Office potlucks....JUST SAY NO!

OK, I seriously love my job. I work for a great company with great benefits and endless opportunity. I have a tremendously flexible schedule and I get along with most all of my co-workers. I like what I do at my job most of the time. My boss is a good friend (although we do butt heads from time to time), we basically have a great time at work every day. Sometimes it's crazy, sometimes it's downright insane, sometimes it gets a little tense, and sometimes it's even boring, but I know I'm blessed to have such a great job. I will celebrate my 12th anniversary with this company on 2/12/08. I'm not going anywhere!

But the potlucks have got to stop!

It all starts around Halloween. Our IT department is about 300 or so people and ever growing. Halloween just happens to be when one of our 'big bosses' celebrates his Birthday. This is ALWAYS fodder for some sort of joke or prank and ALWAYS there must be food. A list goes around, everybody writes down what they 'say' they are going to bring. Some actually follow through, some forget and pick up some disgusting grocery store cookies on the way to work, some just say the heck with it and 'pretend' they forgot (and apologize profusely as they heap more pigs in a blanket on their plate). Some go all out! I swear they bring their entire collection of small appliances to work! Crock pots galore, portable casserole dishes, pressure cookers! Geez...Some bring strange dishes. Dishes so strange they require a little sign be placed in front of them that gives the name of the dish, divulges it's ingredients and even provides the history of the dish. On Halloween there is ALWAYS the cake bought at Walmart that has a full inch of orange and black frosting on top of it. Those brave enough to eat it have their lips and tongues dyed the shade of mud for the remainder of the day.

There are those who always want to take the easy way out and bring drinks, chips or paper plates and plastic cutlery, or , of course, ROLLS.  I have seen potlucks where we had 25 2-liter drinks, plenty of plates and forks but hardly any food LOL!

We have a pretty good potluck for Thanksgiving because some of the programmers deep fry several turkeys in the parking lot. Everybody pays like 3.00 towards those and then brings side dishes. There is ALWAYS that casserole of dressing that has so much sage in it you almost gag when you eat it. Dressing is like a crap shoot anyway. Somebody ALWAYS brings a huge crockpot FULL of macaroni and cheese and then lets it sit there on warm so by the time we arrive to fix our plates the noodles just dissolve into nothing but a big blob of cheese when you try to spoon some out.

Over the years our department has more than tripled in size. The potlucks these days are quite elaborate. We have so many people that our annual Christmas 'Graze-a-Thon' (I swear that's what somebody decided to call it) is divided up into 3 different days. The employees are divided up into groups and assigned their day. Then the list goes around and everyone pretends to write down what they are going to bring (or forget to bring).

So this week we have gorged on rotelle dip and chips, sausage balls, green bean casserole, pigs in a blanket, some very dried out spaghetti (hint: don't put spaghetti in a crockpot, it's not a stew), meatballs, cheeseballs, mystery balls, and many assorted dishes that I don't care for including spinach dip, some weird bean salads, and some Chinese and Indian dishes that I can't even begin to identify. There's always the cheap re-heated chicken fingers and someone always brings a very small amount of shrimp and sushi (I think it's just to show off LOL).

Then there are the desserts! Homemade cookies, brownies and cakes and some strange looking dishes with marshmallows in them (with signs to explain) obviously somebody's family recipe, and then there is the large assortment of store-bought cookies and cakes. People always bring them, even though they know that they will turn into bricks the minute the package is opened. I think it's just a guilt tamer. People think if they bring SOMETHING they can eat guilt-free. The majority of this store-bought stuff either gets thrown away or we call the Jimmie Hale Mission (a homeless men's shelter) to come and pick them up.

Our day for the Graze-a-thon was today. I got up at 4am and made 50 pigs in a blanket. When I went back to the conference room mid-day my big bowl was empty. I was redeemed and allowed to eat guilt-free. But a strange thing happened this morning! Approximately 10 people called in sick out of our whole department! All complained of stomach virus/food poisoning symptoms. Was a virus going through the department? Or was it SOMETHING brought to the Graze-a-thon yesterday? Inquiring minds (and tummys) want to know!

So our little group of about 30 people is kind of a department within a department, so guess what? We have to have our own little potlucks too! YEAH! Somebody decided that we would bring 'snacks' three Thursdays in a row. The first I forgot (doh) and brought some candy as a peace offering. The second I got up at 4am and made sausage balls, they all got eaten. The third is tomorrow and guess what? I'M NOT DOING IT! I REFUSE!

I'M GOING ON A POTLUCK HUNGER STRIKE! At least until I find out why all those people got sick! I have eaten some good stuff, I have eaten some gross stuff, I have eaten so much that I feel the need to lay on the floor, I even found ONE hair in some cheeseball on my plate......the year is almost over....after tomorrow NO MORE POTLUCKS until....hmmm.....I don't know....they will probably want to do one for Valentine's day...heart-shaped cheeseballs! YEAH!