Office ‘shared’ food. Would you say anything?

[KittyVonCatsworth]

We’re a really small team, 10 of us in the office. There’s a table where we all often bring treats in biscuits, fruit, cheese etc for us to help ourselves. However, there’s always the same guy that just trounces the food! He does occasionally bring in a packet of biscuits but e.g I bought in a packet of ginger cookies, teacakes and some chocolate bars. About 30 snacks/treats in total which could’ve easily lasted 2/3 days but he just demolished them! The same with the fruit today; instead of one satsuma he’s had 5! As well as grapes and bananas and 3 mince pies. All before lunchtime.

I know it seems a bit of a non issue but I just find it greedy and it really puts me off bringing in treats for the rest of the team. I’m normally very abrupt and direct but I don’t want to embarrass him or the rest of the team or come across as mean. It’s been mentioned by others in the team too.

Would you say anything and if so, how would you say ‘stop being a woofer’ in a nice way!

Bloody hell, glad I don’t work in an office like this. I wouldn’t want to contribute as I’m fat enough as it is, so I’d be immediately unpopular but I really struggle not to eat free to share junk food lying in front of me. I can manage not to buy the stuff in the first place though. Don’t know why there are office cultures like this, it’s the stuff of nightmares. It might be greedy of me/bloke in your office, but maybe he struggles not to. Feel a little bit sorry for him.

Can stand the taste if lurpak but that’s missing the point

Put a note up by the food asking everyone to be respectful of only helping themselves to one or two items so everyone gets a share of the goodies

"You need to contribute more regularly, because you eat double what anyone else does."

Make an office rota so he has to bring in. Easily solved.

Make a spreadsheet of who eats what. And produce a pie chart (PIE) showing the numbers.

Ooh, no, actually, bring in a flip chart and draw up a scoreboard. Every time he takes something else, get up and add it to the ‘Food Consumed Tally’ next to his name. Don’t say anything, just exude disappointment from every pore.

I am dreading having to go back to working in an office. #workingfromhomeforlife

But christ - one wonders why the UK has an obesity problem

We're not toddlers, we can cope with 3 meals a day and maybe some fruit.

Place a note on the table saying "for SHARING" though with people like that he'll probably not take the hint!

Lostin makes a very good point that lots of people struggle with their weight and have no will power around food. For those people they may spend all day every day feeling miserable with all the food on display and then beat themselves up for caving in.

I worked for a hellish fat bitch who used to bully people all week and then seek to reward us on Friday afternoons with tubs of M&S 3-2 millionaires shortcake or cornflake cakes and some cheap sparkling wine all because she wanted to scoff if and normalise her vile behaviour by making others partake in her weird ritual that was all claimed back on expenses.

I've always worked in offices or desks of between two and 10 people and while some people try to impose it, I have always resented the idea that I have to bring in snacks for my colleagues so we can pretend to be friends rather than people who work together and if I don't bring them in I'm not contributing to the team spirit.

I'd just stop the whole thing all together.
It sounds like he's treating it like a chimps tea party!!
Just use the money to treat yourselves to coffee/ cake instead.

I'd stop bringing anything in too

I got to work at 6.30 one morning and management brought a box of 100 chocolate bars and put them in the staff room.

I didn't take one as I was going to get one on my break. I went on break at 11am and they'd all gone. literally a box full of empty wrappers. Wasn't a busy day either, there were only 7 staff working on the ground floor and 9 on the top floor.

Colleague also brought a large 2 tier birthday cake in for everyone. Brought it in at 8.30 and by 10, it was all gone! Nobody working on the top floor had any as we didn't know she'd brought it in - She didn't even have any!

Nobody brought anything in after that!

It does sound like an eating disorder.

I hate blooming food constantly arriving in the kitchen at work. My mind seems to think 'free food' and then all my good ideas are gone. I put on 2 kilos in my last job from just this scenario.
Give up the game!

Bring in exactly the right number of a treat (say 10 mince pies).

Put a note next to the mince pies saying there is one each.

Send out an email to alert people to the fact that you've there's enough for one mince pie each so please don't scoff more than your fair share.

Talk to other colleagues in advance. If they don't get a mince pie, get them to follow up your email with an 'oi, who ate my mince pie?'

If Mr Greedy takes more than one, there will hopefully be several shared emails all saying 'who ate my pie' to which the end result will be 3 people that say they have had theirs, then 6 others that haven't and you then get to say Oi Mr Greedy, it's really not on, the email and the note clearly stated that there was one each, why have you eaten 6 more than your own one? To which he replies that he didn't notice or that he thought that as they hadn't been eaten they weren't wanted or whatever - at which case you can bollock him and point out how greedy he is and that he is taking from others.

I’m starting to worry that the CF is my husband.... 😱

I used to work with someone that did this. He'd take a whole bag of doughnuts home with him and never contribute. I mentioned it in a team meeting once (no names!) And he went mad. Called me a cunt and didn't talk to me for 6 months. We eventually just hid food in a locker that we didn't tell him about and when he was on annual leave we'd have a cake day/week where we'd go mad. Apparently he had a heart attack a little while ago and seems to now only eat nuts and seeds. So cakes appear to be safe for now.

Mrsmrsmrs it’s mrmrmr but we didn’t like to say 😋 😋 😋. 😂 😂 😂

I think I would of said something quite passively aggressive by now.

I dont see how its a problem. We also bring in shared treats and i dont keep tabs on who eats what x

He isn't sharing though, he's taking only.

I used to work insn office with a sharing area, people brought cakes etc

One Saturday on the sharing area was a tin and a muffin, I had this at tea break - surprised that anything was left tbh

The muffin was delicious 😋

After tea break my manger went for his break, when he returned... he asked if I’d eaten the muffin?

It was his from his new wife and he’d popped it down on the side and forgotten

He did forgive me after many years

Jeez, I'd die. I can't cope with being around food all the time. I struggle so much with control, I'd eat myself to death if it was sitting out there near my work station.

I have this in my office. We don’t bring food in that often, however it was a managers birthday and he brought in some Krispy kreme doughnuts, he doesn’t really do sweet food but these are his fave and there was enough for 1 each. This guy ate 6... which is the norm when people bring food in, he always eats loads but never ever brings in his own.No one said anything though! I wouldn’t even know where to start with opening a conversation to tell him not to do this, so I understand how your feeling op. We just don’t really bring food in to share because it ends up just benefitting one person.

I love some of your suggestions 😂😂

You’re right, it isn’t the healthiest of tables but we’re all adults and 99% of us are able to regulate and make choices about what we eat. I think reducing the snack table is a good idea, but there’s no way we’d be giving up cheese club.

The guy who sits next to me took him into the meeting room and politely told him to stop porking. He took it as a bit of a joke by all accounts. I was away having coffee and cake with the client at the time 😂

We have someone like that in our office, we just hide it in the drawer

I was sitting opposite him so there was one basket of chips for the two of us. He proceeded to help himself to 3/4 of the basket

My fork would have been in his hand at some point.

HAVE YOU EATEN ALL THE BISCUITS AGAIN YOU FAT BASTARD? should highlight the issue.