The right of first refusal on all pizza is the last right that the patriarchy will relinquish.

You guys should order more pizza.

What do you think the penalty should be if the rule in 5 is broken?

We need time to prepare talking points, DS.

That's a bizarre social convention in 5, Becks.

Maybe you can get your team to order different food now and then.

It's not one that's articulated or enforced but haven't you noticed that? The tendency for women to hang back and let men eat their fill and, only when they're done, have more if any is left?

Pizza parties really do suck. Luckily, we now have our office parties nicely catered. You should just take your own food; that's what I did when we had pizza, and fuck 'em if they don't like it.

7 - You have that nice lactose intolerance to fall back on. Lucky bastard.

Should the talking points rigorously exclude any hint of chivalry - "we're eating it to spare you the grease-induced torpor" - or is that too dangerous in a post-patriarchal world?

"With our biologically-determined larger mouths, it's impossible for us not to get to our second slices before you finish your first"?

Maybe we need to take this off-line.

And 6 is right, at least when you're dealing with younger American men, who are basically savages (sorry guys, sad but true). It gets better when they have kids and realize that other humans also experience hunger.

I'm a little surprised that Cala is unfamiliar with The Convention. I think Becks may overstate a bit, but it's certainly been my experience that the default is that all the guys get 2 slices, all the shes get 1, and then you assess.

If guys are getting 3 slices before the shes get a shot at 2, then the guys are pricks, or the shes are shrinking violets. Since Becks is anti-pizza, she's letting down her sisters by allowing this situation to persist.

Fight the Power, Becks. Eat more pizza!

Lucky bastard.

They still gave me shit. "Just take pills!" Fuck 'em.

(My co-workers are actually very nice. I'm making a point.)

Whenever I read things like point 5 on that list, I think, the US must be an alien land.

5 is true enough, but only because pizza is an inherently masculine food. If there were tiramisu or something, the men would have to take little pro forma slices, leaving most for the women. A truly equitable food would be some sort of (non-pizza) savory baked good, like a quiche.

I've had so much workplace pizza that I have quit eating it entirely. It's the default food.

Mama always said, "the last slice is for Ms. Manners."

I'm reading things like 5 and wondering if I'm in the US.

I am not familiar with point 5. Maybe things are different for grad students, and the 'gorge' mechanism automatically flips on around free food, regardless of gender?

6. Serving the cheapest pizza available, with the implicit expectation that I will give up any other lunch plans I may have to eat it (see #2), will not make me a more loyal employee. It will only make me hate you more.

(In fact, I haven't attended an office pizza party in years, but the memories still burn.)

11: That's the rule I'm familiar with, pretty much. While I generally think that "Teh sexism is enforced by women against other women -- men are innocent" class of argument gets overused, I think it works for this one. What's going on, IMO, isn't so much greedy men getting as much as they want and women deferring and going hungry, as women feeling that they'll be doing something disapproved of if they eat heartily in public.

15: Huh. I was recently at a champagne and tiramisu picnic, two females and two males, and the other female and I ate way, way more of the tiramisu than the dudes did.

1. The right of first refusal on all pizza is the last right that the patriarchy will relinquish

You are perhaps forgetting control of the totem of ultimate power TV remote.

I agree with Cala (I think). I've never heard of that convention. People following that rule don't deserve the first piece of pizza.

It's not one that's articulated or enforced but haven't you noticed that?

In that case I thing using the word "dictate" is a little strong.

I would comment on this, but my similar experience involves everyone taking pizza and then sitting down for an hour to listen to a talk, without being able to get pizza again until it's done. So the average woman takes at least two. In other words, however much she actually feels would make her full.

Because the standard is "You only get one chance to take the pizza, so make sure you take enough", we always order an insane amount of pizza and have leftovers.

17: And Miss Manners, IIRC, begged people not to say that. She doesn't really want your leftovers.

When we have cake here--which we do regularly--the men eat way more cake than the women. This may be a scientist thing, for all I know, but the only people who have seconds are men, and the women in general request teeny-tiny little slices.

