for these comments to represent the way they actually see me. :)

      1. LW 4*

        Yes, this was my first interpretation before I thought of the “talking for pets” angle.
        I know now that it’s an attempt to acknowledge me and include me in the conversation but, being unfamiliar with this type of comment, it absolutely did not make me feel welcome in the conversation. In fact, it made me want to avoid those coworkers because apparently I kept unintentionally doing something to make them think I had negative opinions about them, and I didn’t want to keep offending them.

  50. Somewhere in Texas*

    LW #3-
    Something that I have seen for catered events at my company are “food sensitivity” cards for each item being offered. It includes check boxes for Vegetarian options, nuts, dairy, gluten, etc. They are not called food sensitivity cards, but are standard practice for all the dishes. This could become a normal practice for everyone bringing a dish with guidance on what makes a dish vegan or what allergens to note. This awareness could lead to people bringing more friendly options.

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      We’ve had some catered events that had these and they were super helpful! I only have one allergy and it’s easy to avoid, but I can be picky in other areas and I love knowing up front what’s in a given dish.

  51. Spicy Tuna*

    #5, as a conflict averse person, I feel your pain. I once had a very overdue invoice from a long term consulting client. It was not for a huge amount of money, but I had done the work and it wasn’t free! When I emailed to follow up, the AP person made a comment about how I was so eager for such a small amount of money. Given that it went against every part of me that HATES conflict, I wanted to die on the spot!

  52. tabloidtained*

    LW1: There is room for nuance here. Generative AI and the models that power it require exorbitant amounts of energy. But a transcription tool is unlikely to consume more resources than your average auto-caption software. Automation tools can be invaluable for people.

    LW4: As a fellow quiet person, this is just something that happens. I agree that it’s a way for people to acknowledge you in a conversation so that it doesn’t seem like they’re excluding you. It can be a little off-putting when they ascribe emotions to me that I’m not feeling (honestly, I’m not judging you in my silence!)–but the way I see it, that’s not really on them. It’s just an outcome of slightly awkward human interaction. They’re doing their best to be kind and nothing is stopping me from speaking up to correct them!

  53. Lacey*

    LW4: I’m also quiet, this happens to me sometimes. But Alison is 100% correct. It’s just people trying to let you know they’re not ignoring your presence and giving you an opportunity to be a part of the conversation.

  54. It's Marie - Not Maria*

    I’m going to guess LW#2 is from the Mitten, where certain supporters of a charismatic political figure think it is acceptable to proudly show their inclinations for hate groups like the one they mentioned.

    There isn’t much you can do in the parking lot, but you can make it clear as a private employer discussion of such topics is not allowed in the workplace. We also have rules about items of clothing, posters, etc. that support any political candidate or group which has political associations – these not allowed at all. After those were put in place, I had to spend a lot of time educating our staff about Constitutional Law, since several of them appeared to think they were experts on their constitutional rights – Guess what, I quickly proved they weren’t the experts they tried to make themselves out to be, and I was able to shut down their rhetoric since we are not a government employer or government contractor. It’s a tough battle to fight, but I had the support of C-Suite, who realized how disruptive any politics can be to the workplace, even if they agreed with it.

  55. Coverage Associate*

    We have lots of allergies in my family, and I enjoy finding recipes that work, even at Passover. My mother has the most allergies, and she eats very little prepared in someone else’s home, and there’s only a few home cooks she trusts.

    But it’s one thing to voluntarily take on a special cooking project and another to be given a cooking assignment. We just had the latter at church, and even though I have enjoyed church potlucks in the past, the way things were being assigned and restricted turned me off. But others were happy not to have to decide what to make. (The assignments weren’t health or religion related.)

    I think it would be nice if every organization having potlucks had a list of food restrictions that they circulated before events, with no pressure that everyone make everything everyone can eat. That has always been enough for my family in terms of feeling included and cared for.

  56. What_the_What*

    For the potlucks: Everyone who attends a potluck should be bringing a dish. That’s the entire concept. So I think someone with a food sensitivity bringing something they can eat is a great idea for introducing diversity into the communal table. It may (hopefully) encourage others to embrace some vegetarian, vegan, or GF options going forward once they realize “hey this is pretty tasty!” I realize you think you’re burdening them, but if everyone is bringing something they like to make and eat, it’s all equal in the end…and maybe educational!

    1. Rainy*

      Please see above for why asking people with dietary restrictions to bring the only thing they’ll be able to eat to the potluck is not equitable.

    2. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      “if everyone is bringing something they like to make and eat, it’s all equal in the end”

      If I am the only vegetarian and bring in a vegetarian dish so that everyone can eat some of it, but everything else has meat in it, meaning that all I can eat is the dish that I brought, how is it all equal in the end?

  57. sometimeswhy*

    When my kids were still in school, I made a lot of restriction and allergy-friendly potluck items, beyond their restrictions and allergy. The teachers swooned; the other parents interrogated me about ingredients, sourcing, and cross-contamination possibilities (which I always engaged with openly); and they were almost always the only things that didn’t have leftovers.

    In addition to everyone else’s useful notes on this, I would also add: Don’t push and don’t take it personally if someone questions every single detail or doesn’t engage at all and declines something you worked so hard to make sure they could consume safely. Eating in public with a life-threatening allergy is mentally exhausting. It’s a kindness to do your research and try to accommodate but it would stop being kind and start being overbearing to get upset if those efforts aren’t universally fawned over.

  58. EmmaPoet*

    My workplace usually does snacks at our semi-annual staff meeting, and for the last one we had new people in who had food sensitivities we haven’t dealt with before. I did not feel safe in making stuff for people with serious allergies, so I decided to buy peanut free and egg free snack options as my contribution. We also set all the special stuff on its own table so as to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.

