I still stand by my view. I’d be annoyed by someone who I didn’t offer to pick something up, asking me to get something out of the blue. Because I wouldn’t do it. Ever.
I want my lunchtime to be peace and quiet. If I say, “I’m going to _____, can I get you something?” that’s different.
atomicbadgerrace, the last time someone asked me for a ride, it was like this:
“Hey, by the way, my car’s at the shop. I’ll need you to drop me off.” No please, or anything like that. And it was well out of my way.
FTR, I did it , and with a smile. But I swore that guy had used up everyone of his favors just like that.
People who ask you to get food then expect that every time you go back to that place you will offer them or get them something.
People aren’t good. They aren’t evil, just a lot of them are…inconsiderate.
I never said you always have to do favors for people. Just that it’s not inconsiderate or rude to ask for them politely. I would have said no to that guy, because the way he said it was definitely not as if he was asking a favor.
And I stand by my view. People are usually good. Some are inconsiderate, but they all start out good until I have reason to believe otherwise.
Not only have I asked co-workers for favors, I’ve done favors asked of me. Everything from drop me off to pick up my car to grab a coffee while your out. I’ve also had co-workers say ‘can’t do it this time’ and I’ve given similar responses.
For me it helps make the day go by better if you can actually get along with a co-worker and small favors for each other is really just acknowledging that at times everyone could use a little help for whatever reason. As long as that helping isn’t one sided and abused, I have no problem with it.
I believe in the “It doesn’t hurt to ask, the worst that can happen is they say no.” Although I guess i now have to add “And they can ask questions about it on a message board.”
I worked in a very intense (hellish) call center for about 5 years. Each customer department really stuck together - very high school cliquish. I was in the QA department with 2 50+ yo men, with really nothing in common other than their kids were my age. I was already nervous about my job since it was brand new, and on top of that I was super shy and was lead to believe by my 2 co-workers everyone in our company hates our department even tho what I was brought in to do was fix everything. Anyways…
I think once my manager and the other guy were fired I opened up a bit more, only cause I was the only one left in my department. For the longest time everyone thought I was a mute because I did nothing more than say ‘hi’ in passing through the hall.
I had a friend or 2 at work, but that was out of necessity since I was getting buried under admin work. One day I was up to my neck in work and couldn’t leave for lunch. So I asked someone over my wall when I heard she was going out for lunch. (Girl was just around my age and she seemed really friendly too.) It was funny when everyone was like ‘omg the mute girl talks!’ (I think I replied with - ‘and I eat too!’ ) I gave her plenty of money to cover whatever a cheeseburger/drink cost and told her to keep the change. I figured, she was doing me a service and well…maybe extra money could bribe for help in the future!
In the end, befriending co-workers here and there for things, got me to open up more at work and definitely came in handy when I was pregnant and always hungry It made life so much easier once I could find people to rely on. It turned my job from something I so so so SO hated to a job I actually enjoyed before I left (to be a SAHM).
I actually really hate that in people. I don’t consider it my job to be the jerk and always say no; I consider that the person asking for stuff also has to put a little thought into whether or not it is an appropriate thing to ask.
I talked to my husband about this last night, too, and he basically agreed with most of you, so I believe that this my own personal thing. I’m okay with that; I don’t like doing favours for people I hardly know and don’t particularly like, and I’m not interested in changing that.
Grabbing food is no problem, assuming you’re fine with wherever I’m going and you just order something basic. I’ll even spot five or six bucks if you don’t have cash on you, as long as you eventually pay it back.
Same with asking for a ride to the garage or something, so long as you ask if it’s on my way.
There’s no sense in having yet one more person burning gas at a drive through, or getting all stressed out about having to hoof it back to the dealer when their belts are replaced or whatever.
I don’t even necessarily expect reciprocity - that’s why it’s called a favor - though it’d be nice if there’s a chance I could ask the same of you one day.
The one place I draw the line is fountain drinks, which are a giant pain in the ass to wrangle for more than one person. I don’t care if you can get a 64oz Mountain Dew for only a dime if you order the combo - we’ve got a fridge full of Diet Coke for a quarter a can, or a perfectly serviceable faucet with perfectly free water. Get your own damn beverage.
Yep. I’d have gone ahead and done it, and I understand that it’s no big deal and people in offices frequently do that kind of stuff for each other. But honestly, it would have bothered me because I’d be worried it would happen again, or bigger favors would be asked, or my co-worker might think I’m a potential new best friend.
