“Birthday potlucks” otherwise known as “Remember the old days?”

Today was this woman’s 50th birthday, so they held a potluck for her. Here in my new department, people usually just bring in some kind of cupcakes/cake/treats on their own birthday and the treats are gone by 10:00 am.

But, being that this was her 50th birthday, they held her a potluck. This was unlike any potluck I’ve ever been to though. They set up the food in a conference room. Everything good so far, right. There is a table with a bunch of chairs in the room. I figured, everybody will just grab their food, sit down, eat, then get up, get some cake and go back to their desk; no pressure. So I got my food and sat down. The atmosphere was strangely family-like. These people are not my family. Why did it feel like I was sitting down to a family dinner?

And the conversations were so boring! Imagine sitting around a table, as a 24-year-old man, with about 15 women and 1 other man all between the ages of 41 and 59. Plus, most of them have been working together for 20+ years. I have only been here in this department for 3 months. I wanted to just get up and leave so bad, but I knew I would get this awful look from everybody like ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

So I sat and waited it out. Finally, after about an hour somebody finally stood up and made a move toward the door.

What did I bring to the potluck? Well, they sent around a list, and there was a slot for a person to bring a veggie tray plus about 4 other people to help pay for it. My co-worker signed up to bring the veggie tray, and I was one of the people who signed up to help pay for it. I figured, veggie tray would be ~$15 divided by 5 people is only 3 bucks, right? Well she comes in with all these fresh vegetables, mushrooms, peppers, carrots, radishes, etc. She took them and cut them all and I just know it’s going to end up being more like $30 and I am going to be stuck paying her 6 bucks for something that hardly anyone touched because of course she was late and spent the first half of the potluck cutting the veggies.

Sorry this is so long… I hate reading long posts.