We are actually having a potluck next week. We have about 200 employees in our bldg (a small division of a well known international company) and one of the office staff is soon to go on maternity leave (her first child). We are having a baby shower for her during the lunch hour. Her department is providing the main meat course - ham - and everyone attending will bring a side dish. Drinks and cake are also provided by the hostesses (work friends of the employee). We have a large conference room reserved. What I don't care for is when the food sits out, in various departments where I work, for everyone to see - very unprofessional and it can become quite unappetizing after awhile.
Most of us prefer doing this during the lunch hour as opposed to after hours because most of us have family activities in the evenings and many of my co-workers live quite a distance from the office. As a rule, the coworkers at my company don't socialize much together after hours.
I work with employees from many different countries and I do believe we Americans tend to overdo it with the sheer amount of food we have in our celebrations compared to those people I work with from Europe. When our European employees travel here for meetings they always marvel at the size of our food portions in restaurants. But they do enjoy our steaks (usually large enough for 2-3 meals!).
(Forgot to note - I'm bring baked beans next week - easy to make and goes good with ham.)
Edited by glow8490 on 09/01/08 08:40 PM.
