AIBU to refuse to buy a colleague's lunch?

[BadElsa]

Heading out of the office for lunch break and a colleague asks if I can pick up lunch for them. I joked and refused. Feel like a bitch but don’t regret it. It always gets out of hand. The order gets convoluted ie “something with chicken..... except no mayo and I hate avocado and white bread only, oh and a packet of crisps pickled onion flavour if they have it, oh and a cappuccino with soy milk and three sugars” then another colleague says “I can you get me a twix” which means a different shop. By the time you’ve finished your whole lunch break is running errands and you have to juggle 4 lunches and a tray of bloody bespoke coffees! AIBU or is it just rude to expect a colleague to do this?

I’m amazed so many people buy lunch every day. That must cost a fortune!

i worked with someone who said she was popping to shops did anyone want anything. one madbat asked for, and received 20 bottles of water!
i think the person offering was just too shocked to refuse.

I had a colleague once who asked me to go to the cash machine for her, yes seriously. I refused.

I don't mind getting other people lunch occasionally if I'm going to the place anyway. Especially if it's raining or someone is having a bad day. It's a nice thing to do. The expectation that you will do it every day, however, is another matter. I also wouldn't offer if I had an errand to run elsewhere, or just needed headspace.

I am a bit that this is an AIBU. It's such a trivial thing to get worked up over. Either offer, or say no - either is fine, but in the time you spent writing this you could have just got their order!

I was going to Tesco one lunch and asked the team if anyone wanted anything. All declined except one woman, who gave me a list with about 20 things on it. I joked and said 'bloody hell, is this your weekly shop' and the cheeky sod said Yes!

She got told where to go.

Well done for not doing it OP

We are only. SmLl team of bout 10 and the only. Time we are all in together is at team meetings or ytaining days.
Normally some one decides to make breakfast ( or lunch to tea depending on time of day of course) and shouts out to see if anyone else wants something to eat.
Often someone will do a lunch run to Subway, KFC or Mcs but we write down our order and initial it and that gets handed in to the server to keep it easy.
There's also a brew list sellotape to the inside of the door where we keep the cups and mugs,

I am a bit confused that this is an AIBU. It's such a trivial thing to get worked up over

you must be new here! Half of MN wouldn't exist if not for so-called trivial threads. And I notice that despite its triviality you still took the time to post a sneery comment guilty100...

I think on those CF threads we need to start attaching sketches or headshots of those people because I need to see what these people who make such piss taking requests look like!

I was nipping out mid morning for a croissant and offered to treat people to something, meaning a croissant, cookie, muffin etc. One CF wanted a club sandwich, a carton of soup and a banana.

People in my office always offer, and also always offer to make a round of tea. I get that this civility is important to them, and I know I should at least sometimes offer back (Nb I always say no thanks). But the truth is I just want to slide out unnoticed when it is lunchtime. I find the ritual of 'do you want anything', 'no thanks' repeated to six or seven people such a waste of time and energy. I like the break of making my own coffee, but when I make a round all the asking/checking/remembering is a faff, and when people did make my requested drink, 3 times out of 5 it was made with milk, which I don't take - so then I have to either cause offence or let it go cold while I pretend its fine. I am no good at this stuff.

Do you have a set lunch hour?. Why don't you go earlier ?? That way, they might not be so hungry for lunch and not want to ask you for anything or go a bit later, in which case they may already have had lunch and then you don't have the hassle.

I know how you feel, I was in this position myself once. I only offered once or twice as a favour, the favour then became an obligation and then when the time came to actually say "no, I cant today", it was as if I was doing something wrong.

I was always being accused of being a "yes person" but the first time you say "no, I cant", doesn't mean your not a nice/good person, (it can be quite liberating to say "no" now and again) and believe it or not, people do respect someone who says no now and again.

Remember there is a difference between being "nice" and people recognising that and people treating you like a doormat!!

T. XXX

I used to work with someone who would start writing a shopping list, then hand over her card and PIN to whoever it was that was going out

I will offer if I am going somewhere specific but I'll not trot round getting stuff from anywhere/everywhere. I don't often buy so I usually just leave the office with a 'see u in a bit!'

