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

[BornInSydneyy]

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.

Is he poor ?

Why is it so hard to pull someone up for this kind of behaviour? Most of us struggle to, even if it annoys us, I’m not sure why though. Freeloaders obviously play on this, they know most people will say nothing and, in all likelihood they’ll get away with it.

Yes - not only cheeky but also bad behaviour.

If he got 4 massive platefuls, there must have been an awful lot of excess food.

....and dishonest.

Did you run out of food, or was there enough for everyone?

We had a buffet at work on Wednesday. It was an everyone bring a dish kind of buffet not contribute cash. Some people brought packaged sausage rolls, some baked brownies. Everyone just took their share into the shared eating room though when they came in on the morning so you didn’t really know what people had brought in except for people asking who made the delicious brownies, homemade pastries etc.

There is one man who we work with who is genuinely hard up due to paying high maintenance costs despite having his kids most of the time and being left with a high mortgage after divorce. We can always tell how he’s doing financially by what he eats for his lunch. McDonald’s or a chippy just the once after payday then the packed lunches get progressively worse as the days go on so he’s sometimes bringing jam and marge sandwiches at the end of the month. People will often bring him back a pasty or extra bought sandwich when they go out and pretend they’d bought too many.

I don’t know if or what he brought on Wednesday but I don’t really care. He enjoyed huge platefuls of food and took some home as well rather than waste food.

He is a genuine case of the working poor but your buffet bloke was just a CF and I would have asked him for the money definitely.

We had a Jacob's join on Wednesday lunchtime. One lady " forgot" the cake she had agreed to bring. She was up trying to fill her plate while we were still putting the food out. When we said we are not ready yet she said " oh this will do.me for now" she was soon back for a refill. When we pass sweets around she always says "oh I'm going to be greedy " and takes a handful. She admits she takes some home for her husband!

Next year if a similar situation occurs with the same person and you are absolutely sure they haven't paid walk over to them hold out your hand and say "Mr Cockwomble, how nice to see you again. The contribution to the buffet is £X."
Or you could just give him everything in your purse and offer to shine his shoes while he eats. See how you feel on the day.

Francis, are you OP? You seem to feel awfully strong about this. OP didn't say he took 4 massive platefuls away in a single trip at the very start and not go back. I can't actually find a pic of someone carrying 4 heaped up platefuls, not without a tray, anyway, only gourmet style presentation ones like this.

I had a colleague like this. He never brought anything for our pot luck shared lunch but would hoover up the leftovers at the end and take them home for his family's dinner that night.

We also had a colleague whose baby was stillborn. We had a collection in the office for flowers for her and her husband - the "free lunch CF" above put 2p in my hand as his contribution. I laughed, thinking he was joking but no. I handed him the 2p back and told him he was lucky I wasn't ramming it up his arse. I told him he was a disgraceful individual and never spoke to him again, kept it to professional dialogue only.

I really, really hate mean people. This guy was the recipient of a few huge inheritances which he boasted about in the office and had a massive house (and two of the worst behaved kids I've ever met in my life! 😃)

Weezol

You're the one with right initials, FC.
Agree with you about pointless conjecture!

Should of said something op people like that get away with it because nobody speaks up it's like when people queue jump