to cancel my own leaving lunch

[Christelle2207]

Sorry, on reflection more of a WWYD.
I leave for mat leave on Friday. I was told lunch would be organised for me but it wasn't and clearly with quite a large group (10ish) someone would need to organise something so I let everyone know the day and to let me know if any suggestions (there were none) then consulted with a colleague and booked somewhere and let them know. Now I'm getting all kinds of complaints about ooh what about x instead and I don't like y because you can't park there easily etc. TBH this was inevitable anyway, we rarely go out as an office anyway because of places to go and rarely being able to agree.
They've piped down for now but I now know there will almost certainly be arguments just before the lunch (on thursday) and I'll be put under pressure to cancel/move (Like 10 people can just wander in anywhere and expect a table??!). I just can't deal with the responsibility of people not being happy (not to mention the embarrassment of having to call booked restaurant to cancel a table for 10 ten minutes before we arrive), obviously being 37 weeks pg and hormonal doesn't help and tbh I really don't see why I should be organising it anyway.
Should I
a. just cancel the booking and say yes it would be nice to go out but I don't want to be responsible for people being unhappy so please can someone else just sort it out according to the general consensus on where to go (this runs the risk of it not happening at all).
b. stick to my guns and say I didn't get any suggestions when I asked, it's my lunch, so we're going there. End of.
c. cancel it completely and risk coming across like a complete misery guts?

Have an office picnic.
That way everyone won't spoil it by complaining, and you don't have to organise it any more.
Can't believe the cheek of having to organise your own lunch!

Best of luck with the heat, and hope everything goes fabulously for you and your babe.

Personally I think the Office Events Organiser should be a paid position, the amount of flack they get!

I think the ishoo is almost the blurring of 'boundaries'. Normally, you party with or dine with your friends, people you've 'selected' because they're not complete tits, who you'd enjoy spending time with; but the Office Do looks, sounds and feels like a party or dinner out wiv mates, but isn't, it's with a bunch of people who you're with purely because you share the same work environment from 9-5, 45 weeks a year.

I mean, mates can be bad enough but I've learned to check my emails 10 minutes before leaving home for any work-related 'social' to tell the restaurateurs, as I arrive, they can reduce our 'number' by usually at least 20%, so slack are folks! You wonder if some ever actually socialise with anybody at all!

FWIW, I always 'go with the flow'. If I'm not organising something, or haven't meaningfully contributed to the planning, I happily put up with what is organised and I don't complain. If I hear anyone in the staffroom whingeing about A Plan someone else is pulling together, I loudly and readily suggest they organise it next time! But I am old and bossy.

Go Plan B and congrats re your forthcoming event!

Probably sorted by now, but if anyone moans today I' would go all PA and say "oh, you should have told me you wanted to organise it. That would have been lovely, and to be honest I could have done without the hassle in my last week. Never mind, you can always plan the Christmas do instead."

In my experience the people most likely to moan about a chosen venue are also the people most likely to sit on their arse and let other people do all the organising. It's impossible to keep everyone in work happy anyway. There's always some fussy eater who looks suspiciously at anything more adventurous than chicken and chips and someone who won't eat chinese and someone who doesn't drink wine and wants to go somewhere that serves beer as well etc etc etc etc etc and bloody etc.
Hope the lunch went well and good luck with the new baby.