Pitting people who don't RSVP

The BBQ Pit
1

So, you’ve decided to attend a professional convention. One where meals will be served.

If, for whatever reason, you are unable to attend, would you please do the kindness of letting your group’s event organizer know? In advance? I understand that there are sometimes “last minute” reasons that a person cannot attend, but I don’t think those often make up a full third of registered attendees failing to appear.

I ask this because I cook in a convention/banquet facility. And let me tell you, there are few things more frustrating and annoying than putting in a shitload of work to prepare a nice meal for 300 people, only to have 100 of those people not show up.

Aside from the wasted labor, once the event is over, we now have a crapload of food left over, and, sadly, most of that is going straight into the garbage. Granted, we employees depend on leftovers for our own “shift meals” (unlike a restaurant, we don’t prepare “on demand” meals for employees, so we eat what’s left over after our event groups are done). But we’re talking maybe 15 servers, three cooks, and one or two dishwashers. 100 leftover meals? That means 80 servings are going in the trash.

It’s not so bad if the meal was done as a buffet. Any pans of food that never made it to the buffet line can be saved and served to another group (of course, this depends on the food - some things just can’t be reheated and still be good). We have a deal with the local Lion’s Club. They get a bargain price on having lunch meetings here every Friday, knowing that they are getting whatever leftovers we have to serve them. But that’s usually only 30-40 people; there are only so many leftovers we can give them.

But if it is a “served” meal … that means that we plate up individual meals, in the kitchen, for every guest, and those meals are served by servers placing those plates in front of the guests at their tables. And plated food isn’t usually the kind of thing you can save and serve later. You can’t recook and re-serve a steak. Or fish. And even if we could, individually picking this stuff off of a bunch of plates just isn’t gonna happen, especially when we’re talking close to 100 leftover plates.

And so it all goes in the trash.

Today, I made a “joke” at work. There were some leftover pastries from a morning snack table that made their way back to the kitchen. A few hours later, one of the office ladies came back looking to snack on them, but they had been thrown away by that point. She asked, half-seriously, “Who throws away food?”

I stepped out from another part of the kitchen, and in my deepest, most patriotic voice, declared, “Americans! Americans throw food away! GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

Of course, I was being completely sarcastic. I’m sickened by the amount of food that goes to waste. Especially when I realize how much of that waste could have been avoided by people simply informing us/their organizer that they weren’t going to attend. With that information, we can reduce the amount of food we prepare. But if we’re expecting 300 people, we have to cook for 300 people.

We donate what leftovers we can to the local homeless shelter, and my boss, the Executive Chef, allows employees to take home all of the leftovers we want. But there’s still a shitload that goes in the trash.

2

So you are asking invitees to send in their “Regrets”, not RSVP? Or you were told 300 would be attending, but those who could not should have made the effort of letting the organizer know they weren’t attending. Sounds a bit unrealistic.

Most invites I get require an RSVP. If you require attendees to send “Regrets” instead, you are an asshole. Let me show you why.

Annoyingly enough, this past June my cousin sent me an invite to her sons graduation party, and instead of asking for a RSVP, she asked to send “Regrets” if unable to attend. What a fucking burden.

I forgot to send my fucking “Regrets” and the week of the party and this gets back to my mother, who is all excited I will be attending the party. I slap my head and tell her I forget, wont be attending, and she freaks out because now she is afraid my cousin is going to order and cook all this extra food because she assumes I’m attending.

So, at the last minute, I email my “Regrets” to my cousin.

Then, the Monday after the party, I check my inbox. I sent my fucking “Regrets” to the wrong goddamn inbox. (I did send a card with a check to the kid a few days before, so I think no hard feelings).

Now, I get RSVP is for both “we are coming” and “regrets” but in my circle, if you dont RSVP either way, we assume your not coming. 90% of RSVPs I get are “we are coming”

Requiring invitees to send “Regrets” requires them to do extra work if they cant make it.

Sooooo if you got 100 RSVPs to me, its on you if you cooked food for 300 people. I would’ve cooked food for 110-120 people, always good to have a little extra. If someone didnt RSVP and showed up, then shit on them.

Maybe I need a little more info about how this was all organized.

Besides, you got paid no matter how many attended, right? Other than the wasted food, whats the gripe.

3

Weren’t the meals already paid for? And wasn’t the labor already paid for? Does the client get to pay you a smaller fee since 100 people didn’t show up? Or, is everything paid for in advance? If it’s all paid in advance, I don’t think it’s you who should be upset about wasted anything. Wasted labor?? It’s the host who should be upset, not you. Your team got full pay for two-thirds the work and got all the free food you could stomach.
Are you really that upset about wasted food? You shouldn’t be. We’re talking about 80 plates. That’s not even drops in a bucket–it’s drops in the ocean.

4

It’s still food that could have been used elsewhere, by people who need it. …

Rik? I think you just gave me an idea about a possible “charity action” for my employer. This company has a very big commitment to the whole “give back to the community” idea; they reward people for volunteering, have donation runs, all that kind of stuff. We can’t do elsewhere the same kind of tasks we do for this company if we’re paid for them, but we can do them as voluntary work. Maybe something along the lines of “if we’re reducing a food request, the amount that won’t get bought will be donated to the nearest food bank” would work. And, in this kind of community, it incentivates people to respond.

5

Yes, those poor starving Lions Club members. No matter what, this food would not have gone to people “who need it”. So, there is nothing to be upset over.

