Like I said, I am not a big fan of donuts. A lot of people aren’t. But there is the expectation that everyone should bow down to the person who brought them to the breakroom and join the mad rush when the email goes out and so forth. Not to mention that some people DO like donuts (more power to them) and might be polite enough to ask if anyone minds if they take a second one which has led to a few slack chats of everyone feeling the need to list that they had 1 and so forth. Which invariably reveals who didn’t have any and leads to “oh, are you on a diet”? level conversations that can make others feel self conscious about their weight.
Personally? I am a big fan of bringing a box to an early morning meeting or whatever. Absolutely hate bringing them to a breakroom or, for the truly deranged, walking them around an office.
Things have gotten a lot better in the past decade or so of “I don’t eat gluten” becoming ridiculously common. But I find it still puts people into unnecessarily awkward situations where one person might think it is a nothingburger of an interaction and someone else might take it as “Are you saying I am fat and need to go on a diet?”
This is the kind of stuff that comes up when you are actually focusing on inclusiveness and discrimination in the workplace (rather than just checking a box for a federal requirement). Something as simple as passing CVs through OCR and standardizing the font (or using those god awful webforms) goes a long way because people genuinely do have an unconscious bias toward one style over another. Similar to evaluating people on things like “poise” or “articulateness”, that is just a REALLY good way to suddenly realize that you hired 90 of the same person.
And that also covers what kind of group activities you have at work. Because someone might seem “stand offish” because they don’t participate in a monthly pizza lunch because they don’t eat meat or just hate the chain the admin’s cousin owns. But now you put them in a position where someone else might think they are standoffish or “too socially awkward to work in a team” which can have career implications.
I’ve never been at a workplace that banned these practices. Likely because… it is a shitshow waiting to happen if anyone ever sees that email and posts online about how Innertrode bans donuts. But it is something that management and project leads are increasingly being made aware of to both curb their own unconscious bias and to avoid creating those kinds of situations in the first place.
Well… Good thing I don’t work in an office. I still think you are overthinking this. Bringing unconscious bias into this is clearly missing the mark. It’s free donuts, not a pizza party.
People don’t like working at an office. I know I didn’t, and I’m so glad I don’t anymore. It’s a small thing that brings a few people just a little bit more joy, and not at the expense of others.
Just err towards too many donuts the first time, and then adjust downward as needed. It’s okay to throw out a few.
And then trust everyone else to be human. If one dude is taking five, someone will eventually give him a “dude, seriously?” and that should be enough. And if it’s not, try to deal with it person to person instead of sending a passive aggressive email about it to two dozen people.
I’m curious about these weird workplace donut interactions you’ve had.
Like I said, I am not a big fan of donuts. A lot of people aren’t. But there is the expectation that everyone should bow down to the person who brought them to the breakroom and join the mad rush when the email goes out and so forth. Not to mention that some people DO like donuts (more power to them) and might be polite enough to ask if anyone minds if they take a second one which has led to a few slack chats of everyone feeling the need to list that they had 1 and so forth. Which invariably reveals who didn’t have any and leads to “oh, are you on a diet”? level conversations that can make others feel self conscious about their weight.
Personally? I am a big fan of bringing a box to an early morning meeting or whatever. Absolutely hate bringing them to a breakroom or, for the truly deranged, walking them around an office.
Things have gotten a lot better in the past decade or so of “I don’t eat gluten” becoming ridiculously common. But I find it still puts people into unnecessarily awkward situations where one person might think it is a nothingburger of an interaction and someone else might take it as “Are you saying I am fat and need to go on a diet?”
I’ll be honest I think you’re overthinking this
Think whatever you want.
This is the kind of stuff that comes up when you are actually focusing on inclusiveness and discrimination in the workplace (rather than just checking a box for a federal requirement). Something as simple as passing CVs through OCR and standardizing the font (or using those god awful webforms) goes a long way because people genuinely do have an unconscious bias toward one style over another. Similar to evaluating people on things like “poise” or “articulateness”, that is just a REALLY good way to suddenly realize that you hired 90 of the same person.
And that also covers what kind of group activities you have at work. Because someone might seem “stand offish” because they don’t participate in a monthly pizza lunch because they don’t eat meat or just hate the chain the admin’s cousin owns. But now you put them in a position where someone else might think they are standoffish or “too socially awkward to work in a team” which can have career implications.
I’ve never been at a workplace that banned these practices. Likely because… it is a shitshow waiting to happen if anyone ever sees that email and posts online about how Innertrode bans donuts. But it is something that management and project leads are increasingly being made aware of to both curb their own unconscious bias and to avoid creating those kinds of situations in the first place.
Well… Good thing I don’t work in an office. I still think you are overthinking this. Bringing unconscious bias into this is clearly missing the mark. It’s free donuts, not a pizza party.
People don’t like working at an office. I know I didn’t, and I’m so glad I don’t anymore. It’s a small thing that brings a few people just a little bit more joy, and not at the expense of others.
I hate your workplace.
Just err towards too many donuts the first time, and then adjust downward as needed. It’s okay to throw out a few.
And then trust everyone else to be human. If one dude is taking five, someone will eventually give him a “dude, seriously?” and that should be enough. And if it’s not, try to deal with it person to person instead of sending a passive aggressive email about it to two dozen people.