when office potlucks and catered parties go wrong

by Alison Green on November 7, 2024

As we approach to the season of office potlucks, catered parties, and other holiday meals with coworkers, let’s discuss the many ways in which they can go wrong — from alarming cuisine to cheap-ass rolls to riots over the chili cook-off to tantrums over insufficiently abundant shrimp.

Please share your stories of potlucks, cooking competitions, catered parties, and other office meals gone awry!

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{ 331 comments }

{ 331 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Tradd*

    All I have – a coworker once threw a fit that there was nothing she could eat. We had never seen her eat in the office in the 4-5 years she had been there and we had no clue she was vegan. Still no idea why it was suddenly an issue when she had never shown an interest in party food before. We made sure to have vegan options going forward and let her know, but she never attended anything again. Just once.

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      1. Tradd*

        No. We *loved* our meat/dairy and the food reflected it. Main dishes were meat. Salad had bacon, cheese, hard boiled eggs. Side dishes were veggies with cheese sauce, green beans with bacon, etc. We were given choices beforehand of meat (beef/pork), chicken, or seafood. *Everyone* chose the meat. Man, that was good food!

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    2. Upper Learning*

      Former coworker complained for years about lunches, coffee/pastry hours, etc. not being vegan-friendly. It mystified organizers, since they consistently sent around an RSVP form where any allergies or dietary preferences could be noted, with the understanding they would do all they could to accommodate. They regularly ordered 50% extra vegan meals since they knew non-vegans could eat them, but vegans couldn’t eat the non-vegan meals (leftovers were also fair game to take home at the end of the event). But this guy insisted that there was nothing for him at these events because everyone was so inconsiderate and refused to attend.
      Finally, after 3 or 4 years, he attended. He didn’t fill out the RSVP, but was still offered ample choice in vegan, vegetarian, etc. option. He chose to eat the meat option, complained the entire time that it was low-quality meat, and went back to saying that no one accommodated his vegan diet afterwards. So strange, and such an unpleasant human!

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        1. Bossy*

          Some people are an issue.
          I arranged a think for clients, one guy said he needed vegan, all kinds of work was put in on all sides to make sure he had an amazing vegan meal which we paid plenty of money for and then he decided he wasn’t vegan after all apparently. I don’t find these people to be strange, I find these people to be inconsiderate jerks.

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      2. Brioche for me*

        I once had someone’s +1 to my Thanksgiving dinner bring her sister, who I was told on Thanksgiving morning was gluten-free + vegan. I panicked and did my last-minute best to alter enough of my menu that the sister would have something to eat, and also clearly labelled everything.

        The sister ate exactly two things I had cooked: the turkey and the definitely-contained-both-butter-and-wheat chocolate chip cookies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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        1. Hungry!*

          Where are these wonderful, thoughtful places with generous vegan offerings, and can you invite me next time??? I work in one of the most liberal-crunchy-supposedly-veg-friendly cities and yet frequently at work events there is nothing suitable except black coffee and, if I’m lucky, maybe some fruit.
          Once at a conference that my boss led she promised she had arranged a great vegan option for lunch. It was a chunk of raw beetroot, some lettuce, and a lemon slice.

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          2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            I might be limited on fully vegan dishes without notice, but I have on many occasions accommodated veg*ns (some dishes fully vegan, others vegetarian but including dairy), the gluten-intolerant, lactose intolerant, and garlic, shellfish and nut allergies all at the same thanksgiving, successfully. (Though luckily for me, most of those restrictions were fairly silo-ed, no individual had more than 2 of them.)

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        2. My oh my*

          This person isn’t actually vegan then, so annoying. I’m a strict almost life-long vegetarian, and these new pretend “vegans” who seem to enjoy the label to be special are sooooo annoying to me. Say you’re mostly plant-based, but do eat meat on occasion.

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    3. restingbutchface*

      I don’t eat animal products and I find discussing anyone’s diet boring, even mine, so I just tend to bring some food along with me.

      Not many people I work with know how I eat because I am forever scarred by 2009’s work Christmas dinner. The company was very male dominated. There were more Steves than women. And these guys loved their meats. Oh, they loved their meat. The smell of bacon still makes me think of that office.

      I didn’t think it would be a problem to mention my preference to the organiser, so I let them know when I RSPVed. I turned up with my StevePhilGary crew and the organiser loudly announced that to make me feel included, the whole meal was vegan.

      Can silence be furious? (Yes, yes it can)

      My dudes, every single head turned towards me. In my nightmares I am still there, being stared at for stealing my colleagues meat feast from them. I fled before dessert.

      PS. Liam from HR, if you’re reading this, why? What did I do to you? Also, vegan food is not just salad leaves with vinegar, you absolute maniac.

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  2. Unkempt Flatware*

    Mine isn’t about the food but about the management of the event. I got a call at 9am one day from my colleague insisting that I go across the metro area to judge a chili cook off at her branch because no one had arranged judges. She was rude, demanding, angry, frantic, and all-in-all crazed about it. I told her that, no, I wouldn’t be dropping everything at the last minute to destroy my GI tract because she couldn’t get it together in time. She went on a full rage and called me a child and how she would do this for me if I needed her to. I told her I would never be so inconsiderate as to do that to her.

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    1. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

      “ I told her I would never be so inconsiderate as to do that to her.”

      This was a work of art! I aspire to have your wits in the moment rather than two days later going “THAT’S what I should have said” :)

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        1. Magc*

          I usually say that I’m no longer suffering from estrogen poisoning.

          (I stole the idea from a “testosterone poisoning” comment by a male friend about my then 10-year-old son.)

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    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      I took part in a chili cook-off where we didn’t have judges (I think the original plan was to make a director who ended up not being able to come in that day). We just ended up trying out delicious chili and complimenting each other. (It’s a very supportive group.)

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        1. anotherfan*

          and there are so many different kinds of chili! We did a ‘chili taster’ in my office where only 3 people participated, but I brought in cincinnati chili (which is very fine grained, includes chocolate and is usually served over spaghetti with beans, cheese and onions available as toppings) which was nothing like the practically stew-like meat chunks another coworker brought in vs the mid-level meat size but very very hot version that was the third.

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      3. Ally McBeal*

        I like that better, anyway. Unless there are concerns about a coworker’s popularity outweighing the quality of their food, I think cook-offs should be judged by everyone. Why appoint a judge/judging panel? Even on Top Chef they’ll usually do at least one episode per season where the contestants feed a big group of people, who are given ranked ballots to fill out (or a few tokens of some kind to drop at the stations of the meals they liked best).

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        1. KateM*

          One way to judge would be to have everyone bring in the exact same amount, and the winner is the first chili to be eaten.

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        2. Random Biter*

          I entered a pumpkin sausage soup at a chili cookoff…..thick, chunks of spicy meat and a fruit-based bottom. What’s not to like? I didn’t win but there was none left.

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      4. stelms_elms*

        We just had a chili cook-off. You can bring a chili, or a side like cornbread, chips or dessert. Everyone gets to vote for the best one!

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    3. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

      I told her I would never be so inconsiderate as to do that to her.

      * chef’s kiss*

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      1. Ama*

        I am storing this for the next time anyone tries “I would do this for you,” as a reason for boundary pushing. (Thankfully it’s not often but you don’t always know when a new friend/coworker is going to turn out to be manipulative.)

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  3. Juicebox Hero*

    The store I used to work at had a restaurant in the basement (the food was actually pretty good) so we always had a decent Christmas lunch for all the employees. Usually stuff like chicken fingers, vegetables, mashed potatoes, some kind of salad. Except for the last year they did it, where the restaurant manager was allotted a budget of $1.30 a head. We had three kinds of pasta with premade sauce. One had quartered storebought meatballs in it. And generic soda.

    Given how heinous working retail over the holidays is, it felt like an insult that they’d cheaped out on us so badly. Management, that is; not the restaurant manager, who deserved credit for pulling together any kind of spread on that miserly of a budget.

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      1. LaminarFlow*

        Would 100000% love an update from Cheap Ass Rolls. Where are they now? How do they feel about the debacle now? Do they still hold King’s Hawaiian Rolls as the standard by which other bread products are judged? Also, do they still bring King’s Hawaiian Rolls to parties?

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  4. SD95*

    I work at a public university so we don’t have large budgets. We had a training week for our TAs and we provided lunch. Since we can’t have extravagant meals sometimes it was pizza and salad. One year, we had one person who said they were vegan so we did our best to get one vegan-friendly pizza among the rest of the regular kind. The vegan later proceeded to eat a regular pizza that had cheese and sausage on it. My co-worker who went through the trouble of ordering food was livid.

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      1. SALC*

        For ordering pizza, or anything really, it’s important to remember a lot of people just LIKE cheese pizza or vegetarian toppings and to try to order a lot more than if you are just ordering for the vegetarians. I’ve worked at places where they keep forgetting that EVERYONE likes the ‘white’ pizza (cheese pizza with a garlic sauce) and they should order tons of it, or also where they assume’ vegetarian’ means ‘wants tons of vegetables’ so the only vegetarian pizza is covered in weird veggies including broccoli

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        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          This! I dislike most veggie pizza, because the veggies are either ones I dislike or not tasty on pizza. (I love broccoli, but I prefer it fully cooked, not a weird combo of charred and raw.)

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          1. UKDancer*

            Yeah I like vegetables but not usually on pizza because they’re usually either charred or raw. I like the sausage and pepperonis they use but they don’t always agree with me.

            So my default for work functions with pizza would always be the plain cheese.

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        2. Lady Danbury*

          Yup, we’ve learned to order two to one cheese to pepperoni bc the cheese that’s def for the pescatarians will also be eaten by the children (when they’re not in the mood for pepperoni) and adults who don’t like/feel like eating pepperoni (ie me).

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

          Hi, weird vegetarian pizza-lover here: I uniformly hate onions, green bell peppers, and olives. That generally leaves me with mushrooms and I cross my fingers for tomatoes and/or spinach. I had a place near me that had broccoli for a pizza topping and it was amazing. (There are places that have other veggie toppings and I always appreciate that since a veggie pizza is usually full of the stuff I dislike.)

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        4. UKDancer*

          Yes. this so much. A lot of the time I prefer the cheese pizza despite being an omnivore. Most meat pizzas have a lot of preserved meat and that doesn’t always agree with my digestion. I like pepperoni, it just doesn’t always return the favour and I want to enjoy the experience.

          So my company always orders more cheese pizza than anything else because it’s far and away the most popular.

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        5. Silver Robin*

          I was literally giving this advice yesterday when the big boss bought us pizza. The person ordering it is new and had never had to order pizza for an office before so asked me how many/what kind and I told them to make at least half if not two thirds of the order cheese or veggie, because those are the everyone pizzas.

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        6. Hyaline*

          Yes. The number of people who will like the pizza is inversely related to the number of different types of toppings on the pizza. Cheese? Most people will like/at least tolerate it. Add one topping? Fewer people will like that pizza because some people always hate that topping. Repeat with additional toppings until you have a supreme pizza and exactly one person who will eat it.

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        7. Nicole Maria*

          I used to order pizza for a group about once a month – this was for a parenting class my clinic ran, so about 30-50 parents, kids, and our staff, and my rule of thumb when ordering pizza is this: order whatever you think you’ll need, then add 1-3 plain cheese pizzas (depending on the group size).

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    2. Ally McBeal*

      The university I once worked at (private, though, not public) always had a separate, clearly marked table for kosher food that was several feet away from the main buffet lines. I think that helped mitigate the number of people who might’ve otherwise seen specialized food on the main tables and said “oh that looks good!” without a thought for the people who can ONLY eat that food.

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      1. Coverage Associate*

        I don’t typically keep kosher, but I once attended a conference where a lot of the meals were stations, with one kosher station. The kosher station had the shortest lines, despite the presence of a rabbi to explain the food and prevent cross contamination. (At first, I thought he was sending away people who weren’t Jewish, but my kosher keeping friends explained he probably was just making people get clean plates.) It was really fun, and the staff were friendly. They even offered me candles for Shabbas. I did skip the “cheesecake” with no dairy, though.

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        1. Silver Robin*

          Kosher station at university was similar: tucked away in a corner, never had the long lines, and sometimes had better food than everyone. Halal was more central so it got more traffic, but new students were regularly advised not to discount those stations, especially if you were in a hurry.

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    3. blueberry muffin*

      I have watched the reverse happen.

      The omnivore co-worker who ate the vegan-friendly pizza because they wanted to know “what it tasted like.”

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      2. FricketyFrack*

        As a vegan, the answer is, “not that good.” Vegan cheese has come a long way and there are some that are decent, but in the last 5 years, I have yet to try one that’s both good (and now the caveat, “for a vegan substitute”) AND suitable for pizza. I’d be mad if someone ate the only pizza I could have just for a totally mid experience.

