I would think that though it is kind of rude it is another notch in the networking chain. She is too lazy to get up and get her own lunch but that doesn’t mean her best friend isn’t the head of the department you really want to be transferred to or that her having a kind word to say about you couldn’t play an important role in getting you a raise/promotion/whatever.
“Sure I’ll pick you up something. Or if you prefer, I can spit in your mouth right now and save a trip to the deli.”
If that’s the case than you work with idiots and should quit, go get a masters degree or something, and find a new job in a less stupid career.
:dubious:
Really? So it couldn’t be possible that this woman’s step-sister is married to the CEO? It couldn’t be possible that though you think she is kind of a bitch other people elsewhere in your firm could really like her and think of her as a valuable person? It isn’t feasible that this woman could ever get promoted or move on and get hired at a company you really want to work for and be someone who could have some sort of effect on your career? I’m not saying she will definately help you out financially in the future, but having one more person out there who thinks of you positively can’t hurt.
Others, however, don’t hold the same view. For many, if you have to spend 8 hours a day with the same people, it makes sense to befriend them. I’ve given rides to co-workers who’ve had car troubles, gotten lunch for folks while I was out, covered for them on sick days, etc. Has it put me out? Maybe in a few instances. Am I bitter, resentful, or expecting something in return from these co-working friends? Not at all.
There are two types of folks in the workplace-- I’d wager that you’re in one category, and the co-worker in the OP is in the other.
“I’m sorry, I’m not coming straight back.” “I’m sorry, but I was going to eat there.” “I’m sorry, but I was going to eat in my car.” Or even “I can’t today.”
Perhaps there is a sense of reciprocity that you’re not aware of, simply because you’ve never asked her to do the same for you. For all you know, she’d be more than willing.
In my mind, she does have the right to ask for something like this. Similarly, you have the right to decline. She’s asked for a favor what, twice now? And that makes you think that she’s asking too many favors and expects others to do things for her?
It sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind about the co-worker. If that’s the case, I don’t know why you’ve opened the thread seeking advice from others (which has so far been mostly “no big deal” and “sounds like she’s just being friendly”).
I’m not seeing it as rude or weird, but I don’t know your office dynamics, nor do I know the tone of voice when your co-worker asked, nor do I know her reasons for asking. I would think absolutely nothing of it (and I’m pretty sure it has happened to me as asker and askee, but I don’t keep track of something so trivial).
My first impression was that it said more about you than the co-worker, but then I engaged my second brain-cell. Different places, different social mores - I shouldn’t pass judgment.
“Befriending them” and “asking for favors” are two totally different things in my book. I am the type of person who won’t even ask my friends to help me move. Out of your list, yeah, I’ll cover for them on sick days. I will help someone out whose car broke down unexpectedly.
What I don’t like is, hey, you know your car is at the shop, so you expect me to drop you off there when it’s done. That’s rude. And I would never ask for the same. I plan to do it close enough so I can walk, or on my day off.
See, the people that will ask you to do favors never stop and just keep on pushing, IME. One day it’s, I dropped my car off at the shop, can you drop me off? It’s out of your way, but please? Next day it’s, can you loan me $20?
I am extremely pleasant and very well-liked at work but my ground rules are firm.
I’ve never had anyone ask for a ride when their car blew up expectedly. If I get a 7pm phone call on Monday night to the tune of “my car just blew up on the interstate and I had to tow it, do you think I could get a ride to work in the morning?” I’m pretty likely to say sure.
If we’re all ordering lunch (as happens often), and a co-worker friend says “damn, I left my wallet in my car, can you spot me ten bucks until tomorrow?” I’m likely to say “no problem, I’ll pick it up today, you can pick up mine next time.”
shrug I guess we’ve just had very different experiences.
I’m with you atomic. If someone asks a favor and I can’t do it for whatever reason, I’ll say so. If someone chronically seems to need favors, I’ll stop doing them. But if it is a one time ‘can you pick me up something while you are there’ or an emergency ‘a meteor hit my home, can you spot me a pair of clean underwear’, I’ll think nothing of it. I won’t think in terms of reciprocation at the time of the request. That said, if 2 months later a meteor hits my home and I come looking to the previous asker for clean underwear, I don’t expect excuses. If there are, then all favor privileges are immediately withdrawn, and I won’t be shy about saying why.
featherlou - how did she know you were going to lunch, and how did she know where you were going for lunch?
She had to have known where you were going in order to make that specific request, right? So maybe you shouldn’t have communicated the details to her, and then she wouldn’t have known to ask.
I dunno; I get what most of you are saying, (that it was no big deal, and I should have gotten her food without a second thought), but I would never, ever have asked her to do what she asked me. I don’t ask the people I’m actually friends with at work to pick up lunch for me, much less the ones that I have a nodding acquaintance with. I’m willing to put this down to my own idiosyncrasy if the majority say they wouldn’t have considered it a big deal.
