What are the worst crimes you have seen committed at a buffet? Or any communal food situation.

[Sparklingbrook]

Following on from people who stand too close when queuing.

Also any top tips for buffet etiquette on an AI holiday?

Crimes for me-

Picking up food and putting it back
Using incorrect spoons and cross contaminating different foodstuffs

People who pick through food like bacon with tongs until they find a piece they want.

Putting tomatoes from the salad bar at Pizza Hut in their pockets as their bowl was full.

People who see that there are people waiting behind them and still decide that it's necessary/acceptable to put all 7 slices of available bacon on their plate. Applies equally to other foodstuffs.

Selfishness Calamitously, particularly at breakfast.

When there is a kids section with specific foods for a younger palate, and a 40 year old man pushes in front of the kids who are queuing nicely, then shovels ALL of the fish goujons/nuggets/chips onto his plate and wanders back to his child free table leaving the kids just standing there.

You've had 35 years to develop a grown up sense of taste and learn not to knock kids over you knob.

Double dipping in the hummous after you've put one end of the breadstick in your mouth. EEeeeek!

And I just want to repeat - conveyor belt toaster arseholes.

No, it's my toast. I watched it going in, it didn't cook and I put it in again. That's why it's nice golden toast.

You put 18 slices in and wandered off - the pile up of slightly warm bread stuck to the crumb tray is yours.

(you can tell I travel a lot with work)

I once saw a little girl at a wedding walk past the desert table and drag one of her pigtails through all the creamy cakes at the edge of the table boak.
I saw a guy at an all you can eat place last week pick up some sushi with his hands, sniff it and put it back, luckily the guy behind the counter saw too and pulled him up on it, showed him the tongs and removed the whole tray.

There's no need!

A packet of Custard Creams in which the creamy side had been removed from every single one and the bare biscuits put back in the packet

Oh the joy of houseshares

It's a glass sneeze guard - meaning your nose should be above it. You're not supposed to stick your head underneath it and dangle over the food.

Wally Is that what they are? I always thought they were something to do with keeping the food warm.

A former colleague had little to no regard for food hygiene.Toast was always made in the office in the morning,and she never understood why people cracked up when she put her half chewed slice of toast on top of the fresh slices.

She once took a bite out of a cake,and put it back down on the platewith the other slices, only for our manager to come along and eat it,not knowing where it'd just been. We didn't have time to stop him.

She later did the same with a shot on a night out. She didn't 't like the taste,so spat it back into the glass,and put it on the tray. Manager,samr one,comes along and downs it,before we can say anything.

Sweaty bare bellies and armpits reaching over the buffett, some of the bellies are so big they rest on the food YUK !!!! - cover yourselves you dirty pigs.

The bugger who took all the bacon also finished off the three remaining fried eggs. Bastard. That bit of the buffet only had bacon and eggs too, so it's not like he could pretend to himself that everyone behind him wanted something else. He knew he was being a selfish prick.

Could not can.

I LOVE the idea of writing your name on your egg!

I alternate my toast - wholemeal and white side by side.

Our first AI holiday was in Egypt. There was a real greedy guts family at dinner each evening. There were only 3 of them, but the mum would go to the dessert section and take a whole cake from the stand and put it on their table while they got their mains etc.

My husband nicknamed her the "gateaux beast". Quite loudly.

Here's some tips.

Picking something from the buffet, licking fingers, going in for something else, licking fingers and so on, until they've inserted their dirty digits in every dish along the length of the buffet.

I hate cold buffets so much I will go hungry rather than take something. Hot buffets I'm not so horrified by because people generally have to use utensils as they go. It's the sandwiches and quiches ones that make me uncomfortable.

Oh god yes how could I forget the conveyor belt toaster arsehole - hovering in front if it in case someone nicks their precious heated bread.
And the kids buffet greedies , agree , I want to rap them on the hand with a serving spoon .

I saw my own child leave me and DH at the end of a long queue and go and hold hands with a stranger at the front of the queue, so that he could get food quicker.

He was 2. Crafty swine.

If it's all you can eat, you can go back! There's no need to pile up the plate like you have never seen food before. And then leave most of it.

People who allow their grubby small children to go unaccompanied to the buffet table where they can pick up, sniff or lick and put down everything within reach.
Always reach to the back of the buffet.

Reminds me of Alan Patridge in the Travel Tavern who had his own personal larger-than-allocated buffet plate.

I remember an AIBU some years ago about someone who was going on a half-board holiday and wanted to know if it was ok to make up sandwiches from the breakfast buffet.

Look at the stats on people not washing their hands after using the loo. Then look at people touching food and then putting it back.