Is this normal - bring & make at work

[Ceci03]

So yesterday at work an event was Organised - just for our office. I'd say about 30 people altogether. Everyone was asked to bring in some food some savoury some sweet. I had the idea we were to make something but bought some dips and breadsticks in the end. Anyway it was to start at 1 and run til 230. At about 1230 the 2 girls from reception started laying out all the food on a table in the corner of the office. Pretty large open plan office. Everyone was sat at their computers. Eventually around 110 my colleague beside me said he was going up to get some food. A little queue formed. I wandered over to a girl I'm friendly with and said shall we get some food but she said she was busy. So I went up by myself and got a few bits on my plate. I hovered round my friends desk but she was still
Busy so I went back to my desk. Everyone did that. Got their food and went back to their desks and continued working on their computers. It just felt really weird . I thought we would chat and pull some chairs over . But no. I thought it a bit miserable. And my 2 managers worked from home. After saying we all had to come in for this event. Am raging and trying not to be.

You just described my worst fear: homemade food that’s been brought to a second location.

I’m afraid I would projectile vomit if I worked where you do. Someone encouraged everyone to do a ‘bake off’ contest at work and I almost had to go into hiding.

I work for a really generous company. Every so often they get food for us and we chat in the kitchen or boardroom while eating it. We can slip off to our desks when we want too.

I can’t stand the hypocritical, ‘one rule for you and other for me’ managers though. People shouldn’t set rules for others if they aren’t prepared to follow them themselves IMO.

This sounds like a terrible place to work with very poor management. The fact that people who work together cannot be bothered to spend 30-40 mins to have a chat over food, is just sad and depressing. There is an obvious lack of leadership and the managers do not want to create a team spirit and wfh when they make everybody else going to the office and bring food. Very dysfunctional. I would look for another company. Life is too short to spend 1/3 of your day (or half of your waking day) with such sad and depressing people.

I'd be very annoyed I was made to come into the office for 'organised fun' but the managers WFH.

For one event just before Christmas, when people have specifically been asked to come in and bring food? I don't think I've ever worked somewhere that couldn't stop for something like a Christmas lunch

I agree, this is weird! The managers told you all you had to come in for this event, but then didn’t show up themselves? That’s really poor from them, they should’ve come and encouraged everyone to step away from their desks for a bit. I appreciate you may have the kind of job where work is continuous and people can’t all take breaks together, but if that’s the case, then why bother with the buffet in the first place? Saying that, I suppose it’s a nice gesture like “at least you can eat some nice food whilst you work!” but I do think the whole thing does sound a bit of a shame, it was something you were looking forward too and it just fell flat. I probably wouldn’t be “raging” over it though, more just a “bit miffed”! At least you only took breadsticks and dips and didn’t go to loads of effort to make something!

If that's the worst thing that happened to you last week then you're pretty lucky. But I think being in a rage about it suggests you might need some anger management work.

We used to do this when I worked in a call centre in 1986! completely normal IMO. DD works for the NHS, same for her 2023.

You set up your table, people dib in and out during a normal working day. End of the day, lots of food left on the table which some poor sod has to clear up and dispose of.

I work for major supermarket chain, we are lucky to get one opened tin of sweets between 80 of us, we work on dot.com where every single second is timed, so we have to try and grab one quick as we past, God forbid we stop to try and take wrapper off.

We have these quite often but because our lunches are staggered we don't eat together so people dip in and out and just take something when they're on their break or lunch

FFS

Ummmm an emergency service control room can’t just stop, we LOVE a buffet and just eat at our desks. I work with some fantastic feeders 😂

As a manager i find it pretty poor behaviour for management not to attend an event if based in the office. They should’ve been there to lead it.

Same to you!

I don’t think it’s that weird but again I don’t work in an environment where we can down tools and stop for an hour 🤣

Over the festive period we’ll often all bring buffet food in, set a table up and pick as we go!

Everyone saying she’s mad to be raging - if it was an office day for her then a bit disappointed or a bit meh what’s the point is a reasonable reaction but if she’d usually have been wfh that day I think raging is fair enough - travelling time / cost , getting your face on etc when the managers requested ir but didn’t turn up and there was nothing social about it . I do not miss my office days !

Doesn't sound great but not worth raging about

Oh behave and stop with the passive aggressive nonsense.

OP has already explained that in Ireland we use the term 'raging' to mean irritated and annoyed. I was 'raging' the bus was 20 minutes late etc.

It sounds like a rubbish affair OP and I wouldn't bother coming in for it next year.

I enjoyed watching you in Little Britain.

We do this but have our lunch break together, well we did, and then everyone started having different times so we did it straight after work instead. It did mean lots didn’t stay but that’s up to them, it wasn’t compulsory and the ones that stayed had a lovely time.

Yeah it sounds boring. But if youre raging over that think you need to seek some help

Seriously? Don't you even have a lunch break? I've worked in one place where the lunch break was half an hour, everywhere else it was an hour, plus morning and afternoon tea breaks.

@ithinkthatmaybeimdreaming it might be like where I work - lunches are staggered so while we get them, we never have one together. My lunch might be at 11.15 or 2pm
So it's not a stop and eat together type thing

Lots of places have staggered lunch hours - those on lunch at the same time eat together surely?

@ithinkthatmaybeimdreaming good point - we don't have overlap so I didn't think of that!