Coworker tries to guilt employee into bringing pricey potluck dish, employee gets revenge by bringing salad coworker hates instead: 'She gagged'

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Apr 4, 2025 10:00 AM EDT

Office potlucks can be deceptively high stakes. When you're at a casual gathering with friends or family, nobody bats an eye if you show up with a store-bought veggie tray or a bag of chips. But bringing a homemade dish into work feels like a performance review. And if you're the one who shows up empty-handed or with something simple, it doesn't go unnoticed (whether or not your coworkers care is another story).

That's the kind of pressure this employee was under, primarily by one micromanaging coworker who kept "suggesting" expensive dishes for her to bring, even though she herself was showing up with basic ingredients. She even called her out in a company-wide email. This seems a little more deeply rooted if you ask us. This employee finally had enough. Instead of spending a fortune on her entitled coworker's fancy salad suggestion, she decided to whip up something from her pantry, one she knew for a fact the salad queen would absolutely hate. 

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  • "AITAH for bringing a salad that I know one of my coworkers will hate to the monthly office potluck?"

    I (43F) work a semi-remote job and every month we have our remote employee meeting at the main warehouse. During that meeting, one of the other in- office employees (we'll call her Janice) always plans a potluck lunch. At first it was nice, but for
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  • the last handful of months Janice has been passive aggressively suggesting dishes that I can bring to the lunch, even going so far as to call me out in the email invitation. This month's theme is "salad bar." Our company is supplying a
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  • Great, just want I want while I'm drowning in work. Salad. 

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  • few different types of lettuce for the base and we are supposed to bring toppings. I have been covertly asked (pressured?) to bring the toppings for a strawberry chicken walnut salad. This means that I would have to buy enough chicken,
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  • strawberries, candied walnuts and croutons to possibly feed the 20 people in our department. Janice has mentioned she thinks she is bringing cucumbers, tomatoes, and chopped onions. I typically don't have issues doing this, but this year I am in 2
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  • weddings, have our yearly family beach vacation planned (my parents rent the house, but I still need money for my son and me to eat and enjoy ourselves a bit), and I am trying to save spending money for a cruise that we are taking next January. I've
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  • She doesn't really have to explain herself. Employees should never be forced to spend their own money for the sake of their job. Who has the company credit card, anyways?

  • mentioned a couple of times that I'm slightly tight with money until next year and then was shocked to be asked by someone that makes over $10 more per hour than me to bring toppings that cost more than triple the cost of what she is bringing.
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  • When I blatantly said," Wow, the chicken salad toppings are kind of out of my price range right now," my concern was met with dismissal and a lighthearted comment about how it shouldn't cost more than what I pay to have my nails done every two
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  • weeks. I was furious because I had just mentioned the other day that my nails were the one luxury that I really look forward to nowadays and I felt like she was trying to use that against me to manipulate me into doing what she asked.
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  • Yesterday, after I went home and rage raided my pantry, I decided that this would be the month that I would NOT be making what was suggested. I went through what I had on hand and decided that I will be making a Mediterranean chickpea salad
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  • with lemon vinaigrette dressing to share with the group. This included chickpeas, kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, crumbled goat cheese, all of which I know she hates (she gagged when she smelled olives on a charcuterie board another
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  • employee brought a few months back). The only things I have to purchase are the goat cheese and olives. I'm sure that most of my coworkers would enjoy this salad, too, so it won't go to waste. I also don't have to worry
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  • about her mooching leftovers from me again when I could really benefit from having them to eat myself. So am I the a hle for making something I know she will hate?
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  • And should I keep doing it until she stops asking? (Ironically, as I sat here writing this, Janice announced that she bought a case of corndogs and a case of black diamond steaks from our warehouse. The steaks alone are almost $100. I've decided that I am not the ahle.)
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  • turquoise_turtle83 NTA The salad you describe sounds delicious.
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  • Its super ride of her to tell anyone else to bring such expensive food, no matter her own contribution. But adding the fact she herself is being cheap just makes it worse. She sounds like an insufferable and you need to stop trying to please her.
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  • Her request was unresonable. You are not the restaurant at Grand Hotel and she is not Queen of England...
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  • Capable-Limit5249 NTA. I've always assumed. that these types of meals are called potlucks because you never know what everyone is going to bring.
    via Capable-Limit5249
  • Orchestrating them takes all the fun out of it. It's one meal, it doesn't have to be perfectly balanced. Just make what you want. Your finances are none of her business.
    via Capable-Limit5249

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terrible coworkers boss employee job work coworkers petty revenge Office colleague potluck karma entitled people salad
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