Easter Eggs in a multicultural workplace

[Sheepcup]

I lead a small team in an education business, i.e. we work to school terms.

Usually I get a small gift for my staff at the end of each term and at Easter it's Eggs. Until now, I worked in a very white area where people are mostly not religious but broadly Christian by heritage. Everyone has Eggs without attaching much religious significance to them.

This year, I have moved to a different area and in my team I have an Israeli Jew and a Bengali Muslim.

Do I get Eggs, they're just chocolate tokens of the season, or absolutely not? If not, what else?

There are probably some Israeli Jews and Bengali Muslims who object to being given free chocolate, I can only say I have never met one.

Just do it and stop over-thinking. If they bought in a traditional holiday dish at another time of the year, would you be offended?

Furthermore, it is a festival of female creative fertility, female animals giving birth. We get the word Estrogen from Ēostre. The female hormone. The egg is the obvious symbol for that.

I went to a methodist primary school and they touted absolute bollocks that the tomb entrance was egg shaped and the egg is a symbol of Jesus' ressurecrion! As if an egg is a symbol of coming back from the dead?! An egg is a symbol of NEW LIFE. Not supernatural zombification. Even as a kid, I thought it was bollocks. And yes, as it turned out, it was just another Christian hijacking of pre-Christian festivals.

Eggs and Easter are very much pagan goddess/spring equinox festivals that have been hyjacked.

Yeah I'm sure "the witnesses" weren't smart enough to see through that.

@LordSnot "Yeah I'm sure "the witnesses" weren't smart enough to see through that."

Any reason for the air-quotes?

Of course they "saw through" it. It was the result of a discussion- they didn't want their children to miss out either. So we had a Spring celebration.

Im referring to the societal context that now makes it seem necessary to the OP to be concerned about whether she should take in something as mundane as a bloody chocolate egg to work. Jesus, the things are in the bloody shops all year round in any case

Any other foodstuff brought in to celebrate or mark or as part of any other culture would be welcomed, no questions asked, no navel gazing, no brow beating with everyone gathering round saying 'oh what are these, how do you cook them, oh now nice'

Come to easter eggs and then suddenly it needs to be approached with caution and questions asked, 'is this ok, do you think its ok'.

That is what Im referring to

Very much so

I mean what ever happened to Saturn, he was bumped out the way for this new fangled stuff, never heard from him again.

Well the hot cross buns went down well in work today. Loads of people hadn’t had them before (we are quite international) but were happy to try them out.

the biggest controversy was when someone asked if we had any cheese to go on them.

lots of money raised for charity so all good. And my office smells like cinnamon so I’m very happy.

@soupfiend "Any other foodstuff brought in to celebrate or mark or as part of any other culture would be welcomed, no questions asked, no navel gazing, no brow beating with everyone gathering round saying 'oh what are these, how do you cook them, oh now nice'"

Generally speaking, the majority cultures in the UK do not have dietary or ritual requirements so there is not usually any need to check. And checking that something is OK for a person to eat is not navel gazing, or brow beating. It's simply checking that something is OK for someone to eat.

I used to get the team I worked with a bunch of daffodils at Easter, they always went down well with everyone

Nobody is finding it difficult to understand that she wants everyone to be able to share a treat and it’s a generous thing for her to do. We’re all able to read and comprehend that, thanks. What people are taking issue with is that it is chocolate. It’s not pork. It comes in dairy free forms. For the people she has in her team, there is nothing preventing either of them from sharing in the treat, outside of any fasting periods. And if either of her colleagues take objection to the fact that their free chocolate is egg shaped rather than square or triangular or hexagonal, then that is not going to be based on any religious grounds, is it?!

No one will like every single thing that a person brings in, whether that be cake, chocolate eggs, some pastries, a quiche, biscuits, cheese and biscuits, home made chutneys, fruits and nuts, any number of things that people bring in and like to share round the office.

People might be dieting, people might not even like chocolate, someone might not like 'that brands chocolate', all manner of reasons

just bring in your treats and people will help themselves if they want it

@soupfiend There is a difference between a team member baking a cake and bringing it in to share, and a team leader bringing in a a treat for her team. The first one you bake the cake you want to bake and people can have some or not. The second example you make a point of bringing in something that, if possible, everyone can share. Otherwise it's a bit shit, isn't it, to leave somebody out when it's easy not to? But the very many Islamic scholars on here have been able to reassure her that Easter eggs are fine, so phew. I wouldn't have known, personally.

And the Christians fasting for lent.

I've taken Indian sweets in to a college where all the students were white British and I have often taken samosas in to workplaces and a cheesecake that I make and I have passed the recipe on to a number of Muslim colleagues.

I'm white British, I love living in a diverse are and being able to buy a variety of foods.

The only time anyone has said anything remotely negative was someone who said, "Hey, these are proper samosas, I'm Asian, this is my gig" said with a smile.

I used to work in a very multi cultural team and we just said something like we celebrate x today, so I'd like to give you this to eat. It felt very inclusive.

I used to love it when DS was in little school. Where we are it’s very mixed area so we had lots of celebrations and treats throughout the year. It was nice. Everyone got involved and organised parties and activities for everything. No one said they felt offended or excluded.

basic rules - know if there are any dietary nonos (as you would with allergies) and have a range so noone feels left out.

We used to have ‘international day’ at school when he was little (there was just two of us in the school doing the U.K. spread - a Scot mum and a Welsh mum - and I doubled up on the Persian table). I loved those days - the Italian, Russian and Indian tables were my faves. And the Spanish one when my friends mum would make extra tortilla for me.

Whatever happened to common sense...

There is nothing offensive about bringing in Easter eggs.

People have the choice to eat them or not. End of story.

I am baffled as to why everyone has started over-thinking everything.

This is a country with a Christian heritage and many people celebrate things like Easter and Christmas. So what?

I am an immigrant by the way and I am puzzled by this type of complete nonsense and navel-gazing.

I am vegan and that means I often can't eat things that people bring in at work. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. The point being whatever you bring in it is likely there always will be someone who isn't able to eat it for whatever reason.

I worked for decades in London with people from all backgrounds in places like Hackney and Muslim colleagues had no issues whatsoever with Christmas decorations or cakes being around. In fact they brought things in too.

I have some religious types in my family (Christians and Muslims) and I’ve never had any complain about ‘other’ religious festivals/foods etc.

The only people I have come across who have made a fuss was the Partners I worked for (mentioned above - one yelled at a secretary for having a small Christmas tree in her office until she cried) and people being offended by trees/food during Ramadan etc on our behalf (although when queried they didn’t really know why.