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    4. Bacon Pancakes*

      This reminds me of a family dinner we attended where on participant repeatedly accosted the server that the pizza NEEDED to be vegan, asked for a side of parmesan, dumped the ENTIRE bowl onto their singular slice, and then RAVED all night about how great the VEGAN pizza was.

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  5. Viki*

    I live on the other side of the country. There are 2 people in the org (just under 100) who live within 80km of me.

    The rest of the org lives/near in the head office. The team does a yearly YE potluck and food drive in addition to the party. Last year, a very excitable new grad put herself in charge of the potluck to make sure there was enough food for everyone and diets, a perfectly balanced and optimized potluck.. Instead of the usual excel where you just write your name/dish, she assigned you something (dessert/salad/napkins etc.)

    The three of us on the other side of the country for obvious reasons don’t participate. We never even check the excel. You can see where this is going.

    Last year, they ran out of buns, plates and veggies. This year, we went back to sign up yourself.

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    1. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      One office in our org has a terrible manager. She has driven most of the long time employees away. She encourages potlucks as team building. She rarely contributes but is usually one of the first to partake. The problem is it has been witnessed by multiple people that she does not wash her hands after using the restroom, so once she has been near the food, people usually stop eating and the rest of the food just sits there all day long. Some of them will bravely use their own utensils to scoop from the far side of whatever dish she was near.

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      1. Veryanon*

        Years ago, when I was in college, I worked as a student aide for this professor who loved to bake goodies for the department. Unfortunately, she was known never to wash her hands after using the restroom, and her goodies were usually full of cat hair. No one ever had the heart to say anything to her, as she was otherwise a lovely person, so everyone would take one of whatever she had made, make yummy noises, and then discreetly discard whatever it was. I became a genius at finding out of the way trash cans in empty classrooms.

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      2. Ally McBeal*

        At some point I’d stop bringing any food that could possibly be taken off the serving platter with one’s hands. Mac & cheese sounds like a safe option, as does soup. I used to work at a company where I sat close enough to the restrooms to know that the head of sales never washed his hands, so I know the visceral disgust you & your coworkers must be feeling. Does your manager have a supervisor/do you have good HR? I might consider banding together as a group and taking this public health concern over her head.

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      3. hygiene*

        I have a flip-side example. Out of a concern about cleanliness, I wash my hands immediately before potlucks and try to get my food first. Someone objected because I picked up a deviled egg. She wanted me to use tongs because… many people touching the same implement is clean? I could understand if I’d touched anything else, but I hadn’t, just what I was eating.

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        1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

          I would also object, because I don’t know if e.g. you’ve not washed your hands after the loo or blowing your nose, or touched any surface since you last washed.

          Using implements instead of hands is the expected convention because probably everyone thinks they are clean but that everyone else may be dirty.

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          1. Lexi Vipond*

            Yes, but this is about only touching the one thing you’re going to take away and eat.

            If the germs are going to fly off your hands onto the other food as you come near it, they could just as well fly off your hands as they’re holding the tongs near it.

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          2. Silver Robin*

            +1

            We have utensils to avoid hands going near food because hands pick up and transfer everything. Would you (hygiene) also be taking fistfuls of (for the sake of this thought experiment, undressed/dry) salad because your hands were clean and you were the first one to go?

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  6. gingersnap*

    Catered lunch for 300+ company VIPs as part of a multi-day event. Event coordinator realizes a few hours before that the lunch area at the hotel isn’t being set up. Panic ensues. This particular lunch hadn’t been properly ordered. The head chef comes up and says the only thing he can prepare for 300 people on short notice is pizza, salad, and chicken tenders. Admin staff are sent around to explain what happened, ask for patience, etc. As I’m walking around the ballroom all I can hear are delighted giggles and comments of “my staff never lets me eat like this at home.” The salad went mostly untouched and I saw many attendees coming back for seconds of pizza and chicken tenders. Turned out to be the highlight of the trip.

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        1. gingersnap*

          We used this hotel every year for this event and they were phenomenal. Had such a good relationship with all the departments there and I imagine if we weren’t on such good terms the response would have been “sorry you didn’t order lunch and we don’t have the time or supplies.” But the kitchen certainly delivered in this case!

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    4. FricketyFrack*

      My office handles a major event that happens every other year and it went from being a punch-and-cake kind of thing to a bigger deal over time, so we had a caterer for the last one. We also got a couple of trays of chicken strips from a nearby fast food-ish place, mostly for any kids who were forced to attend. We labeled them as being for the kids. Did the adults descend like locusts? Sure did.

      By all accounts, the catered food was delicious and everyone really enjoyed it, but we also learned that people cannot restrain themselves around fried chicken.

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  7. desk platypus*

    At one of my old offices we had a Souper Bowl party where a bunch of the managers brought in a variety of soups on a particularly chilly weekend.

    They were GROSS. They were all very weirdly grainy and flavorless messes. Most of us were surviving on crackers or rolls after sampling a couple. Our admin assistant looked directly at the kale soup, which was just oddly cut kale bits in hot water, and loudly said, “What is WRONG with you people?” She whisked away to go get takeout instead. I still hear her offended Southern twang when I’m at a bad potluck and wish I had her honesty.

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      1. Lady Lessa*

        For the kale soup, by not having meat (I think the Portuguese has sausage in it), and poorly if any seasonings.

        I cook kale in my crock pot all the time, with black eyed peas, tomatoes, and a nice seasoning packet. Nice thick soup.

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          1. Zelda*

            I grow kale, so almost every soup I make from August to March has a few handfuls of kale thrown on top in the last fifteen minutes or so.

            On a totally unrelated note, would anyone in the Chicago area like a bag or three of kale for their fall and winter soups?

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          1. Retired Accountant*

            The WaPo has a recipe for farro, kale and peanut butter soup that is excellent and more like a stew. Vegetarian and potato free.

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        4. Lady Ann*

          Portuguese kale soup typically has sausage (linguica or chourico, not kielbasa or chorizo no matter what the recipes say online), potatoes, beans, and sometimes ham. I grew up eating it and still haven’t adjusted to the idea people have of kale as a gross health food. :)

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      2. Gus TT Showbiz*

        I’m a pretty good cook but I have the yips with chicken noodle soup. My ratio of broth to solids is always off, and then I try to fix it and it swings too far the other way, and pretty soon I have a giant pot of soup that we get sick of way before we eat it all.

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    5. WellRed*

      Please tell us how that went over with the people who brought in the sad soup? Were they properly chastened? That admin deserves a medal!

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  8. Ann O'Nemity*

    Mold on the bread of the sandwiches in catered box lunches. The kicker was that we’re required to use expensive catering because potlucks aren’t “safe.”

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  9. Eeyore is my spirit animal*

    For several years, we usually had everyone pay around $10.00 and it was catered by a local restaurant. We had a new manager who wanted to help plan the lunch. He insisted that we have a potluck because he didn’t want anyone to pay money. We never could convince him that the $10 was much cheaper than making a dish to help feed 40 people.

    We have moved more to potlucks now. It isn’t really something going wrong, but a bit funny and odd. Our potlucks don’t really have vegetables. Chili, BBQ, fried chicken, fried fish, smoked turkey in all their permutations. We had one potluck where the closest to veggies was macaroni and cheese and some rolls. We have evolved to include potato salad or coleslaw but rarely both. I think it may have something to do with the gender makeup. I am one of two women in the department and neither of us are on the planning committee. I find it fun but not bothered enough to volunteer for the committee.

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    1. Lady Danbury*

      Your problem isn’t necessarily gender but (lack of) organization. I frequently organize potlucks for family gatherings and start out by creating a google doc that says types of dishes (meat, veggie, starch, etc) and then has a certain number of signup spots designated. So you should end up with 4 people bringing chicken for 10-12 (which is definitely doable under $10) instead of one person bringing chicken for 40 people. Dishes that are less expensive and/or less likely to have people eating them have less people designated. Free for all potlucks are a recipe for disaster!

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  10. MsM*

    Not my story, but a former coworker of mine. Said coworker has the kind of celiac disease where if there’s any cross-contamination with wheat whatsoever, she’s going to have a miserable time of it for at least the rest of the day, so she politely declines to participate in food-related activities at work or brings her own stuff from home. This did not sit well with the office mother hen, who insisted she was going to bring a special, safe dish for the next potluck just for coworker.

    When Coworker inquired what she had in mind, Mother Hen proudly answered…mac and cheese. Not cauliflower mac and cheese; just plain old noodleicious mac and cheese. No amount of attempting to clarify exactly what she thought a gluten-free diet entailed or explaining why this wouldn’t work would assuage her. So she brought the mac and cheese in and shooed everyone else away from it while waiting in vain for Coworker to take the first bite. It went back home with her untouched.

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    1. Kiwi*

      oh man I have severe “time for the ER cuz you’re not breathing” food allergies, and people like that coworker drive me up the wall. and then they get offended if you don’t try their thing, which I never asked them to make and do not trust them to have handled in a way that wouldn’t potentially cross-contamination. i’ve spent a lot of time lying about dietary preferences and habits because apparently “Oh I don’t eat sugar after 8/oh I can’t handle ham after I got food poisoning” is a better excuse than “I could die”.

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      1. wilma flintstone*

        I have a strawberry allergy. Work parties, for some reason, often include a strawberry-forward cake. I playfully accuse them of trying to murder me. And make several pointed comments about how pretty the MURDER CAKE looks. Does it work? No, but it keeps me entertained.

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        1. Pinta*

          Me too! In general there are a lot of strawberry desserts at our work events, so I figured somebody must like them, but there have been two times over the years when I was the guest of honor (a promotion, an industry award) and the dessert was a big strawberry shortcake. It looked great I guess.

          A little while after the second strawberry shortcake incident, I was chatting with the admin who does the catering, and she said something like “I always associate you with strawberries, you must really like them!” and I told her that maybe she associates me with strawberries because I’m allergic to them and make note of that whenever RSVPs ask for food restrictions. She seemed shocked, but also, the strawberry desserts have continued.

          We usually have a couple of dessert options (cookies, biscotti, etc) in addition to the “showcase” dessert so I’m not lacking for dessert. I am 100% expecting a strawberry shortcake to show up at my retirement party though.

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      2. Asparagus*

        I will also add that I have (legit, diagnosed, severe) PTSD, and “X is my trigger” seems to read as a challenge to see what they can get away with or whether they can be the one to “cure” me, while “oh, I find that X topic is always so stressful. You too?” works wonders.

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      3. FMNDL*

        I once had a coworker who was vegetarian and allergic to spinach. I decided to list her food needs myself when they sent around dietary restrictions requests, just so there would be a second reminder that “Jane is vegetarian and severely allergic to spinach,” because they were so bad at accommodating her. The very next staff meal, they ordered a steamed spinach dish and she couldn’t even go in the room.

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    2. Paint N Drip*

      As someone who lives with the delights of food allergies, people like this are 20% endearing and 80% insufferably frustrating

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      1. Lexi Vipond*

        It sounds like she thought that the problem was contamination from other people who were eating it, which is kind of endearing while also being completely useless.

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        1. MsM*

          No, I don’t even think it was that. She just literally could not seem to comprehend that noodles had wheat in them, or at least the same kind of issues as bread wheat.

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          1. This Creature Has An Exoskeleton*

            I worked in a county jail and we had accomodate medically diagnosed food allergies. My loveable but oh-so-clueless supervisor asked me to make a meal for one of the inmates that had celiac disease. He told me to substitute crackers for the bread. When I told him that crackers also contain wheat, he triumphantly brought me the box and read the ingredients. “See, no wheat!”. I had to explain that the main ingredient of the crackers, “flour” was made of wheat. He did not believe me.

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            2. Silver Robin*

              Sometimes I roll my eyes at “people these days are so disconnected from where their food comes from!!!” (shaming people for their ignorance is annoying and ineffective) but then we get stories like this and my sympathies swing back.

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          2. Galadriel's Garden*

            Me, mentally screaming: what do you think noodles are made from?!?!

            Ahh man. I feel for you, with a corn allergy that ruins basically everything.

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    3. JustADrone*

      “oh, it doesn’t have gluten – these are just noodles. I’ll put it here, next to the vegetarian dish (where I swapped out beef for chicken so it’s vegetarian-friendly).”

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        1. WeirdChemist*

          My Greek grandmother basically did this the first time she met my vegetarian sister in law lol. “It’s turkey chili, it’s healthy, what do you mean she can’t eat it??”

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      3. A Simple Narwhal*

        “Whadya mean you don’t eat no meat?! …It’s ok, I’ll make lamb.” :-D

        As a former vegetarian I sadly have lots of stories where someone insisted a dish was vegetarian despite being made with beef stock, or cooked a vegetarian item on a surface that had just cooked meat, or claimed “it’s not meat, it’s fish/chicken!”, or told me to “just pick the meat out”.

