{"data":{"items":[{"id":"6d60c628-65ee-4f42-b3df-df1901bc1920","excerpt":"my boss has banned hot take-out food at lunch — **my boss has banned hot take-out food at lunch**\n\n**Originally posted to Ask A Manager**\n\n**TRIGGER WARNING:** >!Hostile Workplace and sexual harassment!<\n\n[Original Post](https://www.askamanager.org/2015/02/my-boss-has-banned-hot-take-out-food-at-lunch.html)  **Feb 6, 2","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1rx9ojh/my_boss_has_banned_hot_takeout_food_at_lunch/","role":"pain","weight":1.1691333,"occurredAt":"2026-03-18T17:07:07.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"BestofRedditorUpdates","intent":"feature_request","painScore":0.42,"sentiment":0.2820513,"confidence":0.8233333,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating","missing_feature"],"statement":"I can imagine this would work fantastically for an office surrounded by a variety of places to pick up less offensive, lack of greasy food.","title":"my boss has banned hot take-out food at lunch","body":"**my boss has banned hot take-out food at lunch**\n\n**Originally posted to Ask A Manager**\n\n**TRIGGER WARNING:** >!Hostile Workplace and sexual harassment!<\n\n[Original Post](https://www.askamanager.org/2015/02/my-boss-has-banned-hot-take-out-food-at-lunch.html)  **Feb 6, 2015**\n\nI work as an administrator in a sales office with a lot of unspoken rules, varying from black shirts being banned from the dress code (“it looks like you work in a phone shop”) to all staff must attend mandatory month-end events and splash a large amount of money on alcohol, despite different salary levels and commitments.\n\nOne of the new rules that have come into place is absolutely no hot take-away food. I can imagine this would work fantastically for an office surrounded by a variety of places to pick up less offensive, lack of greasy food. However we are essentially in the middle of nowhere. The closest places to grab lunch are a fish and chip shop, a “dirty chicken” shop (I wouldn’t even class it as food; it makes KFC look gourmet), and a butchers/sandwich shop that opens while we are not allowed to leave the office and closes before I can even step foot outside for my break. Anything that staff could get to with their vehicles would make them completely go over their allocated lunches and is a huge no-no in our company.\n\nThe reason for the rule is a combination of the director wanting a healthier office (he’s joined the gym and gotten a bit into shape) and wanting no offensive odors from takeaways. It’s started to border on bullying as one person who was absent last week popped out and picked up a breaded chicken wrap. The director saw the bag and well…went a bit mad to say the least. The rule was loudly reiterated and a few backhanded comments about rising obesity within the company.\n\nA lot of people are very angry. A lot of staff feel very belittled and treated like children in regards to some of the rules already in place. I’m lucky in the sense that I have different hours from the rest of my colleagues (standard 9-5 job) so I have time to swing by a nice deli near my home before work.\n\nA few things have cropped up:\n\n* I’m seen as a voice on the shoulder to the managing director and unofficial HR, so a lot of the staff (even senior management!) are asking me to try and bring it up with him to persuade him to change his mind.\n\n* Unofficially the idea is being thrown about by the managing director and senior management that I do a lunch-run before work, which I’m extremely unhappy about. I don’t drive so I’d have to struggle with 13+ people’s lunches on foot. A few colleagues who have excellent working relationships will on the odd occasion ask me to grab a couple of things, which I’m happy to do (and the favour is returned in and outside of work). There is an unspoken statement that hey, if I do it for those two people, why not the whole office?\n\nWhat would you recommend as a diplomatic way to go about this? I can’t really put into words how angry this has made staff here. This new rule has tipped the scales and there is a lot of grumbling this morning. And it’s made me download a few cooking book apps for making my lunch before work!\n\n[Update 1](https://www.askamanager.org/2015/05/3-reader-updates-2.html)  **May 15, 2015 (3 months later)**\n\nUnfortunately, it’s a very annoying update from my end (but hopefully in the near future a very positive one!)