    People were pleased to be remembered, and I think relieved that they didn’t have to cross-examine me about whether they were safe, because the package was right there.

  59. Colonel Gateway*

    I have to wonder if the people pushing to do away with transcription/minute taking assistance software are also volunteering to take notes in future meetings.

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      As someone who thinks it’s unnecessary: one of the things I’ve noticed in a lot of companies is the slow decline of recognizing administrative work as work that is important to the broader organization and project management of the company. Whether it’s through attrition or lay offs, a lot of places think they can do without admin staff, specifically because people keep promising that AI is some sort of miracle substitute for an admin person.

      But an AI can’t replace the knowledge of an experienced and competent office administrator, not by a long shot. I work somewhere right now where how we worked when there were more administrators is a stark contrast to how we are without them, and it’s really frustrating to watch that administrative decline. It’s slow and takes place over years, but it happens.

      So while I wouldn’t volunteer to do minutes in a meeting I didn’t organize because this isn’t part of the scope of my work in my current role, I am a vocal advocate for bringing back many types of administrative roles that companies think they can do without. I have been an admin in a past life and when minute taking was an important function of my job, I was glad to do it. I’m currently glad to do it in meetings I organize. If I took another admin role in the future, I’d be glad to do it then too.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      In my admittedly small sample size: the folks I’ve encountered wanting to use AI transcription/minute taking are doing so in scenarios where we historically would not have transcriptions or minutes anyway. So no one is volunteering to take notes in future meetings, but no one was tasked with taking notes in previous meetings, and no one particularly found an actual need for notes or minutes for the meetings in question. It’s just someone being like “hey look, it can do this for us! let’s let it” and everyone else being all “why?”
      The meetings where a human has always taken notes, they still do, and no one has suggested doing otherwise.
      I realize that’s not what’s happening everywhere, but it sure as hell colors my opinion.

  60. Krosan*

    LW#4 – I know exactly what you’re talking about and gosh that would drive me batty. I’m similarly introverted and quiet but with a customer-facing job, so when I’m not helping customers I tend to stay out of conversations to try and recharge my energy somewhat. Fortunately my coworkers are chill about this but I feel your pain.

    A lot of extroverts seem to assume that these indirect ways to drag someone into a conversation are a kindness, but honestly if you have a set amount of energy for socializing and are already running low, it’s very annoying to be forced to spend that reserve!

  61. WFH4VR*

    In Zoom meetings, when you see the AI notice in the chat, just reply OPT OUT and you will theoretically be excluded. There is one clueless coworker who sets it on, and apparently refuses to go into her settings and turn it off.

  62. TrixieDelite*

    Late to the party, but for the truck that has the offensive bumper sticker, can they back into a space so it’s not as visible?
    114 of you may have already suggested that. It’s just my FOMO coming out to play.

  63. Zeus*

    #4, I’ve been described in the same way you describe yourself, and I’ve definitely had colleagues do that to me, especially if they see me listening to their discussion. I tend to read it the same way that Alison does: that they’re including me in the conversation. It can be a good opportunity to jump in if you want to, or just smile and nod if you don’t.

    A recent example: colleagues were talking about one of the new Star Trek shows that I don’t watch, and I must have looked a little glazed over because one guy jokingly said, “Zeus is sitting here thinking we’re all nerds.” I was able to jump in and say “not at all, I’m currently slogging my way through The Next Generation now, I’m just not up to that one yet.” And bam, we started talking about TNG. Good times.

  64. Kate98*

    Please consider the fact that AI notetakers are a very important accessibility tool, not just for those with hearing impairment, but those with auditory processing disorders, disorders that affect memory or cognition, and those with anxiety disorders. This includes many conditions under the neurodivergent umbrella, including ADHD, dyslexia, autism, TBI, etc. One in six individuals is neurodivergent, so this is a considerable amount of the workforce that benefits. Yes, companies need clear AI policies, but those policies must account for disability accommodation.

  65. catastrophegirl*

    As someone with multiple food allergies, two of which are contact allergies, I am not ever going to participate in a potluck and I don’t appreciate being pressured to participate. I find explaining my allergies and being cajoled by my coworkers into “just trying it” to be an awkward and exhausting process. Same when the boss wants to order lunch for everyone in the office or there’s catering being brought in. I once had a reaction to the pickles at a burger toppings bar at a cookout because someone used the pickle tongs for the onions. If you hold a mango and touch a doorknob, I am now allergic to the doorknob (or shopping cart, keyboard, kitchen counter, etc.)
    If you cut a sandwich with onions on it and then cut a sandwich without onions with the same knife, I am now allergic to both sandwiches.
    And there are levels to my allergies that I just am not willing to discuss with coworkers. A1 steak sauce is fine for me because it’s pasteurized and that denatures the enzyme I react to. The local store brand steak sauce is not pasteurized so I react to it. Dehydrated onions will make me sick for a few hours where fresh onions trap me on the toilet for a couple days and blister my mouth and throat. I have actually had this conversation with an extremely pushy boss once who insisted I get something from the takeout he was ordering for the office, from a restaurant I’d never been to and couldn’t ask questions about the ingredients.
    We both ended up feeling embarassed and awkward but he did learn to respect my boundaries about food.
    So I would say offer/ask once and let the person tell you if they are willing to move forward or would like to be left out, and don’t push.

  66. Rep (taylor’s version)*

    LW 4 I had an annoying coworker do this to me when he wanted me to participate in a conversation but I was WORKING so I didn’t pay attention. He caught on, so he started todo things like LW 4’s coworkers do to get my attention which was annoying because they were dumb convos and then my concentration was ruined.

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