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: Workplace sweeties, workplace politics, workplace competition
It is traditional in most workplaces - and ours is no exception - that when someone comes back from a holiday or an overseas trip, they bring with them treats to get shared round the office.
(This was actually DANGEROUS back when H#1 and AlphaSamurai were engaging in unspoken competition as to who could bring back most luscious chocolates from Belgium - when they were both going to Brussels quite often. Chocolates of DANGER and EVIL, so luscious with cream, sugar, chocolates in milk, plain, and white, nuts, honey, nougat... the sort of chocolates you fall passionately in love with even though you know, you know it will not end well...)
FreshStart is allergic to chocolate. AdminSamurai strives to be vegan. EMS#1 is coeliac and strives to be dairy-free. (The only exception either of the last two make regularly is with regard to chocolate.)
Nobody, of course, would be so gauche as to complain about workplace sweeties they can't eat. (Actually, FreshStart kept his chocolate allergy so quiet that I didn't realise that was why he'd refuse anything with chocolate till he'd been working here for 18 months. I think he feels slightly bad about the rest of us doing without shared chocolate now we know, but what can you do?) These are a gift. It's the thought that counts. We all tell each other that. Yes.
Nonetheless, there is a good deal of unspoken competition for who can bring back sweeties from holiday which are definitively overseas treats (ie, not just the same brand names in a different language) and which are chocolate-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian (ideally, vegan).
(An unspoken competition which I silently yet comprehensively won, probably forever, by bringing back a box of pure maple sugar sweeties from Montreal. Top that, cow-orkers. Mega Unspoken Competition Points.)
The Twerp's contribution to this workplace competition was to bring back... jelly sweets shaped like traffic lights. With gelatin. Chocolate-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, that's a win. Not vegetarian or vegan: that's a lose. (I noticed that he wasn't offering them to me, but was trying to get AdminSamurai to accept one, which she was declining, for the fairly obvious reason that if it's made out of bits of dead cows hooves, it is not vegan.)
Tags: belgium, chocolate, montreal, work
It is traditional in most workplaces - and ours is no exception - that when someone comes back from a holiday or an overseas trip, they bring with them treats to get shared round the office.
(This was actually DANGEROUS back when H#1 and AlphaSamurai were engaging in unspoken competition as to who could bring back most luscious chocolates from Belgium - when they were both going to Brussels quite often. Chocolates of DANGER and EVIL, so luscious with cream, sugar, chocolates in milk, plain, and white, nuts, honey, nougat... the sort of chocolates you fall passionately in love with even though you know, you know it will not end well...)
FreshStart is allergic to chocolate. AdminSamurai strives to be vegan. EMS#1 is coeliac and strives to be dairy-free. (The only exception either of the last two make regularly is with regard to chocolate.)
Nobody, of course, would be so gauche as to complain about workplace sweeties they can't eat. (Actually, FreshStart kept his chocolate allergy so quiet that I didn't realise that was why he'd refuse anything with chocolate till he'd been working here for 18 months. I think he feels slightly bad about the rest of us doing without shared chocolate now we know, but what can you do?) These are a gift. It's the thought that counts. We all tell each other that. Yes.
Nonetheless, there is a good deal of unspoken competition for who can bring back sweeties from holiday which are definitively overseas treats (ie, not just the same brand names in a different language) and which are chocolate-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian (ideally, vegan).
(An unspoken competition which I silently yet comprehensively won, probably forever, by bringing back a box of pure maple sugar sweeties from Montreal. Top that, cow-orkers. Mega Unspoken Competition Points.)
The Twerp's contribution to this workplace competition was to bring back... jelly sweets shaped like traffic lights. With gelatin. Chocolate-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, that's a win. Not vegetarian or vegan: that's a lose. (I noticed that he wasn't offering them to me, but was trying to get AdminSamurai to accept one, which she was declining, for the fairly obvious reason that if it's made out of bits of dead cows hooves, it is not vegan.)
Current Mood: 
amused
amused