\n\nIn regards to the lunch rules, they’ve taken root and everyone else has fallen into place with it. I’m no longer asked to go out and pick up lunches on behalf of the whole office, as I learned to stand my ground. Once I structured it in the way that the company would lose essential administrative support if I’m out of the office for too long, staff stopped asking. It’s not the best situation for those who are forgetful and other reasons, but the majority of the office look out for each other in regards to food.\n\nNow for the frustration…I had mentioned in the comments about other bizarre rules in place, one being the mandatory fun. It’s expected that every payday, unless if you have a “genuine reason,” you are to attend mandatory events where you pay money for a variety of events, including going for food (but mostly alcohol). I’m not on the same salary scale and commission as my other colleagues, so what pay I receive I do need to budget accordingly. My non-attendance has been brought up in the past in passing (but mostly from my office more in the sense of “please come out, you are lovely company”). I’m far from a person who lets someone spend money on me, and even that has been thrown about and I’ve shot that down as I don’t want to feel awkward and a bit of a leech.\n\nThe morning of our last social, I came into work to an email sent to all about internal opportunities and specifications for all roles within our company. I opened a few up and scrolled to this gem (intercompany lingo changed to protect myself): “Attend Socials, Summer Events, and Festive Teapot Parties on a regular basis and keep in mind these dates when arranging activities outside work. Seek permission from line manager when attendance is impossible and previous personal bookings cannot be changed.”\n\nTo say I was livid was an understatement. This is listed as essential for not only generic duties but to also progress within ANY role. I’d already put down a bit of a deposit towards this social so I bit my tongue and attended (one meal, one drink and then an early night).\n\nI was then pulled into a somewhat drunken conversation with the director who made up the food rules who proceeded to tell me there and then that the training I’d been requesting (with payment plans for courses, a proposal to undertake it part-time, and work during the weekend to make up for any time missed) were not going ahead as “there’s no point in paying for you to leave” and that he MAY pay for it out of his own pocket in 2016. I also got a spiel about how I did the work of four people yet they have no more money in the budget to give to me so I needed to give up any career ideas (?!). Followed by a somewhat offensive chat about how much the single men in the office like me and if I wanted to, I could start dating as I’m young and a good catch. I was absolutely stunned, made my excuses to talk to someone else, and ended the night pretty sharpish.\n\nFrom that moment on, I’ve realised that I will never get the respect or opportunities within this company that I have been promised in writing. I’m far from the type of person that rocks up at work at my exact start time and leaves my exact finish time, but it’s getting to that stage. I sit seething as more and more emails are sent about how we are growing as a company and future plans, as well as statements that all staff are encouraged with personal and career growth. And no money in the budget? Well they have enough to look at hiring an apprentice who I can “complain about admin work with” and open a new office in a very expensive location. It’s a kick in the teeth, to put it lightly.\n\nYes, I am biding my time and looking to move on. The downside of my industry is that they use every single online job site to find individuals, so if I put my information online then that would create a lot of problems. I’m hoping I find something soon. At least I can get some excellent advice and information from the Ask a Manager community.\n\n[Final Update](https://www.askamanager.org/2016/12/updates-a-good-employee-whos-really-a-terrible-employee-boss-has-banned-hot-take-out-food-at-lunch-and-more.html)  **Dec 24, 2016 (19 months later)**\n\nI relocated for my new role within the new company the beginning of 2016. In the space of two weeks, I realised that things were not going to be the best. The company I’d moved for had made such a disastrous shambles of carrying out a mass recruitment drive that there were a LOT of horrific decisions made in relation to a lot of staffing and such.