6

I’m talking about professional events that are booked months in advance. The professional group’s “event coordinator” sets this all up with us, and then spends several months advertising the event to the people in whatever profession it is. Like, “Bus Driver’s Union”. Hundreds of bus drivers say, “yeah, I’m coming”. The event coordinator comes back to us and says “300 bus drivers will be attending!”. So we start planning on how to serve 300 bus drivers.

As the date of the event approaches, my boss, the Executive Chef, starts figuring out how much and what food he needs to order, as well as figuring out how many cooks he needs to schedule for how many hours to get everything ready.

The actual food supplies need to be ordered far enough in advance to allow us cooks enough time to get everything ready. And once that food is ordered, we’re stuck with it. Most food, especially perishables, can’t just be sent back.

So, there is a cutoff date where the event organizer has to say “we need food for X number of people”, and after that date there are no “takebacks”. We get that number, and the Executive Chef orders the appropriate amount of food, and schedules the cooks appropriately. If you don’t work in this industry, you would not believe how many hours of labor go into making these events happen.

And then, after months of preparation, a third of the people who said they’d attend just fail to appear.

Yeah, once that cutoff date arrives, the “point of no return”, the group has to pay us for 300 guests, regardless of how many actually appear. They’re contractually obligated. This isn’t a money issue, and financially, I can’t complain. I get paid for my time, and paid well, regardless of whether my work ultimately goes to waste.

I’m just honestly sickened by how much of my work goes to waste, and how much perfectly good food goes to waste, purely because of people who decide to not show up.

I’m talking about a period of MONTHS, in which time people sign up, and then have up until three days before the event to change their minds. And, god, companies have to hate it, if they’re paying for their employees’ attendance. This business involves CONTRACTS. They contract with us (signed contracts) to provide a venue for and feed X number of people. They have all sorts of time to get out of it, up until, like, 3 days before the event, to get out of it. And they just don’t. And we end up shitcanning the stuff we made for them.

7

Where’s LSLGuy? He likes my rants.

8

I can relate to and understand your rant, but it still smacks of the old guilt trip. “Eat your broccoli, there are children starving in Africa”.

9

Worked in catering for several years, and there is always a shortfall between expected numbers and actual attendance, even when RSVPing is required. That’s just how people are. You need to get over it because it’s not going to change anytime soon. Weddings, corporate events, reunions, it doesn’t matter, numbers never reach anticipated attendance!

The blame goes to the organizers who so badly miscalculated attendance numbers. As they will have to pay for the food they WILL find a way to deal with before they spend again.

And there is NO excuse for the excess food to be going in the garbage. We ALWAYS delivered any leftovers to Mission Services at the Sally Ann, and they were unfailingly grateful.

You’re getting paid for your labour and the food produced, regardless of how many attend, so I’m not sure what’s to bitch about! Quit taking it so personally already, it’s the organizers it reflects on, the the food preppers!

10

Hmmm.

How much time generally elapses between the point where you know you’ve cooked 100 extra meals and the time cleanup has to be done? Is there any way to contact the shelter and have the homeless people bussed in to eat the meals on site?

11

And like, mingle?

12

That doesn’t sound very practical.

13

Just trying to brainstorm here. Can we save the criticisms until everyone has contributed their ideas?

14

This is the Pit, dumbass.

15

Maybe a bad time to point out there are still children starving in Africa …

16

Huh. So it is.

That means that I can call you a humorless old poop whose hair is mussed up from getting whooshed all the time. :stuck_out_tongue:

17

Rik, as a person involved in catering, I’m on your side.

The events we do aren’t usually as large, 200 people would be HUGE for us, although one time we did more.

But what I’d like to gripe about is not those that don’t show up. It’s about the contact people who have booked an event, that call up the day before the event, and suddenly have a lot more people who have responded. At the last minute. Oh, will that be a problem?

Yes, it will. Depending on what’s being served we may not be able to prepare, say, for 20% more people, with that little notice.

Oh, and another gripe, when serving buffett style, is people that mound their food high on the plate. The more who do this, the less for those coming after. And the contact person who come to us and say we didn’t give them enough food. Well, yes we did, we set out the requested amounts, but we can’t help it if your people are pigs.

Pant, pant, it’s good to get this off my chest and vent a little.

Really, much of the time things go smoothly and we have a reputation for quality. We’ll bend over backwards for organizers that are cooperative. Like the reception for Laura Bush in 2002 where we provided food for between 500 and 600 people. Never worked so hard in my life. But the attendees were nice, and the First Lady herself very gracious. I felt sorry for her, she didn’t get a chance to snack at all, with all the meet and greets and photo ops. So it was arranged for my boss to take sampler platters to the home of a college friend where she stayed. My boss tole us “She came downstairs in her housecoat and told me how lovely it had all been.”

18

I like this rant. It’s a damn shame to just throw food away :frowning:

19

I totally agree with you, but sometimes, like Rik’s examples, there’s little choice. Food service regualtions are very strict. Temperature requirements in particular make giving away such leftovers difficult.

Some things like breads and rolls, or cakes, are easier to deal with.

When my folks had their 60th wedding anniversay we had two big sheet cakes not cut into. Mom had said she’s rather have too much than run out. So we took those uncut cakes(I’d made them by the way!:D) to the local Rescue Mission, who were more than happy to have them. But hot food might have been problematic.

20

You’re an idiot.