Poll: Should I get five dollars?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I don’t intend to do this, so this is merely an exercise.

Here’s the sitch. A manager sent an email the other day stating that the company was providing lunch for the call center staff who have to work Labor Day. The company would provide subs and it was up to everyone else to bring whatever side dishes they wanted to share. No choice of variety of sub was offered and it was not stated whether the subs would be individual or party subs. I assumed the latter based on previous similar experiences, although at other companies. I did not respond to the email requesting that I be provided with a vegetarian sub.

Individual subs have now been laid out and unsurprisingly there are no vegetarian subs. Would it be reasonable for me to go to the manager and request five bucks so I could go buy my own sub, since the company failed to provide one for me?

2

No.

Whenever free lunch is provided at work, that’s great, but if I don’t like what they’re serving or if I don’t feel like it fits into my diet, I eat my own stuff. I’m a big girl, I can provide myself my own lunch.

3

No, if you didn’t call attention to your need for a vegetarian sub beforehand you shouldn’t ask for the cash now.

4

Agreed.

Furthermore, there is about zero chance your request will be considered reasonable by management. Honestly, it sounds utterly insane to me.

Is this really what you want to go to the mat with your boss over? Really really?

5

If you are not allowed to go out and get your lunch then I absolutely believe the company should be obligated to make sure you have something to eat. But they did, and they even gave you an opportunity to ask for a veggie sub. I don’t really think you have any ground to stand on.

Now if you had asked for a veggie sub and they didn’t provide, I might say you should ask for the money.

6

Just to clarify, the announcment about the subs was not accompanied by an order form. I wasn’t given an opportunity to select from a menu.

Um, no? Because I said in the first sentence of the OP that I wasn’t going to do this?

7

Yeah… Sorry about that. :smack:

8

No, they were offering a gift – they had no obligation to provide anything. They fact that they didn’t offer something you can eat doesn’t mean they owe you something you can.

9

You know, I almost said something about that. But then I realized my answer DOESN’T change if that’s the case. If you have a job in which you do not have the liberty of going out to grab something to eat, you bring your lunch with you.

I can see if we’re talking a one-time deal of “hey we need to meet this deadline and I need you to work through lunch so we’re ordering in” but it seems that this isn’t the case. Or even if it is, it was known ahead of time. So if you’re worried about not getting something you can eat in that instance, you play it safe and pack a lunch that day.

10

But you said the announcement was by e-mail. Thus, you could have replied and asked if at least one vegetarian one could please be ordered. While it would have been a particularly nice touch for management to ask for special requests I do not believe they had an obligation to do so; and I’m one of those that believe that if someone is on a vegetarian/vegan/kosher/halal/hunks of still bloody raw meat diet, that person and that person alone is the only one with an obligation to bring the subject up about dietary needs. You didn’t, you lose.

11

It was a gift you didn’t want. Doesn’t mean you get to choose another gift.

I also think you could have emailed back immediately after the initial announcement and requested vege options.

12

You could ask, why the hell not? Explain why you didn’t reply to the e-mail and ask if you could get 5 bucks for a sandwich. If you don’t get it, shrug and be done with it and spend your own money.

13

Oh I know I could have done that. I was just clarifying that there wasn’t a form or menu or anything to select off of.

14

To answer Montgomery0, I’d say that to ask would appear to be petty and not worth it.

15

Well, what if I only liked, say, turkey subs. When today came and there was a choice of Ham, Beef, Pepperoni, Veggie, and Donkey subs, but not my Turkey sub, would I have a claim similar to yours?

16

I’m in the no column for all the reasons people said.

17

I say no, too, for the reasons given, but I gotta say, if I was the person responsible for buying the lunch, I would have gotten a couple of vegetarian subs. Anymore, it just seems reasonable.

18

I’d say no. But what I might do is volunteer to run out and get subs for all the vegetarians.

19

I get this all the time. I usually just suck it up. At my last company, catered BBQ was the standard so I’d make do with coleslaw and potato salad (neither of which I’m particularly fond of) and go grab something after the lunch meeting. My current company is very good about asking me.

The worst trouble I have is at conferences. Even if I specify a vegetarian meal before hand, the waiters are invariably confused and it takes forever to get it to me. And everyone at my table always feels bad that I don’t have food yet and they’re almost done. Lately, I’ve just resorted to picking at sides and making sure I bring my own food to eat later in the hotel room.

It kinda sucks that I’m not getting a benefit other employees do (or in the case of conferences, something that’s already been paid for) but I think it’s better (career-wise) not to make a big deal out of it.

20

Isn’t it the case that you’re getting *exactly * the same benefit they’re getting? You just don’t like it as much as they do is all.