\n\nBut based on how toxic the previous role had been, I handled the situation a lot better than someone fresh out of university (a LOT of people in the department). Working for someone who was so utterly backward and derogatory really helped develop a thick skin and how to deal with staff who thought better.\n\nAlthough I’d reignited my job search, I did see a role within the company that appealed to me. I was appointed, and…\n\n\nI’m incredibly happy! It’s such an utter contrast to before. I do have a much better work-life balance, I’m encouraged to travel to other cities to work with my team (we’re based all over the country), my manager and director are fantastic to work with – fair, driven and they’re open to ideas and projects and such. I’m currently driving a hiring campaign as I’ve identified massive gaps in the way the company treat candidates, and also working with new divisions to set up ongoing staff flow and such. We’ve recently had a big campaign day meeting to discuss our growth and the future, and its fabulous stuff.\n\nAnd if anyone is wondering about the old place with the tyrant hating hot food…? Well, they’ve managed to open a major office in another big city. LinkedIn highlights the high staff turnover. And I’ve heard that they still haven’t managed to hire a replacement who worked to my speed and level…\n\n**THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP** \n\n**DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7**","offTopic":true},{"id":"d59b9ee7-4ac7-446d-a452-7271e22a6093","excerpt":"Team Lunch - Would it raise a red flag if I skip because of cost? — I am an intern at a big tech company. My team goes to team lunches every month and it's not an official lunch and our company doesn't sponsor these lunches. We split the bill equally.\n\nWe usually go to some high end restaurants for these lunches and th","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1ukup9d/team_lunch_would_it_raise_a_red_flag_if_i_skip/","role":"pain","weight":1.1400889,"occurredAt":"2026-07-01T19:01:09.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"cscareerquestions","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.61333334,"sentiment":-0.33333334,"confidence":0.70666665,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating"],"statement":"So my question to the managers and Team leads here, which one is more annoying if this happens for you 1.","title":"Team Lunch - Would it raise a red flag if I skip because of cost?","body":"I am an intern at a big tech company. My team goes to team lunches every month and it's not an official lunch and our company doesn't sponsor these lunches. We split the bill equally.\n\nWe usually go to some high end restaurants for these lunches and the bill comes out pretty big even after splitting. \n\nIt comes around 4x more expensive than what I usually spend for lunch myself. My manager covered my expenses last time tho.\n\nI really like my team and I feel like it's only once a month and it's a great bonding activity to secure my full time offer and feels like an investment.\n\nOn the other hand I feel like I don't want to let my manager pay my portion of the bill everytime and it may look in cheap.\n\nI also obviously don't want to talk to my manager about this and I don't want to suggest a cheap alternative because everyone else in my team loves going out and doesn't care about spending the amount on Lunches.\n\nSo my question to the managers and Team leads here, which one is more annoying if this happens for you 1. Covering an interns portion of the bill? 2. Finding out Intern wants to skip team lunch because the bill comes out very high?","offTopic":true},{"id":"2f0986c8-dffd-4861-8043-f474b6aef321","excerpt":"Pregnant coworker keeps saying awful things to my terminally ill sister — **Pregnant coworker keeps saying awful things to my terminally ill sister**\n\n**Originally posted to Ask A Manager**\n\n**TRIGGER WARNING:** >!cancer, death of a loved, hostile workplace, verbal abuse!<\n\n[BoRU 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofReddi","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1nsepe7/pregnant_coworker_keeps_saying_awful_things_to_my/","role":"pain","weight":1.095749,"occurredAt":"2025-09-28T04:00:01.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"BestofRedditorUpdates","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.55058825,"sentiment":-0.1764706,"confidence":0.70666665,"matchedPatterns":["frustrating"],"statement":"Preggo came into my sister’s office with her tail between her legs and apologized profusely and has since only been annoying in an overly accomodating way.","title":"Pregnant coworker keeps saying awful things to my terminally ill sister","body":"**Pregnant coworker keeps saying awful things to my terminally ill sister**\n\n**Originally posted to Ask A Manager**\n\n**TRIGGER WARNING:** >!cancer, death of a loved, hostile workplace, verbal abuse!