office lunch event is out of control, my friend doesn’t understand how work works, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager .
I’m off today. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.
1. Office lunch event is out of control
Once a month, my mother and her coworkers coordinate a potluck to celebrate birthdays and other special events. “Potluck” is the terminology my mother uses, although it does not sound like a typical potluck to me. These lunches have been going on for at least two years, and are definitely expected by the employees. The potluck is pretty extravagant. Each person is given a three-course meal that is catered from a local restaurant. In theory, if every employee contributes $10, this would cover the cost of food, drinks, plates, and cutlery. The company does not contribute any money, nor is there a company budget for this. These potlucks are 100% funded personally by employees.
Here’s where the problems comes in. Not every employee contributes money to the potluck, but every employee takes the food that is offered. I would say there are about 5-10 people who contribute financially, but there are about 40-50 employees who are eating. My mother’s contribution has swelled to $60, and one of her friends is contributing $100 to make up for the lack of funding from other coworkers. Even more annoying is that some employees who do not contribute financially will bring tupperware to the potluck so that they can bring food home to share with relatives or save for a later date.
These potlucks have caused resentment and stress for my mother. She is now getting into monthly disagreements with coworkers who she feels should not take food if they did not pay for it.
I’ve told my mother that she should opt out from the potluck, or even try to cancel it due to the lack of equal funding. However, she thinks it’s a better idea to create a list of those who do financially contribute to the potluck, and only allow those who paid to take food. I told her she has no authority to enforce that plan, but she’s all gung ho about it. Any advice you can offer would be great!
Yeah, these aren’t potlucks! Potlucks, by definition, are where everyone brings a dish to contribute. These are catered meals!
In any case, the current situation is obviously ridiculous. Your mom and the other coworkers who are contributing have four options: (1) They can continue paying up to $100 each (!) to buy meals for people who aren’t contributing anything at all. This seems absurd, and there are better uses for their charitable dollars. (2) They can decide this clearly isn’t working and cancel it. (3) They can opt out individually and decide it’s not their problem if their colleagues want to subsidize moochers’ meals, but they’re not going to do it themselves. Presumably this will then make the subsidizers’ shares rise even higher, which might prompt them to take similar action themselves, but who knows. (4) They can change this to a “lunch club” where anyone who’s interested in participating pays $X (the cost of their full share) to join in the meal, and anyone who doesn’t pay isn’t part of that month’s lunch.
#4 seems pretty reasonable to me. You said that you don’t think they’d have the authority to keep out people who didn’t pay, but this is a pretty common set-up in offices — “we’re ordering delivery, if you want in you can place an order and pay the cost of what you’re getting.” This is more of a prix fixe menu, but the concept is the same. They’d announce the change ahead of time, saying they’re switching to a new format and the cost is $X for anyone who wants to eat, and then if nine people sign up, they’d order nine meals only, with money paid in advance, and if someone else tries to take food, they’d say, “We only ordered nine meals and you didn’t sign up or pay for one, but you’re welcome to purchase one next month.”
– 2019
2. My friend doesn’t understand how work works
I have a friend who just started his first job (ever, never worked a part-time job) after graduating undergrad. He is taking two gap years between med school and undergrad, and he’s working in an admin position on campus in the meantime.
My friend really just doesn’t understand how work works! Though he is the most junior person in his office, he constantly gets annoyed if other people in the office ask him for help on anything. He says he doesn’t want to be a crutch for them to use. He seemed generally stunned when a coworker asked to send out a package when he is already sending several out for the office. It’s not that he is swamped with work – he just doesn’t want to be seen as the person who does everyone’s mail.
The rest of the lab IS swamped, while my friend watches TV shows daily. He also takes long breaks walking around campus, without alerting anyone, and then clocks all this time as time worked. Eventually his boss said something about needing to set hard deadlines for assignments because things were slipping through the cracks. He freaked out, saying that he doesn’t need to be micromanaged. But in reality, he is purposefully drawing out his assignments by watching TV, so they’re definitely not being completed in an effective manner. He’s in an isolated part of the building, so nobody checks in on him to see if he’s actually working or not. I don’t believe that anyone is aware that he slacks off, as he describes the methods used to look busy and to hide his TV screen.
He complains constantly to me about these issues, saying that he doesn’t want to be the “B****” of the office just because he is the youngest. In other aspects of his life, he is truly very hardworking, so I feel like he just really does not understand how work works!
It’s not my place to say anything, as I’m not his manager, but as a friend, I would like to make it clear that he’s acting unprofessionally. He’s counting on letters of recommendation from this office for his applications, and I don’t want him to jeopardize these. I normally act shocked when he says he watched TV or whatnot to show it’s not standard behavior, but it’s not getting through. Should I stay out of it or say something?
You can definitely say something as his friend, but you should be prepared for the likelihood that you won’t get through to him. But if he’s telling you this stuff, there’s no reason you can’t have a natural reaction when he does — like, “Dude, this is how work works — when you’re the most junior person and have time on your hands, of course they’re going to ask you for help.” And “Hey, are you still counting on this job for letters of recommendation? Because you’re putting those in jeopardy by the way you’re acting at work.” And “You’re going to get fired if you keep that up.”
But your friend sounds immature, and someone did him a disservice by not requiring him to have a job before now (or at least preparing him for how work works). It might be that nothing will get through to him until he experiences the natural consequences of his behavior. As a friend, it’s understandable to want to try, but it’s not on you if you don’t get through to him.
– 2018
3. Employee wants to retract his resignation — but we don’t want him to
We have an employee who resigned by email two weeks ago. He sent the email to our office manager, the head of HR, one of the VP’s, and the president of the company. Our office manager did not get it because the employee sent it to the wrong address, but everyone else got it. Fast forward to last week, when the employee told us that he wants to stay. (Evidently he had a job lined up but it “fell through.” In this business, that usually means they failed the drug test.) Well, there have been talks all week between project managers and the office manager who is on vacation, as well as corporate. Today I was told to call him to come in tomorrow (they work a four-day week) and terminate him. So, how do you terminate in this situation?
It’s not a termination — it’s telling him that you’re choosing to let the original resignation to stand and are declining to take him back. That makes sense to do if you were relieved that he was leaving and you want the chance to hire someone stronger (or if you’ve already promised the role to someone else and don’t think he’s strong enough that you want to find another slot for him). It doesn’t make sense to do if it’s solely on principle.
But assuming it’s the former, I’d say something like this: “At this point, we’ve already begun taking action on your resignation and don’t think that it makes sense to change course. We’d like to keep your last date as (date), as you originally suggested.”
Ideally, you’d also explain your reasoning — such as that you’re heavily into talks with other candidates or changing course with the position, or that you had performance concerns that make you hesitant to renew the employment agreement, or whatever the reason is.
– 2015
4. My boss saw me guzzling chocolate in my car
After a particularly long day, I stopped at the convenience shop by work and got myself a well deserved candy bar. While waiting to merge back into traffic, I proceeded to shove it in my mouth, barely avoiding eating the wrapper. To my horror, my boss was the car waving me into the lane and witnessed me unhinge my jaw like a snake in order to get as much chocolate in my mouth as quickly as possible.
My question is, can I take FMLA due to dying of embarrassment or should I just email my resignation right now?
Just ghost the job entirely and let her think what she witnessed was part of your jubilance on your bacchanalian flight to freedom.
– 2019
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