Get in line. That is, send me a pm with a postal address.
This is where I draw the line. If you work in my office, I don’t care if you pile your cubicle from floor to ceiling with chocolate-covered banana splits and pass them out in packs of ten. I wouldn’t dream of complaining, or reporting you, or anything else. I just won’t take any.
In response, you are allowed to tell me, once, about your free goodies. You are not allowed to demand that I take them, or badger me repeatedly, or (worse yet) demand a reason why I won’t take them. I don’t want them–period.
Most of all, if you do demand a reason, and I tell the truth–that I’m trying to stay in shape and watch my weight–you are not allowed to laugh and smirk and roll your eyes, even though I am not in fact overweight. How the fuck do you think I got to be this way–by pigging out on all the crap that over-weight lard-butts stockpile in the office?
I’m 48 years old with a small, thin frame–do you have any idea how crappy I would look with even a small pot-belly? I get so pissed when people mock me because I won’t eat crap. I get pissed just thinking about it. Take your crap and paste it to your ass, where it will end up anyway!
Freddy, I feel your pain. It can get just as bad the other way. We have some people at work who come from another country. We get along fine etc EXCEPT for food. It must be cultural (but that brings up another pesky question), but if they bring in food native to their country, we are supposed to fall upon like starving troops or something. Mind you, if I bring in homemade chocolate chip cookies (for which I have a not undeserved reputation, if I say so myself), they shrug and say, “I don’t like chocolate”. Notice there is no “no thank you” in there. But if I say, " No thanks, I don’t like _____ (fill in blank with any dish that contains cabbage, which they all seem to)", I have insulted them greatly. :rolleyes:
It gets old. No thank you means no thank you. Don’t push food on me (my MIL is famous for this–I’d weigh twice what I weigh now if I ate everything she pushed on me). Don’t attempt to make me feel guilty for not trying your Grandma’s famous whatever.
Thank you for offering, please accept my declination with as much grace as you made the offer.
As rude as all this is, I can think of a circumstance in which it’s OK to ask a coworker not to bring in food for everyone.
This was around 20 years ago, when I was a bank teller. Jean would bring in lunch and cook it from about 10am until noonish. She always made plenty for everyone. I’m not sure what is was, but I think it was sausages and rice. And probably cabbage. And turnips. That’s what it looked like. The smell was something else entirely. Imagine a dieased skunk crawling up the ass of a syphilitic yak, dying, being shit out, burned, then left to ferment for a month. Top with a healthy dollop of rancid milk.
The entire bank would smell like that for the rest of the day. It was not so much a smell as an evil entity. Lysol wouldn’t have helped. We needed a priest to get rid of it.
Thanks, Jean, no. I’m not that hungry. All of fucking Bangladesh is not that hungry.
We once hired someone who claimed her had “multiple chemical sensitivity” or some such nonsense. Bitch complained about everything making her sick. The printer ink made her sick. The plastic pens & ink made her sick. She was always having dizzy spells, headaches, and felt like she was going to puke.
I once worked for six hours on a project, then went out and brought back a coffee and two candy bars. Ms. MCS threw a fit, claiming the coffee and chocolate was making her sick and I should not be allowed to have it in the office. The Big Boss let her leave, but said nothing to me. A few days later I had a cup on my desk, and Ms. MCS claimed the coffee was making her sick. I pointed out it was tea with Sweet n Low. “Oh, Sweet n Low makes me so sick. I’m so dizzy. I have to lie down.”
We fired her when I caught her printing out gay male porn from the Internet :eek:
I have a new plan for the OP… Oh, BrknButterfly–!
I’ve lost 23 lbs since April and when people try to push birthday cake on me I will take a token slice or say “I’ve worked too hard to get rid of the weight, I’m not going to sabotage it now.” It seems to be the overweight people who pishposh my efforts. The last time there was cake I looked at it and decided I didn’t want to log it in my online food tracker, so I ate a 100 calorie Quaker Chewy Granola bar instead.
snerk…
You realize, of course, that you’re setting yourself up for a whole slew of PM’s from people begging for Irish Chocolates, right?
Only my iron resolve is stopping me.
Yeah, that’s it. Iron resolve.
I’ve seen some of that too. When people ask why I’m watching my weight, I explain that I just got back down to my normal pants size, and since I’m too old to be actually outgrowing clothing, going up clothing sizes has to be for another reason.
I have another source, who goes a few times and year and brings home tons of it.
I discovered I’m gluten intolerant. That means I don’t eat the donuts, cake, brownies, cookies, bagels, etc., that show up on the communal table (once in a while someone will bring in something I can have - but its rare). It also gives me a ready made excuse for “thanks, but I can’t have that - I can’t eat wheat.”
Things involving food seem so much simpler everywhere I’ve worked so far - if there is ever free food in the kitchen, people learn about it by ESP, and it is gobbled up in about 0.5 seconds. It’s quite astonishing, really. The weirdest thing I saw at my last job was a woman who had all kinds of candies, chocolates, and packages of gum on her desk, and prices on them and a dish for your money. She seemed to be running a convenience store from her desk.
ETA: I forgot to say that I was reassured to see that other people think someone going through your desk is over the line, too. I had a supervisor who used to do that - I’d have some work on my desk, and she’d come in and “fix” it (re-arrange it the way she thought it should be), which would piss me off mightily.
Great, now I can’t figure out whom to PM… the actual person in Ireland, or the person with “tons” of Irish chocolate.
heheh
–Tristan (just call me rusty)
You know, I’m not one of the people who’s actually done this to you, but I want to apologize, anyway, because I am one of the people who does this. “Oh, you’re too thin to worry about your weight!” or roll my eyes at the obvious incipient anorexia of someone who isn’t morbidly obese like me refusing goodies because they want to watch their weight.
It’s wrong. But it’s very hard to fight against doing it once it’s become a habit (which it has). It’s a kind of defense mechanism, because obviously I’m a special person whose struggle with weight is the defining example of struggles with weight and you can’t possibly have problems if you look like a normal human being instead of Violet Beauregard after eating the three-course-meal-flavor chewing gum. (Note, that entire last sentence is self-deprecating, not aimed at you, but me)
So I apologize for myself and for people like me who do the same thing. It’s just a really bad habit brought on by a complete inability to see other people having the same problems I have.
Today seems like a better day. I have my heaping bag of chocolates in the same place today that they were yesterday. She hasn’t come near my desk at all for any either. And the boss is here and no word reguarding it at all from her.
Now I have gold fish (that I am fish-sitting) that is staring at my chocolates. I think I am going to have a “go around” with Mr. Guppy.
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It’s a Beta, not a goldfish.
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You should have snapped a pic of the bag and put it here.
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Happy Tuesday
But… but… I thought the printer ink made her sick… :rolleyes:
Meh, if you have someone who constantly badgers you, just confuse them. “Thank you, but I mustn’t. My religion has very strict dietary restrictions. I may eat this greasy hamburger only because it was blessed by our shaman, but not your treats as it may contain the impure spirits of the nougat god’s minions.”
They probably won’t bug you again.
ETA: People at work don’t bug me about food because I’m a vegetarian and, since I avoid cakes and stuff, they also all assume I only organic fair trade raw foods or some other more complicated diet. I don’t, but they think I do so they leave me alone.
Well whatever. Mr. Beta boy is eying my snacks. I think he is going to be very happy to have you back. Seems he doesn’t like it when I stick my face right against the fish bowl. 
I was way to pissed about the bag that I crumpled up the note and threw the bag away. And she even emailed/IMed me last night to make sure we were okay. I think I scare her. :dubious: