No such thing as free lunch

The holidays bring about many opportunities to break bread with different groups of folks. Unfortunately for me, that includes multiple occasions that involve eating with my coworkers.

First, there was our Thanksgiving luncheon. The most Thanks I had to be giving involved the fact that it was only our department. Me and five guys. We all brought something in and I was in charge of dessert. One guy brought in chips and soda. One brought in a delicious pasta salad. My boss, who lives by the mantra "anything worth doing is worth overdoing", picked up 4 massive subs (they were cut in thirds, nobody ate more than a third), more chips, and cookies. Another guy brought in a pumpkin pie (which, umm, I was in charge of dessert, punk!). And the final guy brought in Brunswick stew.

For those of you not familiar with Brunswick stew, here's a recipe. The taste isn't awful but the smell is like rotting meat like dog chow atrocious and the consistency in your mouth is mealy like a rotten apple. And that's not the worst part. When my boss questioned him about the half-eaten bag of corn chips he also brought in, he said those were to go on top of the stew. He was going to stop and pick up a new bag but (brace yourself) since his family had eaten more of the stew than he realized, he didn't have much stew left to bring in anyways. Am I the only one that finds that revolting? It's potluck, not leftovers. His family ate that stuff all week apparently after they made it for a church fundraiser the previous weekend. Nasty.

Then there's our company-wide holiday luncheon. The Human Resources department goes absolutely insane to make sure it's "holiday" and not "Christmas". Which is then followed up by the actual event opening in prayer and one employee singing a song that was not only overtly Christian but wasn't even a Christmas song. I'm not anti-church by any means but good grief! Then they manage to drag the lunch out to two hours in ways that leave just about everyone there feeling inappropriate and harassed. And there's not even any alcohol to lessen the sting!

And finally, today was our department Christmas lunch. This year, the boss decided we would go out. We went to a nice local chain bar and the food was delicious. The problem was the company I was dining with. My boss has bronchitis, diagnosed just yesterday. He spent the entire meal gagging and coughing. Two other coworkers also seem to be coming down with it. One has a sore throat and they're both hacking up a lung as well. And I had the pleasure of riding in an elevator and vehicles with them, in addition to eating my meal in close proximity. Then of course they all spent the entire meal talking about football and what a crock global warming is.

I guess I should just be glad we didn't do potluck again. I wouldn't have been able to eat with everyone sick like that, knowing they had prepared food. And given the world right now, I should also be happy I have a job, especially one that tortures poisons provides me with social eating opportunities.