We definitely differ here. I don’t consider someone telling me “No” to be a jerk. If I ask once and its a ‘no’, I will probably ask again at some later date and if I get a ‘no’ again, you won’t get asked again. If the first time the response is along the lines of “NO!!!”, you won’t get asked again.
And it’s not always be me asking FOR the favor, it might be me attempting to DO a favor. “Hey, I’m heading to XXX for lunch, can I grab you anything?” is not a hard thing for me to say.
There are definite boundrys on who / what to ask people. For instance, I’m not going to ask someone I just met to come water my plants while out of town.
However, when you are just starting to interact with someone, you need to establish boundaries and the only way to figure out the boundaries is to ask questions. There are co-workers who I deal with who are strictly business, there are others who we will have casual conversations and there are a rare few who I would consider ‘work friends’. The only way I know which type of relationship I am going to have with a co-worker is by asking questions.
If someone would tell me “Look, I only work with you. I don’t want to or need to be your friend. I don’t do favors for co-workers.” I could deal with it. It hasn’t happened yet, but I do have co-workers who have essentially defined our work relation ship that way. It did take me a little while to figure out that is what they wanted though.
In spite of my earlier comments in this thread, I like this position. I was quick to ask others I worked with if I could bring them back something from wherever I was going for lunch or a break snack. And even if it wasn’t from the same exact place but was near where I was headed I’d accommodate.
But since the OP said
and since I wouldn’t have initiated the same offer to somebody I didn’t already have a rapport with, this would have struck me as odd and I would have been suspicious if not upset. Thus my earlier remarks. I also said
The issue in the OP, as I see it, is what to think of this co-worker. I would be suspicious until I had reason not to be.
On one hand, if it was someone you barely know and it was asked in that way, you know how people have it, that they’re making a polite demand of someone they feel superior to, I guess I could haul myself up to being offended.
Back at my old job, my entire department was four people at its absolute largest. We were friends with each other and would often go out of our way to do nice things. Generally, the “will you grab me lunch” consisted of a “Say, you’re going to lunch? I’ll buy, you fly” from the boss. She’d put our lunches on her own card… generally she would do this because she was perpetually too swamped to set foot out of the building before six.
At current-job, occasionally my team (small section of the department, about 8-10 people) will make a mass order of Chinese food. Sometimes one person only has a card that day or doesn’t have the cash, and generally someone spots them till next time.
I guess I just work at really friendly places. Then again, I do seek out that type of place.
I’m not too worried about anyone thinking I’m their potential new best friend (I know, I heard your collective gasp of surprise from here ); I’m more concerned with being labelled a patsy; as I mentioned previously, this woman has already asked me for a work-related favour that she had no right to ask. I guess I actually am in the “suspicious” camp with this woman (that she thinks she has me pegged as her personal assistant to do things for her).
You do know that people don’t always feel free to say no when they want to, right? Also, do you ask for a reason when people say no to you? People often don’t say no because they think they’ll be asked why not, and they don’t have a good reason for why not except that they don’t want to, and that doesn’t always come across very nicely. If you always ask when you want something regardless of whether it’s an appropriate request or not, and count on people to refuse you if they don’t want to do it, I can guarantee you that people are doing things for you that they don’t want to do.
How funny, I was going to mention the fountain drink problem as well. It’s more than trivial to bring several fountain drinks back to the office, especially if you have to fill them at the fountain yourself. Please don’t ask me to do that.
He was weird. Actually, he was from Paterson. But then he moved to Miami. For all I know, he could be fertilizing a swamp right now. I mean, as long as no one dropped a slice of tomato on his ersatz-grave.
Holy Smoke, I just came up wit the plot to a new Sci-Fi channel ‘movie event’. :smack:
…and the most disgusting thing I ever saw in J.C. was a homeless guy lying on his back on a park bench in front of a school with his zipper open doing the ‘public fountain’ routine. And as bad as that smelled from even 20 feet away, the front of the mosque of cleric Rahman smelled worse.
(I think I replied with - ‘and I eat too!’ ) I gave her plenty of money to cover whatever a cheeseburger/drink cost and told her to keep the change. I figured, she was doing me a service and well…maybe extra money could bribe for help in the future! 
It made life so much easier once I could find people to rely on. It turned my job from something I so so so SO hated to a job I actually enjoyed before I left (to be a SAHM).
Then again, I do seek out that type of place.