purplehorse-I absolutely agree that staying in a job you like/good at is preferable. It just seems IMHO, people would, given their druthers, advance up the ladder, and get more $$. YMMV
Lordy, I sure hope you’re female.
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It makes the baby Jesus cry. People have been literally breaking bread together since bread was invented.
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As long as you wash your hands before we eat, we’re all good.
Boy! All these stories make me appreciate even more that I work at home. I have, however, worked in many offices where these potluck things always came up. I think, for the most part, if they are not optional, are a replacement/scapegoat on management’s part to show appreciation, or are designed to be bonus of some kind, they actually cause a lot of resentment. Many folks have already pointed out that we all have busy lives, have co-wokers we’d rather not socialize with, have special diets or worry about the conditions in which these food items are prepared, and there’s always the issue of uninvited/noncontributory particpants, etc. Think birthdays, anniversaries, births, etc., if we have to do anything at all, should be kept to a card signed by everyone as a group gesture, and leave anything additional up to the individual. Employee appreciation and bonuses should be at the expense of management with no strings attached, and any other celebrations, such as for holidays, should be done away with at work altogether, and if emplyees want to socialize with fellow employees they can do so on their own time, in their own way. The problem, though, is once these potlucks and party traditions are established, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to change the ‘policy’ without seeming like a jerk.
I’ve had fruit salad with dressing before (might have been sweetened sour cream dressing?) My mother made ambrosia salad all the time back in her entertaining days, particularly in the summer, and Jello fruit salads. According to her their heyday was in the 60s and 70s but occasionally I see it on a buffet or the deli section at the grocery store.
Mostly what I think of as fruit salad, though, and what mine was, was cut up fruit with nothing added (until it got spiked.) It took me a long time mainly because I was asked to make a boatload of it because it was hot weather and a lot of healthy eaters were going to be at the party. My crummy knife skills and fussines about all the chunks being the same size didn’t help :o
The single most definitive and authorative dissertation on the subject agrees with this position. (YT)
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[ol]Peel your bananas[li]Toss in some grapes[]Chop up some apples[]Chop up some melons[*]And put them on your plate.[/ol][/li][/quote]
However, I am always confused by the left-over bananas.
Too lazy to quote, but I see several people mentioning bringing crockpot-made food in the same pot, tricks to keep it closed tight, etc. Aren’t food-size thermos-type containers available where you live, or did you simply never think of getting one? The ones we have come with a tray that can be used to separate them into an upper and lower half so they can hold two different hot dishes. I’ve seen them big enough for 20 portions (that’s 20+20).
Potlucks are fine if they’re the idea of the people participating, if they’re optional and if people went to kindergarten. As a “forced team building exercise” - ugh, no. I like food, but being ordered to cook for my coworkers would put me off 
I rarely have a problem participating in pot lucks, but then I haven’t worked anywhere where pot lucks were mandatory participation either. I have seen “Mandatory Fun” type things, but even then we had the option to just stay in the office. Mandatory Fun by definition is not often terribly fun in my experience. Even when it’s an activity that I would normally enjoy, being surrounded by all the people who don’t want to be there can kinda suck the fun out of it.
I just ignore it when a pot luck comes along. Usually they get scheduled on my day off anyway.
If I may ask, why not? It’s fruit. It’s a salad.
But I lick my fingers while I eat. To get all the juicy goodness off. Then grab the communal loaf and cut off a hunk.
Look, we’re in a thread with people whining about serving chips out of a bowl with your fingers and how that is too germy, and someone is picking on me for saying the same thing about a loaf of bread?
Re: fruit salad–my dad usually makes a dressing of sorts with yogurt, lemon juice and honey. I sometimes put cinnamon in mine, too. (Who in their right mind would use mayo??)
As for potlucks, ours are usually employee-driven, so there’s no obligation (and they tend to happen on days/times when I’m not working anyway). HR does host a chili cook-off once a year, though. I’ve never participated because I couldn’t take the time to do so (I only get half-hour breaks, and sometimes these are after the cook-off has ended). I agree that mandatory participation in these sorts of things is stupid.
If it’s got whipped cream (real or fake) it’s not a salad. It’s fruit and cream. Never heard anybody refer to strawberries and cream or peaches and cream as “salads”; making the same thing with mixed fruits does not turn it into a salad.
And if you licked your fingers and then used them to grab communal food withouth washing them in between, you wouldn’t be welcome to my table any more.
You’re exactly right.
If the employees themselves organize small-scale potlucks, I think it’s a good sign. It means people want to cook for each other and socialize. That’s a good thing. Not that it’s the only way – sometimes folks organize other things with each other, like fantasy football games, game nights, drinks after work, that sort of thing. In any case, forcing it from management, especially in ways that are really quite rude – forced participation, assigned dishes, potlucks far too large (bigger than individual departments or teams) so that there’s little accountability for buffoonery, etc. – doesn’t work. The gesture isn’t real that way and people feel imposed on.
At my current workplace, we really don’t do potlucks. The company buys lunch for everyone at a place you choose on your birthday. They throw occasional parties and get togethers and they’re always appreciated. Sure, people bring in food to share informally, but there isn’t a big drive to organize it all; we have very different cultures and tastes on a very small team, and there’s very little any one person could make that everyone will like. How do you appease both the vegetarians and the Atkins-dieter and the guy who likes meat and potatoes all at once? A damn restaurant, that’s how.
At a former workplace, potlucks were often thrown “to show appreciation”. But, there was no company-provided anything, and it was to be entirely enjoyed on personal (unpaid lunch) time. That’s not appreciation, and people damn well knew it. If the way you appreciate me is to tell me to pay to throw a party for myself on my own time, then you don’t appreciate me at all. Which, of course, the company really didn’t, and it showed. It didn’t help that management often showed up to socialize in a gesture they considered magnanimous – sans a dish to share, but with their appetite.
I guess it depends on where you are from. Waldorf salad does have whipped cream and fruit and we call it a salad where I come from.
Oh shit, did I just witness a rape? Do I need to report this?
Because the dish called fruit salad, where I am from, ipso facto does not contain any dressing. It’s like asking why a cheeseburger isn’t a hamburger, because, after all, it contains hamburger. The important part is not the base, but that it *also *contains cheese.
It’s called a Waldorf salad.
No, a Waldorf salad is made using mayo. Did you mean ambrosia?
And again, these are all distinct *variations on *a fruit salad. Where I’m from, you would never call a Waldorf salad or ambrosia *just *a “fruit salad” without further explanation.
From rural Pennsylvania, chiming in to say that every “fruit salad” I’ve seen has involved either orange juice or some kind of sugar syrup over the chopped-up fruit–my mom makes hers by thickening the runoff from the sliced strawberries.
Granted, I agree that tends to make it sickly-sweet and unpalatable, but it’s not unheard of.
From New York, and fruit salad emphatically does not have any creamy runny stuff on it. Eew. Just chop it up and throw it in a bowl, for heaven’s sakes! You can decorate with the kiwi fruit since they are often the only green fruit in it.
Fruit with stuff in it is strawberries and cream or whatever and if you put orange juice on fruit and try to present it to me as something to eat I will give you the saddest puppy dog look you ever saw, so sad you will immediately rush to the sink to wash all the nasty orange juice off. 
And watch it turn brown before your eyes. The acid in orange juice keeps it from turning into compost.