        (I will say people were mostly wonderful and kind about my vegetarianism, there were just definitely a non-zero amount of bad experiences. And sadly those who insisted their “solution” was fine were usually more likely to get mad at me for not agreeing to it and being grateful enough to them.)

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      4. Wendy Darling*

        This has the same energy as the way my old dog played fetch, wherein he ran to the thrown object, touched it, and then ran back to the thrower, leaving the object where it was.

        There was an attempt, but said attempt has done nothing to address the actual problem!

        Reply ↓
    4. Babbalou*

      I’m not celiac, but have a significant inflammatory reaction to wheat. I got a call at home from a work colleague early one morning, saying he wanted to make a special dessert that I could eat. Which was sweet, but I told him it was a little complicated – and I had some real failures with gluten free baking myself, so it really wasn’t necessary.

      It turned out that the gluten free dessert he planned on making was a trifle. Using purchased pound cake, which he assumed was gluten free.

      Reply ↓
    5. Food makes 'em weird*

      I have a coworker with Alpha Gal (can’t eat anything from mammals — meat, milk, etc.), so potlucks are challenging, but I try to bring something she can enjoy. (She brings something for herself.) But it’s “hey, friend, I made this with XYZ ingredients using ABC process, so you’re welcome to it,” not YOU (AND ONLY YOU) MUST EAT THIS!!)

      Reply ↓
    6. Eeyore's Missing Tale*

      My 5 year old has celiac disease. It’s times like this that I’m so thankful that no one has tried to force my child to eat anything. I would lose my sh*! if this happened. The worst thing that happens is me trying to explain to other parents that I’m a bit paranoid about what she eats and that I prefer to bring her food myself.

      Reply ↓
      1. KateM*

        I learnt to trust people who said “omg I have no idea what he can even eat, could you pack his meal separately?” and distrust the ones who said “no worries, we’ll find food he can eat all right!”.

        Reply ↓
    7. lurkyloo*

      Me. This is me. And good LORD the shenanigans coworkers have done that I’ve had to deal with. Possibly my favourite (that I could ACTUALLY eat) was the monthly ‘birthday party’ that they did for folks. Giant, beautiful, 3 layer cake with all the amazing things on it; ganache, whipped cream, etc….I was in awe!
      Then they handed me my fruit cup.

      Reply ↓
    8. Nannerdoodle*

      I also can’t eat gluten, so if I must be part of a potluck, I make sure to bring a large amount of something I can eat. The only other people I trust to make food are someone who also has serious restrictions, and someone who has a FIL with celiac. When others ask why I won’t eat their food (that they think is gluten free, but can’t be sure), I’ll let them know that I’m appreciative that they thought of me, but I do not want to risk getting sick due to bad labeling by food companies or misunderstandings on what’s okay. If they get super pushy about it, then I’ll be a little less nice.

      Reply ↓
      1. Wendy Darling*

        Gluten free is so hard, and those of us who eat gluten no problem do not have practice dealing with it.

        The one that always gets me is that SOME but not ALL oatmeal is gluten free, and the difference is apparently not only where the oats are processed but where it is farmed because oats are so frequently farmed right next to gluten-containing grains that the oats are cross-contaminated when they’re harvested! Like, how is anyone who isn’t specifically and routinely trying to avoid gluten going to find THAT out?

        (I found it out because I was trying to make gluten free cookies for someone and thought I had a hit with a recipe that had no flour but did contain rolled oats, only to find out that the specific brand of oats I used was potentially a problem. Now if I want to make him cookies I get the special Bob’s Red Mill gluten free rolled oats. And also don’t use my stand mixer because it’s one huge cross-contamination incident all by itself.)

        Reply ↓
    9. Liz Lemler*

      I have celiac, and I work at a nonprofit that makes medically tailored meals (diabetes friendly, low sodium, allergy free, etc) for the food insecure. Not only are our chefs very talented, but I 100% trust them to make truly gluten free food for me at our office parties. Makes me feel lucky

      Reply ↓
  11. David Levenson*

    We had a Supervisor who owned horses. Lovely person, but one day she brought in a cake for her staff. When she cut it and took pieces out of the pan, they had horse hair dangling from them. “Horse hair cake” became a potluck warning for years for those in the know.

    Reply ↓
    2. A Library Person*

      As someone with several cats, this is basically a nightmare scenario for me and a reason why I’m glad my workplace doesn’t to potlucks. Although, come to think of it, a cat sneaking their way onto a counter (despite our protestations, believe me!) is somewhat different than a horse doing the same thing…

      Reply ↓
      2. Paint N Drip*

        I definitely fall on the side of ‘crazy pet person’ and would likely have dog or cat hair in my potluck offerings (included in the allergen warning of course lol) because they live in my house. But horse hair gets into the territory of just… dirty (or are they cooking in the barn??)

        Reply ↓
        2. Wendy Darling*

          I probably shouldn’t admit this in public but I have very sheddy hair (I’ve had it checked out and I’m fine it’s just how I am) and if I find a hair in my food I simply assume it is my hair, pick it out, and keep on eating.

          I know, intellectually, that sometimes it is someone else’s hair but I figure anything cooked to a safe temperature to eat is cooked enough that it killed any weird bacteria that might be on a hair so… whatever.

          A horse hair would weird me out though.

          Reply ↓
      3. Secretary Von Bird*

        Not a work story, but many years ago, a friend brought a home-baked banana loaf to my birthday party, but when she unwrapped it, it had clearly had most of its corners sliced off. I asked if she’d accidentally burned the edges while baking it (which would have been fine), and she replied that no, she’d left it to cool on the kitchen table and her cats had started nibbling at it. So she’d just sliced off the parts with obvious teeth marks on, and brought the cake anyway.

        Neither I nor anyone else wanted any cake after that.

        Reply ↓
    4. Strive to Excel*

      That’s a new one. Congrats, I thought I was pretty inured to pet hair, but I threw up in my mouth a bit at this one.

      Reply ↓
    7. The OG Sleepless*

      I have a friend who made a cake for her coworkers. At an animal hospital. To her horror, she had to hit the brakes hard on the way to work and the cake fell in the floor of the car. Where she usually transported her dogs (though they weren’t with her at the moment). She salvaged it from the floor, left any frosting that had come off the cake, inspected it carefully and didn’t see any dog hair. So she put it on the counter with a sign that said “May contain dog hair-eat at your own risk.” Almost everybody was happy to take their chances and I don’t think any hair was found.

      Reply ↓
  12. Honkalonk*

    Office christmas party: on a boat. Possibly the worst 6 words in the English language, because once you’re on and sailing you can’t get off. And worse, the catering was a weird hot buffet with some of the smallest portion sizes I’ve ever seen, like a half serving spoon of rice and a half serving spoon of chicken in sauce. No dessert. And there was just one serving station for 150 people who were therefore stood in an hour-long queue for the food in the close confines of the lower deck.

    When it became clear that even with the small portions, the caterers were likely to run out of food and we were trapped on the boat until 11pm with no further food available, people became quite grumpy and started trying to bribe those earlier in the queue to swap spots in return for drinks tokens. People accused others of cutting in line, or of secretly getting in for seconds before others had had any. The party organising team had to start policing the queue, meaning they were then being exposed to a lot of snark because they had organized the caterers (though I don’t see how it’s their fault that the caterers had massively under estimated what was needed). Ultimately it was a sad boat full of very hungry people who had gotten drunk too quickly, there were lots of cynical cannibalism jokes, and there has never been a boat party again.

    Reply ↓
      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Yes, exactly. One of my golden event planning rules is no boats ever, for any reason. In addition to people not being able to leave, I don’t want to worry about drunken attendees falling overboard.

        Reply ↓
      2. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

        Boats are a scorpion pit of liability. It boggles my mind that anyone in a corporate setting would even consider it.

        Reply ↓
      3. Jessica Ganschen*

        I wouldn’t mind so much if it was a boat that didn’t leave the dock, but I suppose in most cases that pretty much defeats the purpose of being on a boat in the first place.

        Reply ↓
    2. Ellis Bell*

      Couldn’t the party organisers at least have asked for the boat to return to the dock? Were they too far out? The least you can do if the catering is crummy, is to let people leave.

      Reply ↓
    4. OrdinaryJoe*

      “Office christmas party: on a boat. Possibly the worst 6 words in the English language…” SO SO SO TRUE!! I still feel like I have PTSD from way too many office and meeting parties on a boat.

      I remember one trip was so long that I was staring at the river (river cruise meeting trip) and the city over Just There and giving semi-serious thought to … I’m a strong swimmer, I bet I can make it …

      Reply ↓
      2. Ama*

        I used to live in a city where party boats were common and I am so, so thankful that none of my employers ever thought to rent one (especially the one that was located within walking distance of the dock where most of them left from). Benefit of working for smaller employers that would have found it to be a high per person cost, I suppose.

        My particular flavor of social anxiety is generally handled by reminding myself “if you get there and it’s awful you can leave,” so yeah, boats are not a good idea.

        Reply ↓
      3. The OG Sleepless*

        Haha, I’m also a strong swimmer and I hate being trapped in social situations (I will do almost anything to take my own car to a party) and I feel this so hard.

        Reply ↓
      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        I don’t know if I imagined it, but I thought I once read a post on here from somebody who was on a miserable dinner cruise around Sydney Harbour in Australia, and got so fed up that they jumped overboard, swam to the quayside, climbed up the steps and got a taxi home.

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    7. Nannerdoodle*

      My department had an office party on a boat a while back. I get dreadfully sea sick, so I took some Dramamine and hoped for the best. When we were far enough out that we couldn’t easily go back, the engine overheated and died. My seasickness gets much worse when the boat isn’t moving. After about 30 minutes of torture, they thought they fixed it, so further out to sea we went. At which point the engine promptly died again and we were out there another 2 hours until we could be slowly towed back to dock, occasionally starting the engine for a bit of help. Anytime something goes wrong at an office party, someone else will say “at least we’re not on the boat”.

      Reply ↓
  13. PeanutJaney*

    The department I used to work for had a potluck type meal one day. Everyone signed up to bring a dish – I was bringing my signature Polish beetroot soup which I knew people loved – and I was excited to see what everyone else would bring.

    A sheet had gone round where we could put any allergies we had and it was posted on the wall where everyone could see it. I wrote in big letters ‘Janey – peanut allergy’ because I am allergic to peanuts. Like EpiPen allergy level. Other people had put allergies down and I (wrongly) assumed that there would be food that was safe for me to eat.

    The day of the potluck rolled round and I added my soup to the table, and took a minute to see what other people had brought.

    Pad thai salad. Chicken satay. Peanut butter cheesecake. Snickers cookies. Various other savoury dishes with peanut sprinkled on top.

    There was not a single thing I could eat, and even worse, there was an open bowl of salted peanuts at one end of the table which made me itch just from being in the same room as them. I bailed out pretty quickly and went to the nearest sandwich shop and got myself some safe food.

    To this day I wonder if they did that on purpose because they didn’t like me and the dishes sign up sheet didn’t say anything that anyone would be bringing chicken satay or peanut butter cheesecake.

    I left that department not long after and am now working for one where we don’t do potlucks, but instead go to a restaurant and the boss makes sure it’s safe for everyone… and he pays!

    Reply ↓
    1. Bruce*

      That is weird. I can understand why you felt targeted, especially with the bowl of peanuts at the end of the table. I was a Scout leader for a summer camp trip, one of the boys had a peanut allergy… and one of the other kids threw a bunch of peanuts on his bed! He came back to his tent, saw them there and backed out. We had to wash his bedding and clean up the tent, he did not have a reaction to the exposure luckily. Never did find the culprit…

      Reply ↓
    3. Nonprofit writer*

      Don’t any of these people have kids??? Mine don’t have allergies but many of their peers do. I never bring items with nuts to anything because I’m so used to being cautioned about nut allergies.

      Reply ↓
    4. Bast*

      Even if you don’t care for someone… a cruel “joke” such as this that could send someone to the hospital is in extremely poor taste.

      On another note, I’d love your soup recipe.

      Reply ↓
    5. Coffee*

      Even if they didn’t like you, it was unjustified, immature, awful behavior on their part to create an unsafe situation for you. I’m sorry you had to go through that.

      Reply ↓
  14. Not on board*

    Not holiday per se, but October and November is the “busy season” for my partner and they like to treat the staff to lunch on Wednesdays – when the ordering falls to “Sally” she inevitably messes it up and will mess up the time, or location, resulting in the food showing up mid afternoon. She’s often not physically located at the delivery address. One time she ordered to the correct street address but wrong town which was 1.5 hours away from where they were.

