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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think you should feel embarrassed eating food you’ve not paid for?

119 replies

BornInSydneyy · 19/12/2017 14:08

Everyone chipped in the same amount of money to get a buffet at work. You had the option to not participate.

One of the people who didn’t pay came up and helped himself to massive plate fulls at least 4 times.

OP posts:
alibongo5 · 19/12/2017 23:57

I worked somewhere where we had a bring and share type spread every Christmas. It was lovely but we gradually realised that people were taking the piss and the (usually) women were bringing in home cooked dishes and the (usually) young, male (and better paid) others were bringing in zilch. Not even a packet of peanuts (there was a shop round the corner they could have used). So one year we all just decided not to to bother. And no-one commented. All a bit sad really, showed us how much they thought of it.

Hippywannabe · 20/12/2017 08:27

Silvery Surfer,I was just coming on to say that I hoped this wasn't my DH. He is high functioning autistic and it was his buffet yesterday. I have been poorly culminating in emergency surgery last week which he found very hard to cope with (doctors, surgeoens, me not being at home, things going wrong) and due to the upheaval didn't make a contribution. When he came home yesterday, he said he had got out his packed lunch and explained to the girls on his table that he wouldn't eat the buffet as he hadn't contributed. After much cajoling by said table, he was told firmly that they were a team and he should eat the buffet. I am not sure what made him happier, being told he was part of the team or the platefuls of food he ate.
Isn't possible that something similar happened to OP, man explained quietly why he hadn't contributed and was told to dig in anyway

TheVoiceOfTreason · 20/12/2017 09:05

YANBU, it's really bloody rude. Someone should tell him to pay, of buy some nice communal chocolates or biscuits for everyone instead.

I also hate it when people take and eat food they didn't order in a pub that gets delivered to their table in error, which happened to me last Thursday (my nachos got delivered to the wrong table, they nicked them, and then when I yelled at them they all looked really sheepish and clearly knew they'd been caught out. Five minutes later they then back peddled and tried to pretend it was an accident and that they all assumed someone on the table must have ordered them! Bollocks, you're a bunch of freeloading chavs who nicked a pregnant woman's nachos and then you got caught out, just admit it!!!)

ReanimatedSGB · 20/12/2017 09:13

I think desperation can make people quite brazen. Don't know what line of work OP is in or what the department's wages are like, but it's certainly not impossible for an employed person to be too broke to buy food and therefore sieze the opportunity to fill up when it presents itself.

dustarr73 · 20/12/2017 09:15

Why do people try and excuse c.f..Hes autism, poor or he's about to drop from hi.No,No,No he's a c.f. first and foremost.

LoverOfCake · 20/12/2017 09:25

Oh all these excuses are just bollocks really though aren't they. Let's be honest there are very few people who are so starved that four platefuls of food in an office environment are going to be their last meal for who knows how long. presumably the office staff would have noticed by his emaciation that he never eats and that he is so underpaid and so poverty stricken that he couldn't afford to contribute a couple of quid to the buffet but instead had to eat four platefuls because he doesn't know where his next meal is coming from? Get real. He's a cheaky fucker.

The worst ones I've ever seen though are the ones at Disneyland Paris hotel where people took food from the breakfast buffet every morning to take for lunch so they didn't have to pay for food in the park.

TheDowagerCuntess · 20/12/2017 09:31

If it walks like a CF, and talks like a CF...

CoffeeWithMyOxygen · 20/12/2017 09:47

Some of these CF types genuinely just don’t care though. I worked in an office in a uni once and we often brought in cakes or biscuits to share - just the office staff. One academic was a greedy CF and every single time he’d help himself to a huge wedge of cake. He was on at least 3 times our salaries and never contributed as much as s packet of digestives. The thing is, I did call him on - told him politely but firmly (and later less politely and even more firmly!) that the food was for the admin staff and that it was very rude that he kept stealing multiple portions of it for himself without chipping in (think three slices of a homemade cake throughout the day, ignoring the fact that the people I’d made it for hadn’t had any yet). All that happened was that he’d wait for me to pop out and then go and help himself anyway. I left that job years ago fortunately, and all I remember about that man is his greed.

