The population where I work is about 1/4 Indian. Right-over-from-India Indian. So pot luck here consists of a bunch of store bought chips, cake, brownies, pie, and a couple of Indian dishes that can set off the sprinkles if they’re too close together. ‘No, it’s not very spicy’ is Indian for ‘It will set you head on fire and bake your skull’.
They don’t bother me at all, simply because several years ago I decided to never participate in them. Or any other office holiday party or “social” activity. Or contribute to any baby, wedding, retirement, etc. gift.
Yeah, your basic office curmudgeon here!
We have about 3-4 a year and the only problem I have is I try too many items and eat too much.
Another curmudgeon. I don’t mind potlucks, except for the fact that there are way too many of them in my department. Every time someone gets married, has a baby, a birthday, or takes a crap we have to have a potluck for it. Enough already! I CAN’T participate in them anymore because I was going broke from all the damn food I had to buy and prepare.
I blame it on the fact that my department is mostly women. This BS doesn’t happen with men.
I don’t mind potlucks but I feel pretty meh on them since my last workplace used them to “boost morale” and have the employees pay for it. With a bunch of people who have little money and little time, it usually ended up being 8 bags of chips, 4 generic sodas and some storebought cookies.
My present workplace just orders in lunch. Much better. 
We have one big one at Thanksgiving and I love it. Everyone comes away with “can I have this recipe?” to “can I have your wife?” or even “dude that sucked” and everyone eats well.
Plus we’ve found out that one of the carpenters is a wonderful baker in his spare time and one of the other shop guys has a banana pudding that gets requested for other functions. And since we have a large Mexican group we get really good real Mexican food.
So that’s me. I’ll be the one with the clipboard asking what you’ll be bringing.
I detest them as well. Thankfully, my current group is almost all male so we don’t have them.
Here’s a few reasons I don’t them.
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Back when I used to take the bus/train, obviously, I didn’t want to have to carry anything more than was necessary.
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The arm twisting to “just try this.” I’m an adult, if I don’t want to eat something, I won’t.
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A lot of the food brought in seems to be very rich. I really don’t want to blow 2000 calories at an office lunch.
Love 'em! Love the food, love the camaradarie, love getting recipes, never get sick.
Years ago I had a tight circle of work friends. We’d get together once a month and one person would cook for the rest of us. It was a total blast (and I learned that beer makes the BEST pot roast!).
My staff throws one together for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Boss’ Day (thanks kids). I think they are very nice and it always seems people bring in their best recipes. However, I have been known to politely inquire who brought what to avoid dishes from staff members with questionable hygiene.
How long does someone who hasn’t washed their wiping hand after going to the bathroom have to touch a sandwich to give you Hepatitis A? I don’t want to find out the hard way.
We don’t have potlucks very frequently. Whenever we do, I’m not worried about the hygiene at all. It’s usually the nutritional contents that I’m concerned about. I’m trying to lose a few pounds and it’s not easy when everything’s covered in mayo. Also, I used to love mayo, but the older I get and the longer I stay away from it, the less it appeals…on anything.
Another problem I have is that the food tends to be very midwestern. Casseroles, velveeta cheese dips (which I do like, but again - little nutritional value), items made with cool whip, etc. We make mostly Asian food at home - Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, etc., with lots of fresh veggies, lean meats or tofu. So I’ve begun to lose my taste for stuff made out of “cream of” soups.
I usually stop by the grocery on my way into work and pick up a couple of large cartons of fresh berries and maybe some cheese and crackers. Sometimes I’ll get mini-cookies, too, which is my biggest potluck weakness.
We have one - once a year. At holiday time (December). It’s been going steadily downhill for years as has morale - I don’t know if we’re even going to do one this year.
We have potlucks occasionally, and I’ve always liked them, though they are a temptation to eat too much so I am glad we don’t have them often. And if you don’t like 'em, fine. More for me! 
I don’t mind them if the business has high morale and people actually like each other. Otherwise, like at my last job, it’s forced “fun” and faked comraderie. The boss was a cheap fucker who refused to pop company money for anything but the lowest cost hotdogs and frozen burgers, and grudgingly bought buns. Logistics hated operations who hated finance who hated facilities, ad nauseum. I stopped participating almost immediately.
Yes. For several years our office went bowling the Friday before Christmas. Then just last year, 13 of us voted on whether to go bowling or have a potluck that year. The vote was 7-6 for a potluck :mad:
Crockpot + frozen meatballs + ketchup + … grape jelly. On toothpicks. Ew.
Now to be honest, I would PAY to go to that potluck - nothing better than real Indian food, hot and spicy, cooked by people from India…and the hotter the better for me!
I envy you and your potluck crowd!
I like pots-luck when I work in the office having them. At my current job I work in a little building away from where most of my co-workers are. They’ll have a pot-luck and then insist I go. Most of the time I say I am too busy. I have no interest in going to a pot-luck where I don’t even know most of the people’s names and half I have never met before.
So for me it depends on if I already know the people or not.
You guys, gross! I never even thought about the home-cooked germ issue.
Anyhow, where I used to work we had our share of potlucks. I lucked out of the bacteria cafeteria dining experience by pure happenstance. I really don’t eat much and I never eat the fattening kind of stuff people tend to bring to potlucks. Everybody at work knew I had weirdo food issues so the didn’t seem to care if I didn’t eat the potluck stuff. However, I always brought a dish to the potluck for them to eat so I wouldn’t be a total party pooper. And I’d always make sure to show up at the party and have some coffee and chat and everybody seemed satisfied with that.
See, nobody at work ate like me, so there was no use bringing something I would eat just so I could eat with everybody else. I pretty much eat only plain chicken breasts and cold hamburgers, avocados and brie with low carb crackers and I didn’t think anybody would find that too cool or appetizing, to judge by what most people told me about my lunches when they saw me eating them.
The entire office has a Thanksgiving Potluck that goes over fairly well. There is also the Halloween Chili Contest. I don’t participate in any of these things. If mr.stretch makes too many cookies*, I might bring in the overflow.
*is it even possible to have too many cookies? I don’t think so.