    Reply ↓
  15. Katie*

    My business hosted an event for like 30 clients highlighting what we do. It’s a bunch of presentations and meetings so lots of other people were involved. Its very much a cheerleading session to make the clients feel good about us.

    Day 1 they ran out of food before everyone got it! I was 10 minutes late and they were already out of food. They didn’t even attempt to make it right. Sooo embarrassing.

    Reply ↓
  17. Lorna*

    We have an annual pre-holiday potluck/homemade cookies/ buffet kind of thing at work. One year a German coworker brought a charcuterie board loaded with the most pungent cheeses from her home country. Something called Harzer Rolle, Limburger and Handcheese ( I don’t remember all the names). Our office smelled like feet for a good few days.

    Reply ↓
    2. Raechem*

      Cheese will do that sometimes. I recall Captain Awkward mentioning that when she was in France, the cheese-seller asked whether she wanted a cheese that smelt like feet, vagina, or like death. She gamely tried all three, but decided she was Team Feet-Vagina all the way.

      Reply ↓
  18. Bast*

    We had one guy who would clear out any leftovers from the office party. The general consensus was, if the party was in your honor (your birthday/baby shower/wedding sprinkle, etc) you were the one who had first dibs on the leftovers. Beyond that, once the party person took their share, it was also just general courtesy that if you DID take something, you took a reasonable amount — so maybe a sandwich and a cookie or two, or a few slices of pizza, etc. This guy would immediately go down to the fridge after the party and take most, if not all, of the remaining food. We had Panera Bread with a cake for my baby shower, and he took Every. Last. leftover sandwich and cookie before I had a chance to do claim anything. There were at least half a dozen sandwiches and even more cookies that he had walked off with. I cannot describe the feeling of going down for a cookie later, cravings and all, to discover every single one had been taken.

    Same person, different scenario — someone decided to bring in doughnuts and Keurig cups for the office as a Friday treat. Dude took the entire box of Keurig cups home.

    Reply ↓
    3. HigherEdEscapee*

      I worked with someone like this. She was so completely bananapants that even openly mocking her to her face did nothing to change her behavior. (I was at the end on my rope after days of work running events and she’d just been pilfering actual pounds of food before the invited guests got the chance to take anything and my filter slipped.)

      Reply ↓
  19. DisneyChannelThis*

    Academic setting years ago – potluck meal. One of the broke grad students who were extremely underpaid for their position brought a cheap bottle of wine. Head of the department made a big production of being offended by how cheap and low quality the wine was. It was a very awkward moment. The department head redeemed himself when at the next potluck he brought 3 bottles from his collection of extremely fancy wine! He made a production of getting everyone to taste what “real” wine tastes like.

    Reply ↓
    2. Juicebox Hero*

      What a shithead. The poor student. Especially when most people can’t actually taste the difference between cheap wine and the fancy stuff in a blind taste test.

      Reply ↓
      1. Jen in OR*

        This! I would have reveled in saying “This is what broke grad students can afford. If you want better, pay them better, (ya glass bowl)” <–the "ya glass bowl" is silent

        Reply ↓
    4. Parcae*

      Making a production of getting everyone to taste what “real” wine tastes like sounds like he doubled down on his dickishness.

      Reply ↓
    5. Worldwalker*

      How is showing off how much richer he is than a grad student—especially the one he disparaged for his poverty—redemption?

      Reply ↓
      1. Ellis Bell*

        Also, no one took the opportunity to say “Huh, it’s okay, but I think I actually preferred the cheaper wine”? Wine snobs exist purely to be messed with.

        Reply ↓
        1. Paint N Drip*

          Fully agree on the snobs. Gotta hit em with the ‘oh is this not the same wine that PoorGradStudent brought last time? Tastes the same to me!’

          Reply ↓
          1. The OG Sleepless*

            Ha. I unfortunately hit a Porsche in a parking lot once by accident. I ran up to her, babbling apologies and asking if she was OK. The lady sniffed at me, “I’m FINE, but this is a VERY expensive car to get RAMMED.” A friend said that I should have said, “Oh, are these expensive? I don’t know anything about cars.”

            Reply ↓
    7. Pay no attention...*

      I knew a woman like that… not at work. She pitched a loud fit because someone brought a bottle of “2-buck Chuck” to a party but… the wine tastes fine it’s just overproduced by a large winemaker and sold at a discount grocery store, so it’s cheap. Those types of people aren’t looking for “good” wine, they’re looking for status.

      Reply ↓
        1. The OG Sleepless*

          Agreed, I can generally tell the difference between cheap wine and at least moderate priced wine, but I definitely wouldn’t criticize what someone else brought.

          Reply ↓
    10. What_the_What*

      I feel so sorry for that grad student since it sounds like nobody stood up for him/her. I make very good money and can afford “good” wine, but I still prefer low to mid priced wines over the pricier ones, as so most people I know. What a snob that Dept Head was and so lacking in self awareness. But also, shame on the other attendees for not calling him out!

      Reply ↓
    12. Former admin*

      Ugh, not a potluck but something similar happened to me at a yankee swap-type gift exchange when I was working as a receptionist for a university department. Receptionists at that university were some of the lowest paid employees and my husband was a grad student, so we didn’t have much money. A faculty member made a big deal about how cheap it was for someone to give Trader Joe’s chocolate as a gift. That was the gift I brought. It made me feel terrible, like I was a cheap AH with crappy taste. But -there was a dollar limit on these gifts, something like $10, and this chocolate was about that much. Trader Joe’s does actually have nice chocolate gifts around the holidays. I still think so, even now that I can afford “nice” chocolate. And maybe recognize that not everyone you work with makes as much as a tenured professor.

      Reply ↓
  20. Alex*

    I may have shared this before, but at my old workplace we would have potlucks “just because”. People who wanted to participate could, but no pressure if you didn’t want to.

    It was generally understood that in order to participate, you needed to bring something.

    One coworker clearly wanted to eat, but didn’t actually want to contribute. So what did she bring to put on the potluck table?

    A single banana.

    Reply ↓
  21. WarblerB*

    I was at my first potluck at a new job, that I had moved to the midwest for, from the east coast. I was standing in line for food next to a coworker who mentioned he always brings his wife’s beet salad. I love beets and enthusiastically told him so. He pointed out his offering, and I eagerly put a big scoop on my plate. As I was doing so, I remember thinking something was off. It was a jello beet salad. I struggled to get two bites down, and I’ve always remembered salad can mean many different things now.

    Reply ↓
    2. JelloSaladBlues*

      Haha! Something like this happened to me the first year I went to Thanksgiving at my in-laws in Minnesota (I am originally from CT). I asked my MIL if I could do anything to help, and she asked me to go out to the garage, and grab the salad from their extra fridge. I go to get it, and for the life of me, I can’t find it. I looked in every container in that fridge several times, and there was no salad. I finally came back in to the house and told her I was sorry, but I couldn’t find the salad.

      She seemed surprised that it was missing, and went out to the garage herself, and walked back in with the strawberry jello/pretzel crust…dessert…that I had pushed aside 5 times while looking for the salad. Then I found out that this “salad” was actually served with the main meal, and expected to go right there on the plate with the turkey, gravy, dressing, etc.
      I don’t know how I did it, but I choked down my slice of it, because I really loved my MIL and did not want to offend her at our first Thanksgiving together.

      Then I found out after dinner that it wasn’t even her recipe, it was my husband’s ex-girlfriend’s recipe. Sigh.

      Reply ↓
      2. The OG Sleepless*

        As an elder Gen Xer, a kid of the 70s, I’ve had many a meal where the “salad” was Jello on a leaf of iceberg lettuce.

        Reply ↓
  22. FuzzFrogs*

    I work in a public library. A colleague ran a large program that involved connecting ESL patrons and volunteers to work together; she held a catered get-together for the program in February 2020. Things Happened, as you all know. Come March 2022, we started doing in-person programs again, and at some point around then I clean the meeting room fridge. In the freezer was the partially-eaten cake from that 2020 luncheon. It didn’t mold or anything, but you could see that whatever it was, it was no longer Food.

    Reply ↓
  23. Dinwar*

    I would much rather hear about success stories. I know negativity sells, but I’m somewhat tired of always hearing about how these things went horribly. Especially this time of year, which is always super stressful and which always seems to have so many horror stories associated with it.

    Reply ↓
    1. A Library Person*

      I agree that a potluck/holiday success post would be a nice counterweight, but if you need something uplifting in the meantime be sure to check the links in the post here- they include the spring roll story, which might be just what you’re looking for.

      Reply ↓
    2. Blue Spoon*

      Small Positive Story:
      My workplace has a tradition of having small potlucks as going-away parties for staff who are moving on to other opportunities (management provides drinks and a fruit and/or veggie tray). Earlier this year, we had a long-time manager leave shortly after we had hired some new staff. One new staff member who chose to participate in the was someone I’d known in college, and when we got talking about it, he confided in me he was really nervous about what he was planning to bring. He was afraid he’d botch it or that no one would like it.

      This man then proceeded to bring in the best focaccia I’d ever had.

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    3. Middle Aged Lady*

      At a library where I worked for z0 years, with little turnover, we knew each other’s special dishes and looked forward to enjoying them at our winter potluck. One in particular was an amazing cheeseball. The woman who made it always entered the room, a little late, with the tray it was on held aloft and ceremoniously placed it on the table in its place. She had a flair for drama.

      One year at a coworker’s wedding shower, someone made decorations for the cake top: beach chairs, tiki bar, etc because coworker was going to a tropical island for their honeymoon.

      Reply ↓
    4. What_the_What*

      I don’t think mosts of these are that negative or things went horribly. Most are just funny anecdotes and some make me laugh out loud. So far none I’ve read have ended with “and then he died,” so I take that as a win.

      Reply ↓
    5. Pterodactyls are under-cited in the psychological literature*

      My daughter just participated in her school’s Halloween play. Since the kids were going straight from classes to rehearsal/performance that last week, the school had parents sign up to bring dinner items. My husband signed us up for the last night of the play and made chocolate chip cookies, rosemary chicken pot pie with biscuits, and bean burritos. We helped a more experienced volunteer set up and serve. Got dinner into 65 kids. They were so sweet and polite, it was really charming. Kids these days! :)

      Reply ↓
    6. Bookworm in Stitches*

      I’m in public education. One of my favorite end of school years was the one where another teacher organized a “bar hop”. For something like the last 6 Wednesdays of school we did a potluck/bar. One week was soups, another was grilled cheese sandwiches, etc. I think the last one was an ice cream bar. Everyone brought things in. That teacher has retired and we no longer have a staff lounge that could accommodate that anyway. But it was a great end of year!

      Reply ↓
  24. OrdinaryJoe*

    A good friend of mine is an ICU nurse that works nights (12 hr shifts) at a hospital, well use to 24/7/365 staffing, obviously! Management and leadership teams always made a big deal about providing a ‘fun’ Thanksgiving and Christmas and NYE meals for the staff who are working those shifts. They came around, thank people, etc. Great! Except they don’t do anything for nightshift. Nightshift comes into the ‘meals’ that are left over from being delivered around 1:00 in the afternoon and well picked over, zero leadership, zero thanks … just a couple of spoonfuls of cranberries and some half eaten rolls. It was so pathetic that nightshift just did their own potluck because they knew nothing official was coming.

    It took FIVE years! of comments, complaints, and pointed emails with photos from nightshift management to have a second round of food delivered and hospital leadership to show up at 8:00 at night to thank people who were working 7p-7a.

    Reply ↓
    1. Paint N Drip*

      Ugh this stuff is so frustrating! My husband works the early early shift stocking the grocery store – the company is actually pretty good about providing employee appreciation meals, snacks, events, but they always forget the first shift. His shift might get to be involved if they serve a breakfast/brunch (rare) but even so it will be lunchtime. Considering that 90% of the food they serve is no-prep and COMES FROM THE STORE THEY ALL WORK AT I really feel they could do better

      Reply ↓
    2. Ally McBeal*

      That was one of the first lessons I learned when I helped start a staff council for the university I worked at. At one of our early meetings one of the members who was also in a union mentioned that the night shift employees and ALL union staff never felt invited to the annual holiday party (or any other campuswide events). The people in those roles – mostly janitorial and security folks – do not use email on a regular basis, but email was the only method of communication about parties, plus parties were not scheduled at times convenient for night shift staff. So I connected with the leaders of each of our unions (or their admins) and developed a system for creating and distributing printed flyers to be posted in break rooms. We also made more of an effort to schedule night-shift celebrations, too, but then the pandemic hit and I quit that job not long after, so hopefully they’ve improved on that too.

      Reply ↓
    3. Arglebarglor*

      I was an ER nurse for 12 years and worked either 12-12 or 2-2. Most of my workday was spent relieving other people so they could go to their breaks. My breaks were never at common times–usually around 7 pm or 10 pm, so I never got any holiday food even when they supplied it for the evening/night shift. I always hated staff potlucks–food left out for hours and hours and getting picked over by other departments. One hospital I worked at had a few “seatings” in the cafeteria and once I got a plate to bring back to the alcove where I was triaging incoming ambulances.