<\n\n[BoRU 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/xwOwyXoLwJ)  **Posted by u/KimchiAndMayo**\n\n[Original Post](https://www.askamanager.org/2022/08/pregnant-coworker-keeps-saying-awful-things-to-my-terminally-ill-sister.html)  **Aug 31, 2021**\n\nHoo boy, this will be short but brutal. My little sister has terminal cancer — she has between 2-4 years left. No symptoms yet, so she’s still going to work every day. \n\nThey’re a small company of 10 people (read: no HR dept) and one of those 10 is a woman apparently bereft of reason or empathy. This gal is five months pregnant and will not stop saying inappropriate things to my sis.\n\nHere’s a highlight reel:\n\nShe came to lil sis’s office, put my sister’s hand on her own stomach and said, “Now you have another reason to fight.”\n\n“Pregnancy is going around! Guess you don’t have to worry about that.” (Lil sis beat ovarian cancer a few years ago and had a hysterectomy.)\n\n“Your body is growing things it shouldn’t and my body is growing exactly what I wanted.”\n\nWhile talking about next year’s conference, she said, “I’ll be pregnant so Lil Sis it’s all you.” Lil sis replied, “Well it usually is, but I’m dying so your ass is gonna have to figure something out.”\n\nMy sister doesn’t really have the energy to devote to this (nor the fucks, to be honest) so she’s been ignoring it or responding like she did above. I love her quips but it’s not stopping Pregnant Lady from saying all of these messed up things. Any advice?\n\n[Update](https://www.askamanager.org/2022/11/updates-pregnant-coworker-keeps-saying-awful-things-to-my-terminally-ill-sister-and-more.html)  **Nov 30, 2022 (3 months later)**\n\nI have an update that, while dissatisfying from an HR perspective, will probably be pretty fun to read.\n\nMy sister vents often to me and our best male friend. Preggo left a comment on Lil Sis’s Facebook – some sort of “did you know I’m pregnant bc I’m pregnant” comment on a cancer update. While Lil Sis and I were brainstorming firm but tasteful responses, Male Friend just left a reply that tore her a new asshole. She immediately deleted her reply and went radio silent.\n\nLil Sis met with her boss the next morning to get ahead of any potential drama. Her boss actually shrugged and said, “This is what happens when you talk crazy out of church” (did I mention they’re in a tiny mountain town?). The gist was she gave my sister carte blanche to put Preggo in her place as needed. A warning and write up would have been better and I’m disappointed that my sister’s manager is kind of a coward. We’re glad manager is on her side in at least some way.\n\nPreggo came into my sister’s office with her tail between her legs and apologized profusely and has since only been annoying in an overly accomodating way. No pregnant talk, no minimizing the TERMINAL CANCER.\n\nApparently we just needed the audacity of a straight white man with nothing to lose.\n\n**Editor's Note: the letter writer shared what the boss said to pregnant coworker,  credit to u/PodcastJunkie8706 for finding it**\n\n>He said, “Do you make literally everything about yourself?” and a gif of Kris Jenner that said, “give me attention”\n\n**NEW (FINAL) UPDATE**\n\n[Update 2](https://www.askamanager.org/2024/12/updates-boss-hired-his-emotionally-unstable-son-non-urgent-texts-in-off-hours-and-more.html)  **Dec 10, 2024 (2 years after last update)**\n\nThe pregnant coworker actually left that job shortly after the confrontation so we didn’t have to give her any more thought. My sister had to work until the last few weeks of her life (yay capitalism), and we are so grateful for your help in making sure she didn’t have to deal with a bully on top of everything else.\n\nShe passed away earlier this year. She spent her final months doing almost everything on her bucket list, including hosting her own funeral a few months before she died (she wanted a party, not a memorial).\n\nShe was the kindest and funniest person I have ever known and the stars are dimmer with her gone. It’s kind of special to know that sometimes when I am down an AAM rabbit hole I might bump into her.