“You should be fostering a culture of ethics, not protecting people’s fragile feelings so they can keep eating their murder burgers in blissful ignorance!”
That’s what she actually said to me. She said it in the company kitchen, right after she’d systematically dismantled our second monthly potluck.
She’d cornered a grandmotherly woman over the ethics of store-bought eggs and lectured a new hire about the secret evils of bouillon cubes. All this, from a woman who never brought a dish. She called it ‘bearing witness’ to our ‘culture of violence’ while waiting for her own twenty-four-dollar salad to be delivered.
She had no idea her whole self-righteous empire was built on a bed of the cheapest corporate lettuce imaginable, and my next catering order was about to expose the entire lie in front of everyone.
The Anatomy of a Casserole
I love the third Thursday of the month. It’s potluck day at Sterling-Price Solutions, a tradition I started a decade ago when I first became office manager. It’s more than just a free lunch; it’s the one time a month the data analysts and the marketing creatives actually talk to each other. It’s where Brenda from Accounting’s legendary seven-layer dip gets its annual moment of glory, and where Dave from Sales proves, once again, that his “secret ingredient” for chili is just an extra can of beer.
This month felt different. We had a new hire in marketing, a twenty-something with a name that sounded like a wind chime: Brianna. She’d been with us for three weeks, gliding through the office with the serene, judgmental aura of a yoga instructor who just caught you eating a Cinnabon. My email announcing the potluck theme—”Comfort Food Classics”—had gone out last week. The sign-up sheet was full of the usual suspects: mac and cheese, fried chicken, potato salad. Comfort.
I was arranging paper plates when she appeared in the doorway of the large conference room we used for our feast. She wasn’t carrying a dish. Instead, she held her phone like a shield, her expression one of pained tolerance, as if she’d stumbled upon a dog-fighting ring. She surveyed the buffet, a long table groaning under the weight of Crock-Pots and casserole dishes. A faint, theatrical sigh escaped her lips.
This, I thought, was not a good sign. The first rule of potluck is you bring a dish. The unspoken second rule is you don’t look at someone’s offering as if it personally offended your ancestors. Brianna was already breaking both.
An Inquisition Over Deviled Eggs
The room filled with the low hum of happy chatter and the clatter of plastic cutlery. People were piling their plates high, laughing and catching up. I saw Brenda beaming as Dave spooned a third helping of her deviled eggs onto his plate. It was working. The magic was happening.
Then I saw Brianna corner Brenda by the water cooler. She wasn’t eating, just observing. Her arms were crossed, and she was leaning in, her voice low but carrying a distinct prosecutorial tone. I edged closer, pretending to need a refill.
“…but are the eggs from cage-free, pasture-raised hens?” Brianna was asking. “Because the battery cage industry is just horrific. The de-beaking alone is a form of torture.”
Brenda, a grandmotherly woman who wore cat-themed sweaters, looked utterly bewildered. Her smile had vanished. “They’re just… from the grocery store, dear. The extra-large ones.”
“Right, but that’s how they get you,” Brianna pressed on, a self-satisfied little smirk playing on her lips. “The consumer is kept intentionally ignorant of the suffering embedded in the supply chain. Every single one of those eggs represents a day of misery for a sentient being.” Brenda’s hand trembled slightly as she set her plate down. She mumbled something about needing to check a spreadsheet and fled. Brianna watched her go, then shook her head with a sigh, as if mourning the moral bankruptcy of the entire accounting department.
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