In trouble at work- over a quiche

[Coffeandtoast]

Good morning

So on Friday we had a little gathering in the office at work. We all agreed to take in various food items and my contribution was quiches and sausage rolls.

so I took four quiches. At the end of the gathering there was one whole quiche left unopened.we agreed that we’d just share out the untouched food

I said that I’d just take the unopened quiche as we would eat it at home. In then comes Patricia, an older woman who I generally find quite difficult to work with. She’s self opinionated and knows everything. I generally try hard to get on with her but she’s a massive PITA. So she said something along the lines of “ you can’t just take the quiche until we’ve discussed who’s taking what” . I explained that I wasn’t to fussed about any of it and that she could just take the quiche, she carried on with her chuntering and huffing and puffing at me. So this is where it went pear shaped, I just snapped and shouted- “ just take the cunting quiche, Patricia”

it’s all kicked off and I have a HR meeting tomorrow regarding my foul language!!!!

You didn’t call her a cunt, you called the quiche a cunt. You were provoked.

You should have just walked away and said - tell me what you've decided I should take. Very unprofessional to swear at someone no matter how much of an irritating twat they are. I would just apologise and just say that this person kept on and on at you when you just wanted to leave the situation, but you apologise profusely for losing your cool. Then I would speak to PITA's line manager and ask them to have a word about not talking over people, though obviously be contrite and recognise your own poor behaviour. normally would speak to the person directly but if she's already gone to HR she will go again and say you're bullying her if you confront her.

Tbh I can’t see how this could have escalated to you being reasonable in snapping like that and using that sort of language, so I think YABU here and you should be preparing to apologise for your behaviour.

Its a quiche and you said you didn’t care about it, so why get so annoyed?

At the end of the gathering there was one whole quiche left unopened.we agreed that we’d just share out the untouched food

Your words. So you knew the agreement. So when you said you’d take back the quiche, why didn’t you just wait and see what other people wanted to do? Or if you really didn’t want the discussion just say “I don’t want anything thanks, you guys share as you see fit” and leave. Or when the agreement was made you could have suggested people just take back what they brought if it wasn’t eaten. Yes it’s a bit petty to have even happened but in all fairness I can’t see why Patricia is being seen as unreasonable when she was trying to facilitate the team agreement?

Well you have just provided me with the catchphrase of the season.
I hope it all goes well with HR. You sound fucking awesome 😎

I’m not surprised you have a meeting with HR.

How very dare you… some of us M&S shoppers are a bit sweary AND posh 🤣 My OH certainly is

”take the cunting quiche Patricia” made me laugh

She’s been tolerating Patricia’s behaviour all year, and the quiche incident was just the final cheese straw

Yes.

It's absolutely hilarious. You'll probably be asked to apologise and you need to suck it up, but it is very funny.

I hope this is true, but generally if I take something in and its not eaten, I take it back home again

You showed admirable restraint in not shoving the quiche into her face custard-pie style. They probably all wish they’d done it themselves. You’re probably up for promotion.

Fucking hilarious!

What was annoying Patricia’s immediate reaction to cunting quiche?

Was she upset/shocked/angry???

Think you need to go to your HR meeting, grovel and creep and be 100 shades of apologetic, citing Christmas stress.

Just leave the fact that Patricia is a pleasure sump well out of it and you should get away with a warning.

It was your quiche, you bought it. Why was she making an issue of something you paid for! Shame it wasn’t open and you could have pie’d her with it. Then she really would something to complain to HR about . There is always that be who thinks they should home what everyone else brings

Is that you Patricia?

Haha that's actually brilliant. I bet people are secretly applauding you if she's a PITA usually.

Just apologise to HR and Patricia, say you snapped because you were stressed and move on. She's clearly an annoying PITA x

😂😂😂Fucking love you OP 😂

Seems more like a ‘what I wish I could have said, wouldn’t it have been funny’.

If you genuinely said that then you are way out of line. I swear a lot but wouldn’t to someone I didn’t know well at work, let alone saying cunt. It wasn’t even a situation that called for it.

Cunting

If I were you, I'd say to HR something along the lines that in this instance, yes, swearing possibly was not a great choice of words, but this was the culmination of years of Patricia being difficult.

If you bought four fucking, cunting, bastard quiches, you almost certainly spent more than most people.

it’s fair game to take back what you brought because you either over catered that item or people don’t like mackerel and brown sauce quiches and you do.

You are a exemplar of HR.

I would do the exact opposite. I'd point out that nobody would have said the word cunt to Patricia if she could just stop being such a cunt all the time.
Patricia caused to problem, OP didn't. You can only push people so much until they snap

Fuck off Patricia 😂

What a snowflake.. Did she visible crumble like the cunting quiche?
She's a grown up. Surely she isn't scarred for life?