      Reply ↓
  25. AnonForThis*

    This isn’t holiday-related, but my mostly-remote workplace has quarterly all-staff meetings that last a few hours and usually include lunch before or after, depending on the time of day, as well as a refreshment break. There are over 150 people at these. One time in early spring (in New England), they decided lunch should be provided by two food trucks parked outside the place the meeting was being held. It was frigid and pouring rain outside, and we had to wait in line for the food trucks for ages, and then there wasn’t anywhere to sit in the building where the meeting was, so we all had to go hunt for seats in other buildings. By the time we sat down, our food was cold and we were soaked and freezing.

    Reply ↓
    1. WellRed*

      I went to a conference that had six food trucks one day for the lunch. In an unshaded parking lot, in blazing sun and temps in the upper 80s. It was also windy as hell so everything kept blowing away. Like eating in a blast furnace. I still refer to it as the food truck hellscape.

      Reply ↓
  26. Blue Spoon*

    Gonna be positive here because I don’t really have any bad stories. My workplace does a big all-branch, all-staff training day twice a year, and we always have a breakfast potluck. We keep up with a spreadsheet and people are generally very good about making sure we have something to accommodate various allergies and dietary restrictions (my go-to for years has been a sweet, gluten-free chex mix). But every time we have to warn people about Charlie’s Rum Balls.

    Charlie (not his real name) has been working for this organization for about as long as some of the younger staff members have been alive, and his rum balls are a training day institution. They are very good, but they are also very rum-heavy. People are always blindsided trying one for the first time, even if we warn them. I’m pretty sure if I ate more than two, I’d pass the rest of the morning with a pleasant buzz. Charlie’s made jokes about wanting to drink on the job before (to clarify, he never actually has or would, jokes aside he’s very professional if a bit eccentric), and I think his rum balls might be a way to get close to doing that in a way that won’t get anyone in trouble.

    Reply ↓
    1. Strive to Excel*

      I make tiramisu. When I do, I like to use more alcohol than initially called for; I find it helps cut the heaviness that the mascarpone can bring. I’ve always wanted to push it that little bit further but have always been wary about it. I’ll have to try at some point!

      Not at work though, we’ve got heavy equipment here so it’s strictly a no-booze zone.

      Reply ↓
  27. CzechMate*

    I work in higher ed. My office works with the counseling center to host a biweekly support group for certain vulnerable students (ex: a regular get together where, say, BIPOC or first-gen students can just chat about what they’re going through, with a counselor there to facilitate). Lunch is provided, because college students.

    All last year, we were at constant war with the counselor (“Jane”) about what we were going to serve for lunch. We always told her, “If you or the students want something specific, just tell us. Otherwise, we’re going to order something simple like pizza.” Every week she would complain about the food and tell us that the students were “unhappy” with the “unhealthy” selections. We told Jane that if she didn’t like it, she needed to either a) tell us what she wanted for lunch, or b) order it herself. We even offered to let her use our purchasing card. She never did, but every other week, she would complain about whatever we ordered.

    Finally, one day, Jane informs us that SHE is taking it upon herself to bring lunch for the support group. No one sees her going into the room, but afterwards, she tells our front desk person that the students were “thrilled” with the healthy options, and she had decided to leave the leftovers in our office fridge as a” little treat.” I kid you not, when we opened the fridge, it was FULL, top to bottom, with raw vegetables and hardboiled eggs. That was it. That was the “lunch” that the college students were supposedly so “thrilled” about.

    We quietly invited another counselor to facilitate the lunch group after that.

    Reply ↓
  28. CommanderBanana*

    A pretty epic potluck fail was a recent potluck at wholesale seafood distributor in Maryland that sent 48 people to the hospital with food poisoning. It was so bad it ended up on the news. They were very careful to specify that it was NOT the seafood, but food brought in by a staff member that sickened everyone.*

    *Various sources have mentioned some sort of fried noodle dish as the culprit.

    Reply ↓
  29. Raine*

    I was working at a grocery store, and management decided to hold a pie competition – with a gift card as a prize – for Pi Day (March 14th). I made a bourbon chocolate pecan pie (my favorite) and proudly brought it in for the competition…where it was the only entrant. My pie was cut up and passed around, and I got plenty of lovely compliments from my coworkers about how awesome it was.

    And then management decided that since nobody else participated, the competition was axed, and there was no prize for me. I didn’t even get a slice of my pie.

    Buuuuut I’d already known how bad the management was, so I’d made a second pie anyway and left it at home. :)

    Reply ↓
    1. Blue Spoon*

      That sounds delicious! I don’t suppose you have a recipe? I am asking as someone who enjoys bourbon, chocolate, and pecan pie.

      Reply ↓
    2. Hornswoggler*

      I’m outraged that you didn’t get the gift card prize. OUTRAGED. You were literally the only one to make any effort at all!

      Reply ↓
  30. Mouse named Anon*

    I worked at a company once that was notoriously cheap. Basically we were given next to nothing but our salaries, and cheap coffee in the kitchens.
    In an effort to build some team bonding my manager at the time organized a monthly team lunch. It was potluck style, however our team was quite small (5 people). Bringing a bag of chips was totally acceptable. Often our manager brought the “main dish” which was cleared with all ahead of time. One of the members of the group hated these lunches. She finally had enough and made her feelings known loud and clear. I understand not everyone wants a team lunch, but she was incredibly rude about it. She basically berated our manager in front of the whole team. My manager who was young, and just trying to build some team rapport was mortified and embarrassed. I tried to stand up to her but it didn’t go well. We stopped having team lunches after that.

    Reply ↓
    1. What_the_What*

      Ugh what an unhappy person that colleague must have been. I don’t understand people who can’t feel or don’t WANT to feel any joy so they figure they have to suck it out of everything for everyone else. I hope they didn’t stick around long!

      Reply ↓
    2. Cafe au Lait*

      I’m so sorry that happened to your manager. I’m in that position right now; I don’t have any power at the “change level” of the organization but I’m in charge of my little corner. One of my colleagues so snarky and unpleasant around little changes I tried to make that she made life unpleasant for the other two people in my unit.

      Eventually she ended up being moved to another unit. The official reason was because a larger change was coming down the pipeline. Except that change has been “postponed,” and I haven’t heard anything about her coming back to help with my unit.

      Reply ↓
  31. Dragon_Tea_Smithy*

    Warning for the squeamish regarding medical issues.

    I had organized a staff potluck for a team that benefits the larger staff of the organization. I was bringing the main dish, which was a chicken tortilla soup kind of meal. This needed hours of preparation and simmering for the right tenderness, so I made it at home in my crockpot and was bringing it along with me in the morning before the lunch. I unplugged the crockpot, carefully grasped the handles and started down the stairs of my third story apartment building.

    Friends, I missed the bottom step on a landing. The crockpot model I owned did not have the safety locks. The lid came off and the near boiling liquid splashed all over my chest. The soup made my shirt cling to me as it steamed in the morning air. I somehow managed to set the crockpot down and had barely lost any of the food. I whisked up the steps back to my apartment, took off the ruined blouse, wiped myself down with cool water as fast as I could and then put a new shirt on.

    I went to that potluck rather than calling out, you guys! I toughed it out because I had organized it, I had the main dish, and I had the whole agenda for the meeting. So rather than ruining the whole event with my clumsiness, I went and kept fanning myself.

    As soon as the meeting/potluck lunch was done, though, I went to Urgent Care because my chest was covered in blisters from the burns. The nurse that put me in the room before the doctor came in and asked why I was there. I said I had burned myself with hot soup and opened my blouse. She got really round eyes and said the doctor would be in shortly. It took some prescription strength cream to heal up the burns properly, but I didn’t even scar, thank goodness!

    Reply ↓
    3. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Whoa, that’s so scary! I’m glad you healed well and it’s amazing you didn’t have a scar! Also amazing that you didn’t fall down the stairs or anything, which would have been disastrous. I still have a little scar on my arm from getting hot pizza cheese on my arm back in 2001, but it’s so unnoticeable that I only recently checked to see if I still have it. Granted, it’s on a part of my arm that I don’t see very often anyway (inside my elbow) but it’s also pretty small and faint anyway.

      That story is a wild one too, though. I was in grad school for music and the orchestra manager (a non-student staffer) decided that it’d be nice to treat us all to pizza at the shop next door to the music school. I don’t think he warned the shop, though, as it took them a very long time (probably nearly an hour, IIRC) to get one pizza out of the oven. So, you’ve got about 40-50 broke and very hungry music students expecting a few slices of pizza for dinner, and the restaurant takes an hour to cook enough pizza for 24 people to have one slice. Before the pie even hits the table we’re all swarming the poor server and reaching in like vultures with roadkill to snag a slice before they disappear, and the molten cheese from someone’s slice slides off and lands on my arm. Hurt like the dickens. I ran to the bathroom and soaked my arm under cold water for awhile, which helped. Next day the thing blistered up and I went to health services and got some cream for it, so fortunately it healed pretty well, with only the small scar.

      Reply ↓
  32. Beans Beans Beans*

    Church potluck, with no signup sheet. Every. Single. Person. Brought Baked Beans.
    I mentioned this story to someone from the church recently and she told me that her dad used to only come to church potlucks in hope of a a singular dish of baked beans, since no one else in her family liked them so he never got them at home. She said that night was the greatest night of his life.

    Reply ↓
    1. EvilQueenRegina*

      Christmas potluck, and our then-manager thought it was a bright idea to have everyone just email her what they were contributing, rather than a sign up list where everyone could see what had already been offered and what might be needed. This manager didn’t like it when anyone tried suggesting an alternative to what she was proposing to do, and would usually shut it down by biting their head off. I’m not sure anyone dared say anything at the time.

      We ended up with loads of people offering pork pies. One of these was from the big boss, so then-manager let him carry on with that and emailed round everyone else asking them to come up with an alternative.

      Next time I suggested we have a proper sign up list so that wouldn’t happen again. Then-manager had to admit it would have been a better way.

      Reply ↓
    3. Frieda*

      I love this so much.

      When I was on the rota for “hosting” church potluck (you slip out of the service a bit early and set up the tables and food) I discovered how very, VERY important certain rules about potluck are, only by breaking them. Mostly this had to do with the order in which the food went onto the buffet table. Once in a while I’d do something radical like set up a separate small drink station which inevitably caused several someones to come let me know what I’d done wrong, and why.

      I love a potluck but I do not like being supervised while completing a task that a. a 12yo could do and b. I took very seriously food-safety-wise, unlike some other participants. That is why I am no longer on the rota.

      Reply ↓
    4. The OG Sleepless*

      I’ve probably told this here before, but one year I hosted a Christmas party for our friend group and just told everyone to bring an appetizer. Every single person brought meatballs. The great thing is, though, everybody brought a different kind. Marinara meatballs. Teriyaki meatballs. Chili-sauce-and-grape-jelly meatballs. It was delightful. The Meatball Christmas is writ large in our group lore.

      Reply ↓
  33. delicioso*

    I live in a southern US city known for its yummy cuisine. So our potlucks are really great. The only issues we used to have was one of the highest paid staffers always bringing the cheapest item… until one year, she saw the light and started ordering a box of fried chicken from one of the great local places. Everyone LOVED it and when she retired everyone was sad.

    Reply ↓
  34. Zombeyonce*

    Not a potluck but a food-centered event at work. My office held a blind taste test for chocolate chip cookies. It sounds like a delicious idea except that some of the entries were store-bought while others were homemade. One person trying all the cookies either forgot some were made by their coworkers or didn’t care. He spent the entire tasting passionately railing against specific cookies for their “defects” (they were all delicious in different ways!).

    This made bakers pretty upset with their contributions being insulted so harshly and no one ever brought in tasty baked treats again. That one jerk ruined it for the rest of us!

    Reply ↓
  35. Juicebox Hero*

    Retail days again. A young coworker was pregnant and her family held a shower for her, and the whole department went.

    There were a lot of desserts, like that concoction of strawberries, Jello, and pretzel crust, chocolate covered strawberries, and a big fruit basket made out of a watermelon and decorated with giant strawberries. It was summer, therefore strawberry season.

    I’m sitting next to our manager, who is allergic to strawberries (also shellfish, but that wasn’t the issue here). I look over to see her woofing down the big juicy strawberries from the watermelon basket.

    Me: “What the hell are you doing? You’re allergic to those!”
    Manager: “But they’re good! It’s ok, my throat doesn’t swell. I just get a rash.”
    Me: nothing, because what can you say?

