AIBU: It’s a vegan one

[FiveMetresUp]

We have a work event scheduled for just before Christmas. All staff are invited along with their spouses and children. There will be food, Santa, games, etc. It sounds like a lot of fun. I am quite new to the company. I asked the organizer if our vegan family would be catered for and she said she “would try”. AIBU to be a little annoyed at this?

We have been vegan for a long time. I don’t talk about it unless it comes up in conversation or, as is the case here, we have been invited to an event. We are always grateful when people cater to us, but most of the time they don’t bother.

AIBU to just not go? It would be a shame because it sounds like a lot of fun, but if the organizer can’t be bothered to lay on a few bits of vegan food, then I don’t feel that my family and I are welcome.

AIBU?

I think you are being really awkward and deliberately difficult. Saying you won’t be able to go and “what message does it give your not-small kids”. Not going sends more of a message to them if they don’t get their own way!

People always find something to moan about hence why lots of places don’t try to do nice things anymore.

As a vegan, I would ask her if I am going to be catered for or if I need to bring food. You can’t mess around with kids not eating at parties.

I would bring something anyway. The trouble I always have at these events is that the vegan food is often the freshest and most appetising or sometimes unusual looking so everyone wants to try it and vegans barely get a look in. I now always bring something to these things to make sure the kids can eat.

EDIT: just saw your reply about dietary requirements and think you are being unreasonable not to have brought it up at that point if you know your company doesn’t automatically cover vegans.

So she DID ask and you didn't reply? That's on you and really quite strange. Of course being vegan is a dietary requirement! A requirement of your diet is that it needs to be vegan!

That if you choose to restrict your diet, sometimes you’ll need to make your own arrangements?

If the caterer she's already booked can't provide anything (unlikely) then she should source vegan options from elsewhere.
Really she should have asked everyone for dietary requirements before booking a caterer.

Its a bit 'look at me' tho isnt it? Vegans are always banging on about being Vegan.

Yes, that’s ridiculous. She hasn’t got to make the food herself - the entire point of external caterers is that it takes the hassle away! Is she really that good an office manager if she can’t tell a caterer “We’ve got X number of vegans coming”.

The only thing YABU about is not wanting to make a fuss. Sometimes you have no option. This woman seems like the type who’d roll her eyes and act like you were making life difficult whatever you did, so you may as well try to get something out of it.

Not at all..how is it look at me?
. And in my experience vegans don't go on about being vegan but others ask them about it, don't like the answers and then strop that the vegans are going on about it!

And in my experience vegans don't go on about being vegan but others ask them about it, don't like the answers and then strop that the vegans are going on about it!
This is largely my experience too.

Some of these replies are absolutely batshit! I'm a big meat eater, so not coming at this from a veggie / vegan angle but I did work in corporate events for 20 years.

Being vegan is most definitely a dietary requirement and should be catered for! You absolutely should not have to "eat before you go" or "take your own food", outrageous to suggest either. And her response of "I'll try" is totally out of order. I honestly wouldn't see asking for vegan options as making a fuss.

And this response further up the thread - “I’ll try” is colloquial English for “I don’t yet know what the outcome will be, but I’m going to see what I can do.” - is a load of rubbish! If someone has dietary requirements, you cater for them, you don't "try". It's not exactly difficult, even if you're preparing the food yourself, which she isn't. I've seen hundreds of dietary requests that are much stranger than "vegan" and we've always catered.

How long after the invite asking for dietary requirements did you ask her about vegan options?

Its all 'look at me, I cant eat the food you provided, so I'm bringing my own special plate'

No - one generally says to a person 'Are you Vegan'? do they? No, they normally tell you within 5 minutes of meeting you. 😘

No what actually happens is in a social situation you order your food...then 100% always you are asked about it. That's how the conversation starts and it ears you down believe. Just want to eat my food and have general chat

Well why didn't you say then? It is a dietry requirement. Every vegetarian, coeliac, gluten free ,vegan I know pipes up at this point. She may well have sorted the menu now so hence the ' I'll try " You really do need to speak up for yourself. There is really no grounds for you to complain here.

Children don't ask to be omnivores either. What's your point?

The OP is afraid of making a fuss. I think I understand that, as a vegan you do not want to be seen as making a fuss, we already have algorithms feeding people's minds with the 'fact' that we do that. Wouldn't it be more 'look at me!' to insist on being catered for, or make the night all about the fact that you weren't catered for? Vegans just want to have non-animal things available to eat without having to make a fuss.

I have met zero vegans who 'bang on about' being vegan. I am 44 years old and never.