Oh, for the record, I just stood up and put my jacket on; I didn’t tell her where I was going - she asked me if I was going to the fastfood joint next door, and if I’d get food for her, too.
This clinches it for me. She’s a leech. Go deaf or act distracted whenever she speaks to you. Or start crying uncontrollably.
Some people are just asking favors… but there are some hiding under rocks at the end of the curve too. Few, far between perhaps, but there.
Once had a cow-orker asked me to pick up a turkey sandwich for him at a sub place. “Turkey, mayo, the usual… and tell them extra meat too.” Sure thing. It was four bucks.
I brought it back with mine, and he opened it at the table in the cafeteria. (Three tables & a snickers machine, but thats what they called it) His jaw dropped as he peeled back the bun and loudly decried my horrid offense: There, on his turkey, sitting like a newly discovered cockroach, was a lone fresh slice of tomato.
“This is disgusting!” he yelled for dramatic effect. I offered to switch sandwiches with him.
“Why…what’d you get…?” the entitlement-monster cried. Sadly, my tuna fish wasn’t up to his expectations. He then said “This sandwich is so disgusting, it’s not even worth eating…!” and with both hands (for extra effect?) he picked up the sub sandwich and threw it into a garbage pail. Please note that at this point he had not yet paid for it.
“Well, you just threw out a perfectly good sandwich. Where’s my $4?”
“That was disgusting! You expect me to pay for that?”
“You ordered it…you threw it out. Yes. $4”
“I’m not paying for that! Maybe next time, you’ll get my order right.”
Get your order right? EXCUSE YOU?!
I told him firmly that there would be no next time, there would Never be a next time and if it took $4 to learn what a low class scumbag he was, then it was money well spent. That and I would sincerely enjoy watching him drag his own wheezing out-of-shape ass down the street to get lunch from now until Coronary Day.
And I pity the poor nurse who brings him lunch or dinner at the ICU. “Tomato?! What the Hell is This…!?”
And?
Sorry, I’m in the school of thought that not only is it not in the least bit inappropriate to ask a co-worker to pick something up for them, it would be rather rude to refuse. This is assuming a) they pay their own way and b) they don’t ask you to go out your way to some place you didn’t intend to visit. I would expect reciprocity, but only in the most casual way.
The way you make it sound, it seems more like you actually dislike this person, rather than just being neutral towards her. In which case you aren’t obligated to do anything for someone you dislike.
But your average non-descript co-worker? What’s the big deal?
Still not setting off any alarms for me. I’m sticking with “no big deal” and “common occurence for my workplace, YMMV.”
Not a big deal at all. I wouldn’t even give it a second thought.
The person in Count Blucher’s post is clearly an ass, but a co-worker just asking nicely if I could pick them up something from a place I was going anyways? Who cares. Why is it so hard for people to just practice common courtesy.
Count another one for no big deal. Maybe even a bit of ice-breaking If it gets to be a regular thing without reciprocation, then it does become a big deal. Note, though, that the OP could have declined (“I’m sorry, but I’m not coming straight back…”) and didn’t.
Wow, I’m kind of shocked by the number of people who think this is rude or that the person must want to use you or have some nasty motive for asking you to pick them up something for lunch. I always presume people are good if I have no evidence to the contrary.
Here it’s common for someone to call up and say, “I’m swamped, are you going anywhere for lunch?” and if you say yes and it’s agreeable they’ll ask if they can give you money so you can grab them something while you’re there. If where you say isn’t agreeable they’ll call someone else. I don’t really ask because I like to get out of the office, but I never mind picking up something for someone as long as they don’t have a weird specialty order or something.
I’ve always thought that helping out people one sees every day was just courtesy, something I think we could use a lot more of these days. I feel like over the last 5 years or so people have gotten a lot more self serving. Can’t “What’s in it for me?” just be knowing that you were nice to someone?
If I were having auto repair done I’d probably ask around in advance, of those that live nearest the repair shop if they would mind giving me a lift on such and such date. I wouldn’t think it was rude so long as it wasn’t a regular thing.
I wouldn’t think anything of it. If the person made a habit of it, or if multiple people starting doing it, I’d probably eventually start suggesting that they just join me and we all walk over together to make things easier, but overall it seems like a pretty reasonable thing to ask.
Of course, it sounds like you don’t have a very high opinion of your coworker, which I’m guessing is why the request feels like an imposition. I’ve had coworkers who could have asked me to help them carry a bale of hundred dollar bills out to my car and I’d have been annoyed. Some people just rub you the wrong way.
Okay, Count Blucher, yours is definitely worse. 
Featherlou, I humbly accept this honor on behalf of Jersey City, without which it wouldn’t have been possible… 
I was just saying that maybe your instincts are right. Sometimes a person who seems imposing and rude to you really is imposing and rude. To paraphrase Freud, “…sometimes an ass is just an ass.”