    After the big giant strawberries, and a big scoop of the strawberry pretzel stuff, and a couple chocolate covered strawberries, she came down with a rash on her arms and legs that took months to heal and left scars.

    Possibly also worth mentioning that in spite of her shellfish allergy her favorite restaurant was Red Lobster.

    She was fired a few years later for stealing thousands of dollars worth of stuff from the store, too.

    Reply ↓
  36. Jojo*

    I don’t even know where to start with the new Admin who was tasked with planning the potluck blew everything up to the point that we haven’t had a potluck in over a decade.

    We did have a few chili cook offs. At the end of the day, one of my coworkers who had participated commented on the fact that only men had brought in chili by saying that women must not be as competitive as men. I pointed out that as it’s typically women who do the cooking for a family, making chili is just another chore, and certainly not worth all the effort to hopefully win trophy that was just a toilet plunger with several rolls of toilet paper threaded onto the handle.

    Reply ↓
  37. Casual Librarian*

    Our office hosted an Octoberfest event with beer cheese dip and pretzels. Everything was fine except the maker of the beer cheese dip didn’t think to prepare the mixture ahead of time, so a crockpot was started an hour before the event with the cold ingredients added. It was chunky and cold and absolutely disgusting to look at much less eat. They left it plugged in for the rest of the day and tried to convince the collective that we needed to experience the real deal as it warmed up. There was so much cheese left over in that pot for weeks.

    Reply ↓
  38. Melissa*

    We used to have a catered holiday luncheon that was literally advertised as a “not all you can eat buffet”, and the office manager would stand over people as they tried to fill their plates. We work in an industry where many of our employees (mostly male) do heavy work and when they pack their own lunch it is hefty. One year, we ran out of food due to “two sittings” but everyone went to the first. Fortunately, the pandemic and acquisition of another company with a different outlook killed this embarrassment. We now have a Saturday evening party where you can even take the leftovers home!

    Reply ↓
  39. Whale I Never*

    One year, my job had a staff bonding event during Passover. I am a “kosher light” kind of Jew in that I cook kosher for myself but will eat kosher-ish meals at restaurants… except for Passover, when I am more strict about it. And honestly, I would not EXPECT a job to provide kosher for Passover food for me—there are a lot of very difficult restrictions, there aren’t many catering options in my area that can comply, and there was nobody else at that job who needed KFP food. I was planning on just bringing my own dinner.

    However, I was pleasantly surprised when a later email offered more details about the event and the food, including the fact that there would be a KFP option. And then I got to the event and… it was pizza from a beloved local restaurant, and the KFP option was their standard garden salad. Couple of problems:

    1) I don’t consider iceberg lettuce, tomato slices, carrot slices, and olives to be a full meal (setting aside the fact that olives are the one food I can’t stand!)
    2) There were two salads—one garden, one caesar—for the entire staff. If I served myself a dinner-sized portion, there would have been very little left for my ~20 colleagues.
    3) The restaurant was not kosher. I didn’t know if their utensils were KFP. I didn’t know if they went through the trouble of acquiring KFP salad dressing—it may not be obvious, but some salad dressings contain treif additives.
    4) The person who arranged for the food told ME that the salad was the KFP option, not the entire staff, so I watched as someone used the provided utensil to scoop themselves some salad, then scoop some croutons from the little bowl beside it, then put the utensil back in the salad bowl.

    My dinner was a slice of tomato and maybe 2 oz of matzo brei that I hadn’t finished at lunch. Again, I’m not particularly annoyed at the job for not giving me kosher for Passover food. I was annoyed that they TOLD me they had.

    Reply ↓
    1. CommanderBanana*

      I was at a staff lunch at an event where this was the only food we would have the opportunity to eat for the entire day, and every item except one side dish had beef or pork in it (this despite us reminding the woman tasked with ordering it several times that we had several vegetarians and specifically no-pork people on staff).

      I asked the hotel staff to bring out a salad that didn’t have bacon dumped all over it, and then we all watched in horror as the coworker in front of me picked the serving tongs out of the salad WITH bacon on it and then merrily plunged them into the only other dish safe for us to eat.

      Reply ↓
    2. delicioso*

      I arranged the catering for a recent conference in my city. The hotel outsources all halal and kosher meals to a company that specifically handles that. The meals were pricey and their was an additional $50 delivery fee per day to deliver the meals to the hotel. Not a problem but it was expensive. AND one of the halal people didn’t even show up for his meal at one event so I was super annoyed. But the others who needed them were so grateful.

      This year the same conference different city… labeled cookies with peanut butter in them as nut free. The way that news spread quickly at the event.. who boy.

      Reply ↓
      1. Ally McBeal*

        Outsourced kosher food is CRAZY expensive. I was fortunate that, in the only job I’ve had where I had to regularly order kosher food, there was a Jewish deli in the basement of our building* and I could just run down to grab affordable sandwiches that were certified and sealed.

        * “the basement of our building” is a massive understatement – my building connected to Grand Central Station in NYC.

        Reply ↓
        1. UKDancer*

          It’s the one thing I can’t get from our regular caterers. Halal is no problem – kosher is much more difficult because they’re not set up to do it and the rules are very strict. So in the past when we’ve needed kosher food I’ve asked a colleague from North London to stop off in Golders Green (which has a large Jewish population and appropriate shops) on the way in and pick things up so we can at least provide something.

          Reply ↓
      2. H3llifIknow*

        Peanut butter IS nut free. Peanuts are not nuts, they are legumes. My son has a “nut” allergy. He cannot eat walnuts, pecans, almonds, etc… but he can eat all the peanuts he wants. So, I’m not sure why the labeling was big news to spread… it was accurate, after all.

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    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      PSA: Yes, a green salad can often be acceptable for many diets. However, if you are arranging for catering, ask yourself if in this context, you would be happy eating only a salad. (Hot summer day outside with low activity? Very possible. Long busy day full of activities? Almost definitely not!)

      Reply ↓
  40. Career coach by the sea*

    Years ago in academia, 3 departments decided to host a potluck lunch for the 25 or so employees on our floor. Salaries were not great all around and most of the staff was under 30. I bought a few Big Macs from the local McDs and cut them into sixths, serving them on doilies and catering trays we happened to have in the office kitchen. One of the older employees was livid and continued to talk about it for ages afterward, but my contribution was a big hit!

    Reply ↓
  41. WeirdChemist*

    My office has a grill that we drag out on the patio for office parties/potlucks/etc. I have a coworker who considers himself to be the “grill guy” of the office, and always man’s the grill for all these parties because he’s “the only one good at it” (Side note: his grill skills are perfectly adequate but not spectacular). Once, we had an office potluck that accidentally got scheduled while he was going to be on vacation. This guy cut his vacation (at an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean) short so that he could be back in time to man the grill. Because he’s the grill guy!

    Reply ↓
  42. Girasol*

    Company training event. Manager needed to cut costs so much that he insisted I not rent a car when I got there but take public transit, which dropped me off with a week’s worth of luggage a mile from the hotel. The event for the first night was a catered group dinner, which had not been announced, and after dinner they mentioned, “and we’ll be adding an extra charge to your event fees for the meal.” The charge was well more than I spent on food for the rest of the week. I had to explain that to the boss.

    Reply ↓
  43. Collarbone High*

    In lieu of raises, ExJob offered up a catered picnic “to boost morale.” Shockingly, morale was low on the day of the event and even lower the next day, when the caterer informed us that one of their line cooks had tested positive for hepatitis A.

    Reply ↓
  44. Yvette*

    I don’t have a story to share, but I am just here to ask you to please include the cheap ass rolls potluck story. Thanks

    Reply ↓
      1. Lisa*

        Oh my!

        Okay, also, I have to let my inner snark out. If you’re calling a store brand of rolls cheap-ass, you should NOT be acting like King’s Hawaiian are that much better! Yes, I am a roll snob. I would be looking down on both of them! So there, weird roll person!

        Reply ↓
          1. Clisby*

            Yeah, they have this odd sweet-ish taste. I assume plenty of people like them or they wouldn’t still be on the market, but I can’t see why anyone would thing they’re special.

            Reply ↓
            2. AnonForThis*

              They’re a direct descendant of Portuguese sweet bread. I like them fine myself, but good PSB from a Portuguese bakery is better.

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          2. H3llifIknow*

            I’m with you. Do NOT put my savory burger or slider on King’s Hawaiian rolls or brioche. Ugh gross. I don’t get the appeal. I will lightly toast a kings’ hawaiian roll and butter it for breakfast but that’s about it, other than I have used it for a decent bread pudding.

            Reply ↓
            1. UKDancer*

              Yeah there’s a weird tendency in modern upmarket London burger joints to put the burger in a brioche bun because people think it’s posher (along with putting about 300 toppings on). I hate it, because it always goes soggy and tastes slightly sweet. I like a proper seeded burger bun myself.

              Reply ↓
    3. Lisa*

      That one was a ride! Haven’t seen someone in a while so convinced they were being attacked by things that were either neutral or actually positive. The “I didn’t realize you were new” implies to me that they’ve integrated well. To be upset by that… so weird.

      Reply ↓
      1. EvilQueenRegina*

        I think at the time, the coworker who updated said that they didn’t think she was that new at the time, so it was either a case of this having been something that happened quite a while before the rolls incident and she was still dwelling on it, or it was something like she’d been with that company a while but perhaps was new to that team (which might have explained not seeing her as new).

        Reply ↓
  45. Nannerdoodle*

    Several potluck stories all from the same 10 person team. This team had monthly (and then switched to every other month) potlucks, each themed.

    Overarching issue: I cannot eat gluten. One of my old coworkers is vegetarian. She and I banded together to each make food that both of us could eat. Unfortunately we were also the best cooks on that team by far, meaning all our food was gobbled up by everyone and we were both left hungry at the potlucks.

    The breakfast potluck (one of the first potlucks for the team): I’d insisted that we have a sign up so that everyone didn’t bring the same thing. I brought gluten free pancakes and a griddle to cook them. Vegetarian coworker made gluten free scones. Somehow, even though they all signed up for different breakfast items, 6 people brought fruit. Each fruit tray was was half cantaloupe and honey dew melons, which went uneaten. One of the other people who didn’t bring fruit brought bacon and tried to cook it in the office toaster oven, which he managed to light on fire, and then made the entire building smell like bacon for the whole day.

    The soup potluck: Everyone brought a different type of soup for the team and we used mugs and would eat a little of each of the soups. Everything was delicious, minus the watered down broccoli cheese soup. Coworker made the soup correctly, but thought it looked too thick, so the coworker added a bunch of water to thin it. It was basically cheese water with chunks of broccoli. We all tried it, but it was a rough one.

    Reply ↓
  46. Lemonfork*

    This is not my story, but one of a friend. She’s celiac, and works for a tech search engine company that you have definitely heard of. They have regular, massice weekly catered working lunches. Enough people are gluten free that all the mains have a regular version, and a gluten free version. However, every week, the regular version runs out faster, and people “helpfully” consolidate the leftovers/sauce into the gluten free pan to make space. Thus poisoning the gluten free option for the gf people. This happened with shocking frequency, despite pleas from the gluten free employees to keep the pans separated, or maybe even let people with allergies go first in line.

    As far as I know, it continues to be a problem and my friend just brings her own lunch.

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  47. Tunami*

    At a Christmas potluck, my old office held the Boss decided he was going to cook his famous tuna casserole.
    We ate it, and we got food poisoning. The entire office had to shut down the day after, and it turned out that our Boss Cheapsteak McCheap had some expired tuna in his fridge. He didn’t think it was that expired and used it.
    One coworker resigned and sued him!

    Reply ↓
  48. 653-CXK*

    Three tales from ExJob (medical claims processing):

    1) We had a post-all-staff meeting in which the director announced that there would be a luncheon afterwards to show upper management’s appreciation for our work. We return to the building, expecting something really good. What we got were sandwiches from the cafeteria, of which everyone got their sandwiches and went back to their desks. Some went so far as to toss the sandwiches in the trash. I went back to the cafeteria and got a proper lunch.

    2) Another “appreciation” lunch featured pizza from a local pizzeria. There were all sorts of flavors – cheese, pepperoni, veggie, and Hawaiian – but the director (from #1) complaining to anyone who would listen about the Hawaiian pizza not being a real pizza. Of course, when the lunch was over, people lined up and took whole pies home with them.

    3) We had a three-month settlement period where we had to pay any and all claims that were available – beginning the day after MLK day and ending in mid-March. Vacations and time off were heavily restricted so these operations could be completed. In the late spring/early summer, we would have a post-settlement party, which was often catered by a local restaurant and featured awards and prizes. It was actually quite fun.

    In the last year when I was employed at ExJob (2018), the post-settlement party was a joyless, sterile affair: no excitement, the food was meh, and there were no awards or prizes. This party was two weeks before I was let go from the company.