ReanimatedSGB · 20/12/2017 10:00

Maybe the people suggesting explanations other than greed or selfishness do so because they know someone who is either poor or has difficulty with social skills - or they have been in a similar position themselves.

Lucylululu · 20/12/2017 10:08

Everyone on Mumsnet really needs to chill out and stop being so aggressive and confrontational. Life is literally too short to get this wound up about such small things. Just relax Confused

StepAwayFromGoogle · 20/12/2017 10:09

Surely it's unlikely that in an office full of paid employees one is so poor they can't afford to eat? It's not as though Mr. 4 platefuls wandered in off the street. It sounds like cheeky f*ckery to me. Assuming the OP would know if her colleague had autism.

StepAwayFromGoogle · 20/12/2017 10:11

Do agree with you @Lucylululu but I love a good debate!

FrancisCrawford · 20/12/2017 16:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Maireadplastic · 20/12/2017 17:55

Who cares? You all know what kind of person he is.

EastMidsMummy · 20/12/2017 17:59

Honestly, who gives a shit. Yes, he's a cheeky fucker, but he's also a loser. Be generous and king and you are already the winner.

paulabluekitten · 20/12/2017 18:04

Weird isn't it, how people are rude enough cunts to nick stuff they haven't paid for, but everyone is too afraid to be 'rude' enough to call him out on it.

Someone should have said 'YOU haven't paid, do one mate!' and snatched the food off him.

FireCracker2 · 20/12/2017 18:09

probably some one said 'there's going to be loads left over , help yourself'. There always seems to be masses left over after a buffet and noblody likes waste, or sitting eating whilst colleagues look hungrily on!.

Jojofjo44 · 20/12/2017 18:21

He's a CF and he doesn't care. These situations need to be confronted at the time nor bemoaned about afterwards. He'll still do it though.
Anyway, I'm more concerned about what was on the buffet. Any cheese and pineapples? Vollyvonts? Sausages on sticks? Diagram of the set up?

ShellyBoobs · 20/12/2017 18:36

I see the Excusers are on here already - poor man is close to starvation, may not have eaten all day, struggling, poor - we just need mental health and possible autism suggested for MN bingo full house.

Yep. Calling a CF a CF doesn’t seem to be allowed here anymore.

We had a not too dissimilar CF roll up and help herself to a team she hadn’t contributed to at a place I previously worked at.

There was no one in the office who would be earning

ShellyBoobs · 20/12/2017 18:37

*team buffet

Original poster
BornInSydneyy · 20/12/2017 18:53

probably some one said 'there's going to be loads left over , help yourself'. There always seems to be masses left over after a buffet and noblody likes waste, or sitting eating whilst colleagues look hungrily on!.

No he was one of the first up

OP posts:
Cheekyandfreaky · 20/12/2017 19:19

Why didn’t you say anything OP? I would have said ‘I thought you didn’t want to join in?’ But then I really don’t care about embarrassing someone who is taking the piss.

Coyoacan · 20/12/2017 19:40

Mmm, you think that is bad, we have a major bill to repair our building after the Mexico City earthquake to make it safe to withstand the next one and we have other flat owners cynically announcing that they just aren't going to pay.

Cromwell1536 · 20/12/2017 20:26

But perhaps those who had paid for their share of the buffet had scrimped and saved for it and gone hungry to be able to afford it.

I'm sorry, but no-one in work does this in order to pay for 10 Sainsbury's sausage rolls/prawn tempura/chicken vol-au-vent at £2.20 a shot. You just fucking don't scrimp, save and go hungry for £2 that would permit you to participate without shame in a fucking shared buffet. That colleague who stuffed his face without contributing was a cheeky fucker. You know it, I know it, he knows it and all this ' What about-ery' is just so much obfuscating CRAP.

SparklyMagpie · 20/12/2017 20:42

So OP I'm taking it nobody said fuck all?

So why rant about it on here?