\n\n**THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP** \n\n**DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7**","offTopic":true},{"id":"00017aa9-5978-46c8-a347-e4d760c9fa58","excerpt":"AIO? My manager keeps questioning my feeding pump at work even after HR stepped in — Hi, I posted last week about issues with my feeding pump at work and my manager sending a passive-aggressive email about “disruptions.” HR got involved and were actually supportive, they confirmed my medical accommodation is valid and ","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/AmIOverreacting/comments/1sxl2gu/aio_my_manager_keeps_questioning_my_feeding_pump/","role":"request","weight":0.83386666,"occurredAt":"2026-04-27T23:57:58.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"AmIOverreacting","intent":"problem_report","painScore":0.18,"sentiment":0.33333334,"confidence":0.70666665,"matchedPatterns":["i_need"],"statement":"Edit 1: to clarify it is NOT a breastfeeding pump 😭 I need a feeding pump which is a tube going right into my stomach to feed me.","title":"AIO? My manager keeps questioning my feeding pump at work even after HR stepped in","body":"Hi, I posted last week about issues with my feeding pump at work and my manager sending a passive-aggressive email about “disruptions.” HR got involved and were actually supportive, they confirmed my medical accommodation is valid and basically said I’m not doing anything wrong. They said they’d talk to my manager and everything was fine until today.\n\nI thought that would be the end of it, honestly, but now there’s been another development and I feel kind of embarrassed and unsure if I should escalate again or just drop it and stop being so over dramatic about the whole thing.\n\nSince the first issue, my manager has still been acting off. He’s made a few comments about me stepping away and once even asked me to explain how my feeding pump works, which felt a bit condescending but I tried to brush it off. It wasn’t anything overtly rude and I could work around it so I didn’t care all that much.\n\nThen today he sent another email directly to me. I attached it so everybody can read without me having to explain.\n\nIt felt weird and just like he was crossing a boundary. Like he’s acknowledging I’m allowed to have the accommodation but also kind of implying I shouldn’t be using it in a way that affects anyone else at all, which it isn’t and my coworkers have reassured me they aren’t bothered and don’t care in the slightest.\n\nHR already said everything is fine on their end, so now I don’t know if I’m just being too sensitive or if this is actually still worth bringing back up again. I don’t want to create any drama or risk my job because this truly is a job i enjoy, but I just feel kind of awkward and singled out at this point and I’m unsure if escalating to HR again is the right decision.\n\nEdit 1: to clarify it is NOT a breastfeeding pump 😭 I need a feeding pump which is a tube going right into my stomach to feed me. It has to be connected 20hrs a day ","offTopic":false},{"id":"9055706f-dead-4f79-bbb0-be4be9589548","excerpt":"my employee is passing off ChatGPT lists as his own ideas — **I am NOT OOP.** \n\n**Originally posted to Ask A Manager**\n\n**my employee is passing off ChatGPT lists as his own ideas**\n\n**Mood Spoilers:** >!positive for OOP!<\n\n----\n\n[Original Post](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/11/my-employee-is-passing-off-chatgpt-lis","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1okkvio/my_employee_is_passing_off_chatgpt_lists_as_his/","role":"demand","weight":0.79146665,"occurredAt":"2025-10-31T04:02:05.000Z","sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","credibility":0.62,"venue":"BestofRedditorUpdates","intent":"tool_discovery","painScore":0.12,"sentiment":0.73333335,"confidence":0.70666665,"matchedPatterns":["looking_for"],"statement":"This was just the tip of the iceberg of problems at this company and I had been looking for a new and more challenging engineering research environment.","title":"my employee is passing off ChatGPT lists as his own ideas","body":"**I am NOT OOP.** \n\n**Originally posted to Ask A Manager**\n\n**my employee is passing off ChatGPT lists as his own ideas**\n\n**Mood Spoilers:** >!positive for OOP!<\n\n----\n\n[Original Post](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/11/my-employee-is-passing-off-chatgpt-lists-as-his-own-ideas.html): **November 13, 2023**\n\nI am an experienced designer and I lead (but don’t directly manage) teams of young engineers.