I have met people who eat animals and want to 'bang on' to me about how their way is the right way once they DO learn that I am vegan, 1000s of times. I have to mention it sometimes (when picking a restaurant involving newer friends, if invited for a dinner party, situations like the OPs, if someone noticed what I am eating and asks about it etc etc) and then I am told off about it, asked how I get my protein (by someone who up until that point probably never considered how much protein a human needs ever in his entire life) told how long humans have been eating other animals and 'what would we do with all the cows' etc etc. That happens a lot . If I respond with any counterfactual, even just hard science, I am ridiculed, told to stop preaching etc etc.

It happened to me a few weeks ago at a family gathering. I was wearing a dress. I body build. My biceps and traps are developed, my legs look like a rugby player's. Distant family member began preaching about how wrong veganism is under the guise of being concerned about my nutritional intake, and how I must feel weak etc... I stood there thinking that you just couldn't make this up.And despite the beer belly they had I could probably bench press them.

Veganism is also classified as an Philosophical Belief under the equality act. For example, I worked somewhere where part of the uniform was a leather belt and was 'told off' multiple times for not wearing it, until I advised management to look into it and they found that indeed, they were not permitted to enforce me to wear it nor sanction me for not doing.

OPs workplace should be providing for her beleif.

I know loads of vegans who bang on about it - but a small minority in reality. Those who shout loudest are the ones heard and all that.

DD has just turned vegetarian and would like to move towards vegan but is really put off by vegans on social media - which of course distills the very worst!!

so I understand why vegans have a reputation but over the last 10 years I think veganism has become more mainstream so I don’t think stating it as a dietary requirement is weird at all.

I also understand that the previous instant OP mentioned was a different employer? If so, please don’t let that make you hesitate at the new employer. In my department 60% of us have a dietary requirement of some sort!

Eating meat is rather more normal than being vegan.

Hahahaha!!! That's all you can come up with? Normal? Oh dear.

But children do not choose it any more than they choose to be vegan.

They also do not know where it comes from when they accept it as normal.

It would make more sense to wait to see if an older child wants to become involved in something that involves the systematic torture and deaths of other animals (especially as many children love animals) rather than put our own choice to eat animals onto a child who doesn't understand it, then allow them to decline it as they get older. 'I know Timmy eats ham, you can if you want to, but you understand that ham comes from.....'

A lot of awful things occur to animals we eat and kill and exploit for their bodily secretions. Children do not know this when they choose to be part of it. It's a lack of given choice, rather than a choice. They are not informed of what meat IS.

I do not harbour any ill toward my parents regarding their choice to feed me animals, but overall I wish I hadn't ever consumed them. I stopped aged 11 and they didn't feed me, lived off jam and bread until I learned to cook.

Quite.

War is pretty normal as well.

I will quote Morticia Adams here 'What is normal to the spider is chaos for the fly'. Not very relevant but it kind of is. 'Normal' does not exist in what the reality of evolution of humanity and society is.

Our 'norms' change over time. It is currently normal to factory farm animals which contributes hugely to deforestation, uses more water than the clothing industry and AI (which everyone is ENRAGED about) and abuses and brutally kills animals with the same intellectual level as a 3 year old. For what, other than tastebuds? We remain savages and always will until we begin to disagree with violence and exploitation.

The information age has meant far more people are deciding that this should not longer BE normal.

This is how every change has ever happened. In the great scheme of things, it wasn't so long ago that we thought people of certain races were fine to enslave. Women belonged in kitchens and weren't intelligent enough to study. Children could be sent home injured by a teacher for not writing with their left hand. ...

This is precisely why taking our own food is a bad idea.

If it is a buffet then no one will notice or care. A sit down meal would be different.

i do think you’ve jumped too soon - give her a chance and if your manager is nice mention to them. I know my boss would be horrified to find this had happened

So you expect to be catered for as a veggie but think OP is causing a fuss for being vegan?

Can you say hypocrisy?

I dunno. IME vegans don't tend to bang on. Not any more often than people who are - say - gluten free 'bang on' when you are trying to work out a place to eat that caters for everyone in your group. Most vegans I know are hyper sensitive to the stereoptype of 'banging on'.

Like I said. DH is vegetarian. He doesn't talk about it, he just lives it. But he has had people closely interrogate him as to why and then when he finally says why they oftentimes get irritated with him or say they don't want to know any more [fingers in ears, my mother I'm looking at you). I usually head things off at the pass when people go on and on and on with their questioning and say 'I don't think you want to know the answer while you are eating'. As happened at a summer BBQ we attended. FFS most people want to eat and socialise and have a good time (or at least be able to endure it if they have to attend force jollity at work). That includes those weird arse vegans too.