I have one colleague who is very generous with her time and offers to pick people lunch up even if she isn't getting any, and there is one CF who will say 'Oh deidre, would you get me some lunch today? I've got loads to do in town and won't have time!' WTF?

Apologies, I didn't mean that to come over in a sneery way. I just meant that it should be OK for women to say "no" without having to sweat it - it takes up so much time/mental energy. We need to get out of the pattern of needing peer reinforcement for every tiny time we don't do what someone asks - because that's also critical to saying "yes" on our own terms.

Wow! In my old office my desk mate and I would make each other drinks - but it'd just be tea no milk no sugar or splash of milk please that's it. And occasionally if one of us was having a super busy day we'd pick up an egg salad sandwich or ham and cheese for the other person. Happy to do simple things to make someone's life a bit easier.. but I hate this endless customisation of drinks and food etc. I am "fussy" about my own drinks (lactose intolerant) but I'd never impose that on someone else.

I worked with someone once who used to dictate people's lunch hours because she was hungry and wanted them to go get her lunch for her. Daily.
There was always a list and sometimes she wanted them to grab her cigarettes as well.
I used to just leave the room if her usual more accommodating people weren't about and she'd have to go get her own. Usually she didn't bother though. It was just plain laziness!

This is where it ends... Popping out for a coffee.

if you have a few liberal millennials in the office, it's lots of tosspot vegan shit

Oi, I'm a fairlyliberal millennial and I bloody love a Gregg's sausage roll

I used to offer to go and get lunch for my boss, which she loved as it made her feel important, and then use it as an excuse to wander the streets, sit in 2nd hand bookshop, having coffee and fags in the park and be out for at least an hour and a half. It was great.

No one ever wants anything when I pop out, most people are glad to get out the office and go for a walk.

But where I used to work the tea round was huuuuuge! The tea tray got heavier and heavier and it took about half hour and 3 kettle boils to make one tea round. I was glad when I moved teams and quickly asserted that I will be making my own tea and do not need to be in the tea round.

I still remember with fondness our favourite temp, who after a few weeks of battling the drinks order, appeared on a Monday morning with a tray/container thing he'd made that took 9 cups from the machine. He then made us all commit to 1 drink all day, or we were allowed am/pm options. We each had a slot in the tray with our name and drink number (classy machine, I'll have a no 17 please) and there was an am/pm side to the tray.

Whenever anyone felt like a drink, you'd grab the tray, know who wanted what, and that was it. All flaffing and politicking removed from the entire system of hot drinks.

In my 2nd job (I was 18) it was a wanky advertising firm that had no business being quite as wanky as it was (very much at the un-glam end of advertising) and one of my jobs as receptionist was getting the lunches for their Monday meeting.

There were about 14 people in the office, and about 5 or 6 local deli's, and OBVIOUSLY they all wanted things from the different deli's, but to add to it there would be astonishingly irritating stuff like "I want X roll from Deli 1, and salt & vinegar crisps,, but not the crisps from Deli 1 because they only do Tayto, and I want King, so you'll have to get them from Deli 3."

Obv. nobody else would want anything from Deli 3 that day, but because it was massively popular in a busy office area I would still have to queue for 20 mins to order her stupid fucking crisps.

Inevitably I'd get something wrong or something wouldn't be available (bear in mind that 14 people each wanted a drink, a sandwich, crisps and something else from a combination of at least 4 deli's, each with long queues) and I would be called in to the meeting by my utter bitch of a boss to explain why XYZ junior staffer didn't have the Twix she wanted.

Needless to say I got a new job.

wholemeal, salt-free, sugar free bread kissed by free range fucking fairies

😂😂😂

Oh I've had that. It's delicious. I'll only buy it if the fairies are from our local vegan cooperative, mind.

I must have blanked out the money part of it all from my brain.

This was also the job where I was sent to get sugar once, and they only had caster sugar, and I didn't know the difference, so I bought it, only to be called in after the meeting to be told that I had made the company look ridiculous in the eyes of a client by having caster sugar in the sugar bowl instead of granulated.

This was ALSO the job where the boss would come into reception and make a mess ON PURPOSE because having magazines randomly scattered on the coffee table and the table/armchairs crooked/askew made the company seem more casual and welcoming.