\n\nDan (who has two years of experience) has recently been assigned to our team and sat in on a meeting where other members were sharing testing results of new ways to “automatically perform X,” which is a new feature. Towards the end of the meeting, Dan said, “But I have all these other ideas that you haven’t considered. I really think these could solve the problem!” Of course, I encouraged Dan to share the new ideas, but he said he would send them to me after the meeting.\n\nI felt bad that he had done all this work and not included him earlier in the meeting. I have had to mentor Dan in the past and he was resistant to documenting his work or listening to feedback, and I thought that was clouding my judgment of him. (My impression is that he actively tries to minimize his role to get out of work and says bizarrely out of touch things related to social norms.)\n\nAfter the meeting, he sent me a screen shot of a ChatGPT list! I was shocked and dumbfounded. He gave the impression that this was his work, but he just created the list while in the meeting. Furthermore, when I asked him what some of the terms meant on this list, he said he didn’t know.\n\nAI is a great tool to conduct a preliminary search, but then I expect people will further investigate and vet some of these ideas. This is similar to writing a research paper with Wikipedia. Engineers generate ideas (from the web, other products, personal experience) and then put ideas in a table and rank for their advantages, disadvantages, cost, performance… Anyone can have an idea, it’s the feasibility of the design that makes it a good one.\n\nFor Dan, instead of addressing it head-on, I asked him to build the appropriate table and gave him guidance on how to present his ideas better. However, I never addressed how he presented the ideas as his own because I was so flabbergasted.\n\nAs we integrate ChatGPT more into our web searches, I can see this happening more and more. I was wondering how to approach this in the future. When people put their hands up in meetings, do I have to ask for their sources first?\n\n&nbsp;\n\n**Editor's note: For Alison's response, please refer to the link [here](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/11/my-employee-is-passing-off-chatgpt-lists-as-his-own-ideas.html)**\n\n&nbsp;\n\n[Update](https://www.askamanager.org/2024/12/update-my-employee-is-passing-off-chatgpt-lists-as-his-own-ideas.html): **December 23, 2024 (13.5 months later)**\n\nLast year, I wrote in about a junior engineer who was presenting ChatGPT list results as his own without understanding the results. Not surprisingly, the engineer tried doing this again. And again.\n\nI took your advice to heart and the next time it happened, I scheduled a meeting with Dan and explained how he could use his ChatGPT results to *start* his investigation into the answer but I expected recommendations to be his work. He was not too responsive because this would be more work, which reinforces your point about being a personnel problem and not a technology problem. Then, my (older) boss came to me saying how great this employee was and how he had some many great ideas for this other project. I asked him if this was just a ChatGPT list and I was asked to investigate. Not surprisingly, after Dan reviewed his ChatGPT list, these ideas were completely out of scope for the project, and he wasted a good 2 weeks exploring them. I no longer had the time or energy to fight Dan’s laziness (he is not my direct report) and his manager didn’t see an issue.\n\nThis was just the tip of the iceberg of problems at this company and I had been looking for a new and more challenging engineering research environment. After nine months of interviewing (thank you for your advice), I landed a job at Big Tech Research Company that blocks all forms of AI due to security concerns. After 6 months, I find most of the people here are overly motivated with big brains. I spend my time telling them to take breaks or think of the big picture, which is a nice change. It’s a better cultural fit.\n\nThanks for taking my letter and all the comments. It was very helpful to put the problem into perspective. I see that you’ve had some related letters about ChatGPT, so it’s going to be a tough technology to manage as it becomes integrated into most software programs. For the record, in my personal life, I often have to write reference letters and promotional text and ChatGPT is fantastic! Super fan. I did not use it for this letter! :)\n\n&nbsp;\n\n**DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7**\n\n**THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP**","offTopic":true}],"breakdown":[{"sourceKey":"reddit","sourceName":"Reddit","count":5}],"total":5}}