    The director (who before all this went on a tirade about Walmart and China, and of which some if not all of the claims processors were Asian) was herself terminated when she swore at another member of upper management. By then, her bosses had enough and fired her.

    Reply ↓
    1. FuzzFrogs*

      I had a pizza buffett for my wedding, and Hawaiian was absolutely required to be there. My husband and I both love Hawaiian–although over the years we’ve drifted to subbing pepperoni for the ham.

      I have learned that a key to marriage is having a few foods you both share. (And, crucially, desserts which you don’t.)

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      1. Strive to Excel*

        Haha – my childhood tactic for not having to share snacks with siblings was learning to like different snacks.

        Luckily, flan is an acquired taste.

        Reply ↓
  49. Colorado Winters*

    I worked for 12 years at the now-defunct Sears affiliate, The Great Indoors. It was supposed to be the equivalent of a high-end Home Depot + Bed Bath & Beyond. We sold $100+ wastebaskets for the bathroom. When we opened, we had a flatscreen television on display that, at the time, was over $10K. Fully working kitchens for demos. A theatre experience in the electronics department. That sort of thing.

    So, for many years, we had amazing, fully catered holiday spreads. Once Sears combined with K-mart, someone had the brilliant idea of laying people off and turning this rich person mecca into a box store. Sales went down, along with the holiday meals. At first, they provided meat and sides from Honeybaked Ham and drinks, with employees being asked to bring dessert. Then, they started only supplying a ham (still Honeybaked), with employees bringing sides, drinks and dessert. Eventually, employees were bringing in everything, and management would get a grocery store ham that they baked in one of the still-working display ovens. The holiday season before the store liquidated, we got a party sub from the grocery store.

    I’m sure nobody would be surprised to learn that so many other aspects of that job sucked, too. On the plus side, I met my husband there.

    Reply ↓
    1. Funbud*

      Just a random observation: Honeybaked Hams always seemed to have the longest, slowest delivery time of any restaurant we ever used for catering. Even just a small order of say, five box lunches, would take FOREVER to arrive. I know it takes awhile to bake a ham, but seriously…

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  50. Anon for this*

    In 2020, my company decided to do a Zoom Christmas party and have food delivered to everyone’s house. Good idea so far. We had a shared spreadsheet to mark off when we got our food, and near the end of the day, some of us still hadn’t gotten ours whereas other people had gotten theirs around 8 am. Those who got their food later in the day also noted that the delivery guy was visibly irritated. Turns out that the company had the office cafeteria prep all the meals and then loaded them onto a truck (still hot) early in the morning and had one poor delivery driver drive city to city and house to house all day to deliver our food. My food got to me just as the party was starting after work and (surprise) it was cold. I then ended up in a Zoom breakout room with the company president in the middle of a contentious union organizing effort so that was fun.

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    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Idly wondering how the person who arranged this would answer the “How would you transport an elephant?” question.

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  51. Drargula*

    During a potluck, someone (the office never discovered who!) went to the meeting room where the potluck had to be held and took a single bite out of every biteable thing. Scones, bread, fruits, pizza slices. Just one single byte.

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  52. Ama*

    At my last in office job, we moved to a new building in early spring and were told by employees of the other companies who rented in that building that the building management’s office holiday lunch was the stuff of legends (multiple people apparently mentioned this to our CEO in her introductory conversations with them). Come December, our senior management got an email from building management with all the rules for the lunch — you only get three tickets per office, you have to go down to the basement and get your food between 11 and 12:30 (there was a meeting space and a catering kitchen down there). We were a nonprofit that regularly held catered events so this didn’t seem like a “legendary” type event to our senior management but they thought maybe the food was just that good.

    A few of the department heads went down to check it out in case it was a good opportunity to network (as we were always looking for corporate sponsors for our programs). They came back completely mystified — the food was nothing special, lukewarm fried chicken and bbq from the deli across the street, and there was no place to sit so no one *could* network, you just had to take your food back up to your own office. And yet, they said people were lined up all the way down the basement corridor and got snippy with each other if it looked like someone was saving spaces for their coworkers. (To be fair none of the other tenants in the building were the type that would host events regularly — a mix of legal and construction firms, mostly — so maybe they were easier to impress just with free food.)

    After that first year, we just politely told building management to give our tickets to the larger offices in our building.

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  53. Lemonfork*

    At a previous job, I was in charge of a monthly staff catered lunch for about 20 people at noon. There was a rotation of favorite local restaurants I’d get take out from, for a modest budget. Most restaurants opened at 11am or 11:30, so it could be a little difficult getting food by noon but I made it work. Additionally, on the selected day, there was one team of 4 that had a regularly scheduled meeting with outside clients until 1. We always saved food for them, but it felt silly to have an all staff lunch that not everyone could attend.

    I floated the idea of moving the staff lunch to 1, which staff responded positively to. In fact, it worked better with everyone’s schedule. I e-mailed all staff to announce the change. In response I got a bombastic response from the CEO (who mind you, never showed up to these lunches, or to work in general) that it WAS A TRADITION that these VERY IMPORTANT TO STAFF COHESION lunches were at noon, and THEY HAD ALWAYS been at noon, and MUST CONTINUE to be at noon, and he could ONLY MAKE IT TO NOON lunches, and anything else was an insult to the concept of the noon lunch being at noon. Alas, we kept them at noon and he never made it to the noon lunch.

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  54. BitterButterBitey*

    I work for Big Tech. Once the parties my company used to throw were legendary (think of Casinò Night, Candyland, and stuff like that). While the company still does well, it wants to contain non-necessary expenses. After all, the CEO himself took a cut of his million bonus, right(wrong)?

    Anyway, two years ago they decided to cut the catering costs. At the “soiree” we eat one slider, one sausage roll, and one muffin per person. That was it.

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  55. slr*

    I have one awesome potluck story. I used to volunteer with an ESL program for newcomers and the parents threw us an end-of-year thank you party. All the moms had a friendly competition to see whose food the volunteers liked best. I have never eaten more (or better!) samosas, curry and chai than I did that day, those women rocked.

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  56. Bunny Girl*

    I can’t remember if I shared this before or not, but I had a coworker who just hated me right off the bat. I never did anything to her but I seemed to be a special target for her.

    We had a potluck and I brought in mini orange cheesecakes with a burnt sugar top and this absolutely enraged her for some reason. She went in during set up and moved my platter to another table out of the way away from all the other food. Then she went around and told everyone about her cheesecake that she would make and how it was always from scratch. She was very seriously about her homemade cheesecake and how “other people” didn’t make cheesecake from scratch. She never asked me, but mine were scratch made as well. The cherry on top was she hadn’t even brought in a cheesecake.

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  57. nora*

    I worked at a domestic violence shelter/counseling agency. Stressful work made worse by terrible management. Because of schedules and whatnot it was rare for all of the front-line staff to gather together all at once. We decided to have a holiday party, with a potluck, baked goods from a beloved local bakery, games, secret Santa, the whole bit. Upper management was on board, though most of them didn’t participate. The CEO was known for being mean and vindictive, and if anyone crossed her things would go horribly wrong. Well, someone must have done something to her in the days before the party because she arranged for a MASSIVE donation from a big box store to be delivered 20 minutes into the party. We immediately had to stop everything and go unload a box truck full of whatever it was. And of course everything had to be inventoried right that very second. No more snacks, no more games, it was a miracle that we even left work on time that day.

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  58. Little Bobby Tables*

    Catered outdoor event that was open to the general public. The venue officially does not allow bringing in alcohol, but unofficially it was another story. REALLY another story.

    A co-worker was trying to light a campfire in a fire pit and poured gasoline into a red Solo cup. A drunken guest somehow thought he was hiding moonshine in the gas can and tried to walk off with the cup of gasoline. He had to forcibly take it back before it could be swallowed.

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  59. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

    I work for the government and our ethics department once told us we could not eat the catered lunch at an all-day meeting, because it was bought by a law firm that we encountered in our work. I guess we’d be tempted to hire them based on getting the exact same turkey roll-ups, salad and cookies that every other law firm served at such lunches. I don’t remember how it came up because certainly no one asked.

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  60. Preschool Guy*

    I work in the office of a large preschool, and in prior years we would do monthly(!) staff potlucks to celebrate each month’s birthday-havers, as well as on parent/teacher conference days. We are a tree nut, peanut, sesame, and shellfish free school, and we have a number of staff with food allergies and intolerances as well, so we require dishes to be labeled if they contain common allergens. The monthly potlucks weren’t especially popular, so the majority of dishes were provided by the handful of teachers who enjoyed them.
    One day last year, on a parent/teacher conference day, we had our usual brunch potluck. All was going well until one teacher, who has a severe tree nut allergy, comes tearing into the office, her face red, saying one of the dishes definitely had nuts in it, and she’d eaten some. We found her epi pen, she administered it, an ambulance was called, and she was transported to the hospital just in case, and made a quick recovery… with all the medical bills that come along with all that.
    Meanwhile, we tracked down the dish in question–a chicken salad with finely chopped (and thus difficult to see) pecans–and the teacher who brought it. We questioned why, knowing there were severe allergies within the staff, she put nuts in it and didn’t label it. She replied that there was “only a little” nuts in the dish and she thought it would be okay! She was quickly educated about the seriousness of food allergies, though we were all very concerned she got it so wrong considering how much annual training is devoted to food allergies–and she’s been with the school about 25 years.
    This school year, we’ve ceased with the monthly and back to school potlucks, and they’re being reserved for parent-teacher conferences. The next one comes in a couple of weeks, and you can bet I’ll be quite strict with the labeling. Because no one deserves to rack up medical bills from chicken salad.

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  61. NJ anon*

    my old office provided lunch every day. at the time there were kosher employees
    twice a week they ordered from kosher the other days from non kosher venues. no problem and very thoughtful and everyone knew what days so they could bring from home or order.
    one day there was an issue on the kosher day so they ordered from a non kosher place but didn’t tell anyone .
    when we came in, the ordering person could not understand why giving kosher people a heads up would have been nice. since now they had to figure things out in their own.

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  62. arachnophilia*

    This is not a potluck gone wrong – this is a potluck that was delightful, and I miss it. When I first started in my current position (and the unit I worked in was much smaller), we would have a holiday party/potluck, and people were encouraged to bring food from their culture/heritage. We had people who were Vietnamese immigrants, Greek immigrants, a first-generation Korean colleague, those with Italian heritage, a first-generation Turkish colleague who was also an observant Muslim, Jewish colleagues, vegetarian colleagues, I was originally from the Southern US (I currently live in a totally different region of the country), and numerous other food traditions. It was completely optional, and those who didn’t want to cook but still wanted to participate could bring beverages, plates, napkins – whatever. People labelled their food with the ingredients (we had several people with various food restrictions – religious, dietary, allergy, etc.), and made sure to show off whatever they loved from their cultures. I really miss those days when we could essentially take the day off, and all the kitchen outlets would be taken up with rice cookers and crockpots and the fridge would be filled to bursting. I still miss the “Turkish pizza” my one colleague would bring, and the fresh Vietnamese spring rolls (vegetarian and with shrimp) that one colleague would hand roll the night before, and the Korean beef that would make the entire office smell delicious. Plus the homemade biscotti and the Finnish baked goods, and the giant salad (and many bottles of wine) our big boss would bring. They were the best parties – no complaints of food poisoning, no weird hairs in the food, no gross person who didn’t wash their hands. Just a lot of people brought together by sharing the food we loved with each other. I still have potlucks for my much smaller team from time to time (again, optional), and I provide beverages, main dishes, sides, and appetizers that all meet the dietary requirements of my team, so everyone can enjoy.

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  63. HumbleHedgehog*

    I have a success story!

    When I was in graduate school, our open house for admitted PhD students was atrocious. We know (1) because each of us in the program has been through it and (2) because we did a survey of all the current students (80% response rate!) that told us so. In particular, the first night where all students ate a catered meal in a dark, dingy common room was highlighted as a problem.
    After the lackluster dinner, traditionally the group split in two— 1 to go to ice cream (which the program would pay for) and the other to go drink (which they would not). Typically, after the soulless, awful catered meal in a dark dingy common room, 90% of the group went (heavily) drinking. So the ice cream bill was cheap (this is later relevant).

    Young and full of hope, I approached the program administration about taking the students out somewhere to eat in the big northern US city our school was located in. After first accusing me of lying for personal gain about the perception of the catered dinner (I do still wonder what personal gain I could have gotten from this; maybe this is why I am still not making big bucks!), they assured me I could not find somewhere to take the admitted students at the same price point ($13 a head). A group of 30+ students on a Monday night in a cold city in winter (and this was many years ago)? In days, I had competing bids from restaurants to host us (to be fair, I promised we’d buy drinks also—this was on our own dime but easy to predict!) So, they begrudgingly approved letting the admitted students annd graduate student hosts off campus to eat. They grumbled, even though I both saved them money and I organized it. I did, however, take a tiny revenge.

