Like a Plague of Locusts

It is a well known fact that people who work in offices like to eat. And I don’t mean socially. I mean as if they were about to walk the Green Mile and the food before them was the last they might possibly ever consume.

The best example I have ever seen of frenzied office eating has been occurring this week. While the Sales Directors are in the office they have lunch catered for the 6 of them. Whatever is leftover is put in the lunch room and an e-mail is sent out inviting whoever wants the food to go ahead and help themselves. That is when the chaos breaks out. You would have never thought that these people had ever seen food before. I wandered down there yesterday right after the e-mail came out to get myself a cup of tea. On the way I ran into a co-worker who was staggering back, clutching a glass of water like her life depended on it. She exclaimed breathlessly “It’s a madhouse in there” and then disappeared back into her cubicle*.

And she wasn’t kidding. People were so concerned that the free nibbles would run out that instead of hunting down a paper plate they used coffee filters as a way to carry their food back to their desks. One lady was piling slices of pizza onto of her already micro waved Lean Cuisine. Others who were too slow (or worked on the other side of the building) looked distraught when they saw that the only thing left was some sort of strange looking Middle Eastern salad.

I thought that perhaps it was just a fluke. You know, people back from holiday break. Maybe they didn’t have a chance to go grocery shopping yet and the food was much needed. Until the e-mail came out today and there was the same mad rush for the food, this time cheese and sausage.

I wonder how those New Year’s Resolutions are working out?

~The Office Scribe