AIBU to still be really annoyed by this absolute rankness

[recreationalcalpol]

My colleague kindly offered to go out to get me lunch today. He’s very big on environmental protection, for which I applaud him. However, he sometimes takes it a bit far IMO e.g. he washes out the cardboard food container that his lunch is served in and takes it back to the shop to use again. I’m a bit of a neat freak and I find this absolutely disgusting (how do you clean cardboard properly in a work sink with lukewarm water), but it’s his life and he’s hurting no one, so whatever.

Anyway, today I specifically asked him to get me a fresh container and not reuse one of his for my lunch. He agreed, and came back with two lunches. I ate most of mine and then he told me that mine was in the reused cardboard container. He hadn’t realised in the shop but did realise when he got back to work but decided not to tell me until after I’d finished eating.

I still feel icky about it now, and told him that he’d behaved in a paternalistic and patriarchal way by imposing his own views on me without my agreement. He got a bit huffy that I was ‘bringing gender into it’ as apparently he’d do the same to a man.

AIBU to think this was rank and to still be a bit annoyed?

It wouldn't bother me in the slightest and I have a vagina.

I always get mushrooms in plastic boxes. Is it a Morrison's salad bar? Those are plastic containers

If it's any comfort, when I worked in a takeaway, I'd have pretended to reuse the old container, but used a new one. There's no way our Environmental Health inspector would have been happy with reusing a cardboard container.

It’s definitely a cardboard box and I know it’s his original one because they fill it in front of you. I think they did chuck away one of his containers before because it was simply too disgusting and he was very proud of this. I actually still feel quite sick

I feel so irritated reading this that I want to shit in the OP's lunchbox to liven things up. Tedious.

serialtester
I actually still feel quite sick don't worry Op that will be psychological. If you think about it, giving your partner a blow job would be more problematic in terms of germ control than a washed box touching your salad.

It is tedious. OP, I'm really surprised you run the risk of buying a takeaway lunch if you're this squeamish. I've worked in restaurants and cafés for much of my adult life, and you perhaps wouldn't want to know what goes on behind the scenes.

Ah I'm sure youll be fine. Maybe get your own lunch in future

“I told him that he’d behaved in a paternalistic and patriarchal way by imposing his own views on me without my agreement.”

You’re an idiot 🤦🏻‍♀️

Did you 'retch', OP . This was definitely slightly questionable hygiene and I'm surprised the shop/café let him do it, but feeling so sick and disgusted at something so minor, to the point of creating a thread to froth on, is a tad extreme.

Buy your own lunch next time if you'refunny about stuff like that. If it's washable card i guess it should be fine. Who knows about the hygiene of so many parts of a meal preparation when you don't do it yourself? Make your own lunch or accept that there is probably something icky about it.

How gross. He did that deliberately despite what he says, what a total knob. I would have felt sick at being told that, there was no need for him to behave like that especially as you had already asked him not to. I hope that's the last time you let him get your lunch. Gross just gross

Next he'll be bringing in home made cake in a previously used container and sharing it round.

Do you use public transport OP? Do you know that other people have travelled on your train before you get on it?

It was either an accident as he says in which case YABU. Or he did it on purpose to prove a point and it worked because you didn't realise until he'd told you. In which case it couldn't have been that dirty.

he’d behaved in a paternalistic and patriarchal way by imposing his own views on me without my agreement. He got a bit huffy that I was ‘bringing gender into it’ as apparently he’d do the same to a man.

YABU to cry gender issues when this is fuck all to do with womens' rights. As it was a mistake, which he should have admitted to you before eating, but didn't/couldn't, who the fuck are you to bring gender politics into it?

Stop using your sex as a tool for special pleading FFS. You make the rest of us look batshit.

worra - no way would a woman have done this!

Oh fuck the fuck off.
Sexism alive & kicking, all while squeaking nonsense about being oppresssed by the patriarchy over a lunch container.

I then told him I’d charge him for lost earnings if I got food poisoning, to which he responded ‘good luck proving causation’ so we’re both dicks

I give in. I have a sneaking admiration for BOTH of you fuckwits now.

If you think about it, giving your partner a blow job would be more problematic in terms of germ control than a washed box touching your salad.

You're talking salad box, not the other kind of box here, eh @SmileyClare?

And how long before his cardboard container becomes too flaccid for purpose?
Oh @SmileyClare. You weren't, were you?

@recreationalcalpol
You're spot on with the patriarchy comments, most people just choose not to see it. He might have made the mistake with a male colleague but I bet he wouldn't have told them after.

To everyone ridiculing the op, can you really not see that men and women are socialised differently and behave differently? Yes maybe not every single man/woman would always do xyz but there's certainly generalisations that are mostly followed

If he had to tell you it was the already used container I don't think it was that bad really.

It’s disgusting, my easily triggered gag reflex would have kicked in! So he’s repeatedly put his fork into the container, then his mouth, then back into the container? I’d definitely puke. And to tell you once you’d eaten is especially horrible of him.

getting - I completely agree - it’s the complete disregard for the boundaries I had already made clear that is the problem here

So he’s repeatedly put his fork into the container, then his mouth, then back into the container?

Could have been worse. Could have been eating with his fingers, which as every card-carrying, dettol-wiping germophobe knows, have probably been in close proximity with his anus that very morning.

Lord save us.

Maybe get your own lunch?