    After the (delicious and two course) dinner at a fun local restaurant, I told the whole group we were going to ice cream together and then anyone who wanted to come out for drinks could go afterwards. The ice cream place of choice was a local gem that charged about $7 per bowl. Instead of 5 ice creams per usual, 35 students got ice cream.

    Oddly, the administration’s understanding of this was that the dinner out must have been a success since so many people wanted to go out for ice cream. So… success!

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  64. CampusStaff*

    I worked in an office with a staff of 3 and a board of about a dozen. My boss considered himself a foodie and so he wanted the 3 of us to cater a 3 day retreat. But everyone had to have access to the main entree (no making of multiple dishes though you could have add ons that were not universally acceptable. This meant every dish had to be Kosher, vegan, AND gluten free. (Not to mention the fact that I am not a cook, and nowhere in my job description did it include “cater multi course meals for group meeting,” but that’s a different issue. And on the list of reasons why I quit that job, this didn’t even break the top ten.

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  65. JSPA*

    In some languages, one uses the same word for meat and for beef.

    In some, meat = flesh (the muscle solids) not the broth, cracklings, schmaltz, tripe, tendon (etc).

    These incomplete translations seem to sometimes embed into family tradition and word usage for an additional generation or even two, as food words are so often learned very young, and in the home.

    It’s a little graphic, but “I don’t eat things that were part of any animal” is harder to misconstrue.

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  66. Cherry Sours*

    Not an office party, but one for service members based on a ship and their family members. The majority of attendees lived on a 7 x 11 mile island in the Mediterranean, and the ship was stationed at a smaller island nearby.
    The organizers got the word out, and did a great job providing transportation, via a landing craft (for those coming from the ship), or ferry & bus for those traveling from the island. The cookout was on a gorgeous beach with pink sand…couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful site.
    Food and equipment were off loaded, tables erected, burgers and other meat cooked, and sides (cole slaw, macaroni salad, potato salad), plates, and beverages put out for those who were eagerly awaiting a tasty meal. It was only when people were encouraged to begin serving themselves that a collective groan filled the air. The silverware (aka plastic utensils) had never departed the ship. The person in charge radioed the ship, who sent someone to deliver the much appreciated items in the captain’s boat*.
    (My apologies, I know there’s a proper name for this craft.)

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  67. Sulcata Turtle*

    Here’s a positive one. This one’s for you, broke college students.

    Back in college, I was a student worker in the university communications office. The office loved a good potluck. This wasn’t a “pick up Costco chicken” crowd. Oh no, that was child’s play, and we were a university, dammit. We had folks like Eric who smoked his own turkey, Amy with at least three chiffon cakes, and just about any dish you could ask for. All of it was perfection. We didn’t have afternoon meetings on potluck days because it always left us in food comas for the rest of the day.

    There was an unspoken rule in the office: student workers ate first and took the leftovers. We were just quietly handed a huge baggie of cookies or cups of chili. No mad dashes for the fudge bars, Sarah would already pack it up for us. We were also banned from bringing anything. As someone who was far away from home, those potlucks held me over until I was back in my mom’s kitchen during breaks.

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  68. B.K. Lee*

    My previous law firm used to host a catered breakfast every Friday from November 1 through Christmas. We had a colleague – let’s call him Dan – that used to literally just dig his hands right into the food. He wouldn’t use tongs or other provided serving utensils; Dan would take his bare hands and literally dig into the food. One Friday, as I was entering the restroom, I noticed Dan was using one of the urinals. Instead of washing his hands, he just left and returned to the office. After I washed my hands and returned, I went to the conference room for the breakfast, where I noticed Dan was a few people ahead of me in line. Dan takes his (presumably unwashed) hands, reaches directly into the pan and grabs a handful of bacon. I was so mortified that I just got out of line, grabbed a closed container of yogurt, and returned to my office. I think that was the last straw, because the breakfasts went from catered buffets to prepackaged options only two weeks later. To this day, whenever my current office has a holiday meal, I think of Dan and respectfully decline.

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  69. Shelby*

    Pre-pandemic my office had a big Christmas potluck. I made some fun finger foods for my first contribution and brought them in a Tupperware. It was a little daring but nothing too radical.

    A couple of people got through the line, grabbed something I made, and gave me a thumbs-up. The office crank picked up my tupperware, still mostly full at the time, sniffed it, made a face, and threw the entire thing in the garbage, Tupperware and all. I’m still mad about it.

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  70. Mostly Managing*

    Not an office, but a community group that had two potlucks every year.
    Nobody really signed up for anything, but it always worked out that there was a reasonable balance of mains, sides, desserts.
    Until one memorable spring, when everyone brought potato salad. With pickles, without pickles, various degrees of spiciness to the dressing… but all potato salad.
    We laughed and shrugged it off.

    That Christmas, everyone brought dessert.
    And we started having a sign-up sheet!

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  71. TinkerTailorSolderDye*

    Nothing quite so heinous as “cheap ass rolls”, but my part-time job currently does a weekly potluck on Sundays due to the weird hours the store is open. I’ve not participated in about two months, partly due to money, partly because only three of the managers take on the burden of the main dish, and the owner is a shameless thief who doesn’t reimburse any of us. My full-time is talking about a monthly potluck, but the main dish will be provided by the top earners, and our CEO is the kind to reimburse everyone anyway, so that one I’m actually looking forward to.

    As for potlucks of years past…

    – The Turkey: The store manager hadn’t thawed the bird out fully before deciding to deep fry it. The scorch marks still remain on the yellow brick out at the loading dock.

    – The Ham: This was entirely my fault; I melted a ham by putting WAY too much pineapple between the spirals, and cooking it too long. On the plus side, the ham & bean soup was absolutely incredible.

    – The Pie: I won’t even attempt to pretend I know how to make pecan pie, but even I know that the pecans shouldn’t be FROZEN on top. Our coworker was adamant that was correct.

    – The Homemade Rolls: This one’s pretty wholesome. Back in the middle of the summer in 2020, my grandmother was in hospice care, and slowly fading due to cancer. I was her main caretaker during this time, and while she was lucid, she was adamant that I ask for anything I wanted from the house. I agonized, because I knew so much would be tossed out by family when she was gone, but in the end, I decided against the monetary items, like TV’s and the laptop. I asked for her homemade roll recipe, the ones she’d made for decades from us, and while soon after that we lost her, I still have the recipe, and I still make it for the holidays. Now, with her rolls and a few quilts, and the family train sets, I consider that the richest gift I could have been given.

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    1. The OG Sleepless*

      My grandmother made incredible homemade rolls too. I can smell them rising in her house right now. I love this.

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    2. Elle Woods*

      I love the story about your grandmother. I’m sorry for your loss. Having been through that, having just a couple of precious items and some family recipes is one of the richest gifts I could have been given.

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  72. River*

    There was a staff member that was known to be difficult but for petty reasons. This staff member also was suspected of being difficult on purpose because she was unhappy and wanted the easiest job as possible. She made it known that she supposedly had a gluten intolerance. She was pretty upset the week leading up to the company holiday potluck and was saying things like “oh there won’t be anything there for me that I’ll like. It’s always the same food people bring in. I can’t have that because of my gluten allergy” etc etc.

    Her manager special ordered and picked her up a meal from a pretty nice restaurant in the area. Later in the evening she was seen eating cookies and sweet bread (which have HUGE amounts of gluten). Maybe she didn’t care at that point or maybe she didn’t actually have a gluten intolerance. Or maybe she was just being her usual character and being fussy on purpose for attention. She ended up quitting a year later after people stopped paying attention to her negativity. So wherever she is, hopefully she’s better, healthier, and happier.

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  73. Summer's Soul*

    Our office had a holiday potluck just before our coworker Christina went on maternity leave. I was also pregnant but several months behind her. Christina had always been a squeaky wheel about nonissues, but with both of us pregnant, she tried to pull me into most of her complaints. She’d cc me on ranty emails and include me in angry meetings with HR about accommodations like changing the cleaning products our maintenance team used, saying that she needed a very expensive air purifier, and so on and on. Every day, she would email our bosses or call HR about nothing and say, “Summer’s upset about it, too!” She included me in this stuff so frequently that it almost impacted my yearly evaluation. I had to have a very serious heart-to-heart with my boss (who was also pregnant), explaining that I didn’t agree with Christina on basically anything. The final straw for me was when she included me in a formal complaint to corporate that we were left out of a training because we were pregnant. The training had nothing to do with our job function, and several men didn’t go either. Her complaint caused a massive investigation, during which I was almost suspended without pay. I wasn’t her biggest fan.

    I was very over her antics by our holiday potluck. Our holiday potluck menu was circulated weeks in advance and included dishes like lasagna, soup, salad, GF, and Vegan options. Everyone had something they could eat/would like. Christina complained the whole time that nothing offered was safe for pregnant women to eat, gearing up for another meltdown, and she said, “This is so dangerous, right Summer?” so with my mouth full and pasta sauce all over my face, I said, “Nope! Delicious!”

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  74. I'm so old I'm historic*

    I’ve posted this before, but here is the reason our company doesn’t ever do any type of potluck. We had a chili cookoff competition and it went horribly wrong. No one thought to list their ingredients so one team member had to leave due to an allergic reaction. One team member spilled his crockpot in his car and made his wife bring in the small bowl she was saving for dinner. And the piece de resistance: Halfway through the day we noticed roaches crawling out of a crock pot! And when we called the person to let her know, she said, “Oh. I thought I got them all.” And she was a little miffed when we told her we put her crock pot outside. Because, you know, ROACHES.

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  75. Irish Teacher.*

    I told this story before but it amuses me.

    In one school where I worked, there was a tradition that every Friday somebody baked something for the staffroom. “Baked,” however, was flexible and if you couldn’t bake, it was fine to buy something or whatever. Anyway, the deputy principal didn’t bake so he brought in a chocolate fountain and a load of marshmallows and strawberries.

    Ye can probably guess where this is going.

    A couple of us helped him out, cutting the strawberries and arranging them on the tray. Then I went out to do some planning, which was a good thing because while I was out, the deputy principal turned on the fountain and chocolate went everywhere, all down his shirt, all over the staffroom floor.

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  76. Elle Woods*

    A friend of mine works in a large multi-team department that has a holiday potluck each year. For about five years in a row, the potluck consisted of nothing but a few appetizers, a bunch of dips, and all kinds of holiday cookies. Then someone decided they should assign each team a different type of item to bring with the idea being that there would be more variety and that there would be some heartier food items as well.

    Sounds good, right?

    The team assigned to bring a main course type food decided to make things easy for themselves. About 20 minutes before the potluck started, all seven members of that team arrived carrying a Costco rotisserie chicken in each hand. Yep, they bought 14 rotisserie chickens. Fortunately, someone had thought to bring a knife and carving fork with them so they were able to carve up the chickens.

    The next year, the potluck went back to a “bring whatever you want” format.

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  77. Decima Dewey*

    This is a equity fail story. My system had meetings at the main location for managers and everyone else. The managers got a lovely lunch spread and raved about it. Come time for everyone else? One paper plate of Hershey’s kisses per table and nothing else.

    Luckily, when we have meetings at locations not our own, we’re allowed an hour of travel time, during which we all grabbed actual food.

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  78. girlie_pop*

    At my last job, we used to have a Halloween party where we always had chili for lunch. Usually 2-3 people would make it at home and bring it in crackpots and we had all the fixins. Then when COVID kicked off, we all went remote, and in 2021 we had out first post-WFH Halloween party.

    The person who usually planned the Halloween party had been replaced, and the new guy decided to do a baked potato bar instead. People were SO mad. For two weeks beforehand people were acting like they had cancelled Christmas! One of my more dramatic co-workers said to me, “I look forward to the chili bar all year!” I resisted asking her if she knew she was allowed to make chili at home.

    Logistically, the potato bar did not go as smoothly as the chili. We didn’t have an oven in our office, so the guy who planned it had his wife bake all the potatoes at home (at least 75 of them – nightmare) and then he went and picked them up an brought them back to the office. By the time we got started, they were cooled a lot, and the topics were not super well executed – like there was roasted broccoli, but it was big florets of it instead of being chopped into smaller ones, so we had to cut it up if we wanted it on our potatoes. Not anything that like, ruined the lunch, but just not perfect. My upset coworker said that she hoped they “learned their lesson” after everyone complained to the party planners and went back to chili next year.

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  79. NoIWontFixYourComputer*

    It was my first year in my first job out of college. We were having a company potluck dinner at my manager’s house. I showed up a day early. Extremely embarrassing. Fortunately, there were no negative repercussions, and I wound up working for that manager for 17 years!

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