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My office once in a while hosts training seminars and/or large meetings. Along with that sometimes comes lunch.
Now anyone can realize the temptation of free food especially when it is seemingly unattended. I'll admit I give into such temptation but I have some strict rules about it:
- The training or meeting has already broken for lunch and are back in the meeting or training (everyone has eaten).
- I know who is running the meeting and I know they won't mind me grabbing something to eat.
- I am conservative in what I take (unless the meeting is over and everyone is gone - then it's a free for all).
Most of the time there is no issue.
Today there was such a training with such food (sandwiches and wraps from the deli downstairs). I noticed that the food looked like several packs of velociraptors had attacked them (as well as the fact that it was 2:30PM) made it safe to assume that the group had broken for lunch and was back in the training.
But - I didn't know who was hosting the meeting so I ignored it (despite my grumbling stomach). As I was walking back to my office I came across our admin (who is a really cool guy, probably one of the few people in the office who works harder than I do - he's also the one who usually orders the food). I ask him who's meeting it was and he told me it was SM (a sales manager who is also really cool, one I get along with very well (one of the few managers I'm proactive to go out of my way to help him or his team members - he also rivals myself and the admin for the amount of work he does). The admin also says " go ahead and grab something if you want, they're done and could you grab me two bags of chips?".
My stomach is quite happy.
I head over and grab a half sandwich and a half wrap (I'm always amazed at how much people generally don't like egg salad - it makes me happy since I do like it (a lot). I grab two chocolate chunk cookies and the two bags of chips for the admin and head out.
Out comes running SSR (sucky sales rep - someone I don't deal with often (not on SM's team) who thinks he's much more important than he actually is and doesn't tolerate people who work much) saying "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? THAT'S OUR FOOD!" I turn to him and ask "What?"
"That's our food - what are you doing?"
"Well, it's almost 3PM and it looks like the training already broke for lunch so I thought I would grab something to eat so it doesn't get thrown out". (Sadly, many times the left over food gets thrown out).
"Well, you didn't have to grab so much! That's our food, we paid for it".
"I grabbed two half sandwiches and two cookies, that's not much considering what is left over".
"What about the chips?"
Now, I'm sure anyone who has worked in an office environment knows that an admin who works hard, knows how to do his job well, and get his job done (as well as just about everyone else's) is one of the last people you want to piss off - they even rank higher than IT people. A good admin >> god - by far. Plain and simple. So my response:
"Well, the chips are for (admin) who is the person who ordered the food for you and hasn't been able to have lunch today so he's quite hypoglycemic and asked me to get these for him".
Of course SSR was silent for a few seconds, turned around, and went back into the training (was it OK for him to just storm out of there in the first place?).
I head back to the admin's cube and hand him the chips and tell him about what happened. Of course, he chuckled and said that if SSR came to him about it before SSR could get a word out he would give him the old "WHAT" response when he walked near his cube.
Now anyone can realize the temptation of free food especially when it is seemingly unattended. I'll admit I give into such temptation but I have some strict rules about it:
- The training or meeting has already broken for lunch and are back in the meeting or training (everyone has eaten).
- I know who is running the meeting and I know they won't mind me grabbing something to eat.
- I am conservative in what I take (unless the meeting is over and everyone is gone - then it's a free for all).
Most of the time there is no issue.
Today there was such a training with such food (sandwiches and wraps from the deli downstairs). I noticed that the food looked like several packs of velociraptors had attacked them (as well as the fact that it was 2:30PM) made it safe to assume that the group had broken for lunch and was back in the training.
But - I didn't know who was hosting the meeting so I ignored it (despite my grumbling stomach). As I was walking back to my office I came across our admin (who is a really cool guy, probably one of the few people in the office who works harder than I do - he's also the one who usually orders the food). I ask him who's meeting it was and he told me it was SM (a sales manager who is also really cool, one I get along with very well (one of the few managers I'm proactive to go out of my way to help him or his team members - he also rivals myself and the admin for the amount of work he does). The admin also says " go ahead and grab something if you want, they're done and could you grab me two bags of chips?".
My stomach is quite happy.
I head over and grab a half sandwich and a half wrap (I'm always amazed at how much people generally don't like egg salad - it makes me happy since I do like it (a lot). I grab two chocolate chunk cookies and the two bags of chips for the admin and head out.
Out comes running SSR (sucky sales rep - someone I don't deal with often (not on SM's team) who thinks he's much more important than he actually is and doesn't tolerate people who work much) saying "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? THAT'S OUR FOOD!" I turn to him and ask "What?"
"That's our food - what are you doing?"
"Well, it's almost 3PM and it looks like the training already broke for lunch so I thought I would grab something to eat so it doesn't get thrown out". (Sadly, many times the left over food gets thrown out).
"Well, you didn't have to grab so much! That's our food, we paid for it".
"I grabbed two half sandwiches and two cookies, that's not much considering what is left over".
"What about the chips?"
Now, I'm sure anyone who has worked in an office environment knows that an admin who works hard, knows how to do his job well, and get his job done (as well as just about everyone else's) is one of the last people you want to piss off - they even rank higher than IT people. A good admin >> god - by far. Plain and simple. So my response:
"Well, the chips are for (admin) who is the person who ordered the food for you and hasn't been able to have lunch today so he's quite hypoglycemic and asked me to get these for him".
Of course SSR was silent for a few seconds, turned around, and went back into the training (was it OK for him to just storm out of there in the first place?).
I head back to the admin's cube and hand him the chips and tell him about what happened. Of course, he chuckled and said that if SSR came to him about it before SSR could get a word out he would give him the old "WHAT" response when he walked near his cube.