Since I am fat, I must always take a tiny little slice and make sure everyone else gets served first, so that they don't think that I'm a greedy pig. Just as everyone else can talk about how they bus or drive to work and have everyone assume that they exercise at some other time, but I need to make very clear that I walk four miles every day even in the winter, because otherwise they will think that I spend each day in a grease-induced torpor, since of course fat people don't exercise.

I think 21 is basically true, which is why this rule is much more strongly enforced in professional, rather than social, situations, since being "disapproved of" at work has more serious consequences.

I've noticed the pizza rule but (a) it's two slices and (b) it's not that the women hang back and wait for the menfolk to fill up, it's that they don't want to eat too much at once, in front of too many witnesses, for fear of being perceived as pigs, as in LB's 21.

Lunchtime is for reading The New York Times, not for awkward socializing.

This is the truest of all true things I have read this morning. It could only have been truer if The New York Review of Books were substituted for the New York Times.

Did anyone watch the debates last night? What did anyone think?

I've noticed women don't eat as much, lest you all think I'm blind, but there's no hanging back for the male lions to eat their fill of the gazelles.

Since I am fat, I must always take a tiny little slice and make sure everyone else gets served first, so that they don't think that I'm a greedy pig.

I think this is the heart of the matter. Thin women would get a free pass taking two slices of pizza off-the-bat, or returning early for her extra slice. The narrative that accompanies the thin woman is that she can be trusted to moderate her intake, so she must deserve the extra slices.

Women also don't weigh as much, and require fewer calories on average for adequate nutrition.

There is cake too often, and there is too much of it. It's nice to recognize people's birthdays, but sheesh.

26: Yep. I had a sentence about that -- that this is more powerful for anyone who isn't a model-perfect weight, but edited it out because I couldn't get it sounding right.

There seems like a pretty obvious fix to the 1-slice convention. Get the second slice and fight the power.

Definitely 21 and 28. Which annoys me because why should I have to fret about whether taking that second slice of pizza makes me look like a pig to other people when I'd rather be eating a salad and reading the NYT by myself?

Since I am fat, I must always take a tiny little slice and make sure everyone else gets served first, so that they don't think that I'm a greedy pig.

Since I am fat, they already think I'm a greedy pig and will continue to think that no matter how many times they see me bring my gym bag into the office. So I take the standard woman-approved two small slices + salad, which is usually all I'm hungry for anyway.

One (non-jumbo) slice of pizza can't be considered an average meal, can it? I just assumed the convention to be that everyone may take up to two slices initially; once that condition is satisfied, all bets are off. Tracking how many slices everyone's eaten is asking too much.

Being forced to eat should not be part of work. I hate "cake when you don't want it in and everyone will think you're a pig for eating any, but if you don't have any you aren't being a team player".

My assumption was always the same as tom's. That's why there's occasionally that little race at the end of the second slice.

Since I am fat,

Except that I recently met you in person, and no, you're not fat. Which is highly irrelevant to the conversation, insofar as it's our narratives of ourselves that dictates how we feel, and not the actual facts on the table.

Anyone who has two slices of (presumed low-quality, grocery store-made, "butter"cream-frosted) cake is a greedy pig. I'm usually the one begging for a small slice, without one of those goddamned artery-clot flowers on top.

Anyway, threads like this are why I'm glad I work for myself.

I don't mean this as a "guys suffer too point," but just another thing that sucks about pizza parties and office parties in general: how many slices would I eat if I were home or with friends? Probably four or five. But unless you're built like a lineman, if you eat that much, people are going to think you're a pig, or eat a ton when food is free, or something. So you eat two slices and you're still hungry.

Being forced to eat should not be part of work. I hate "cake when you don't want it in and everyone will think you're a pig for eating any, but if you don't have any you aren't being a team player".

I think it's more deranged than just "you aren't being a team player." I think it's also people mixing guilt/shame into their own piece of cake and wanting more partners-in-crime and fewer people who are skipping the sin.

Anyone who has two slices of (presumed low-quality, grocery store-made, "butter"cream-frosted) cake is a greedy pig.

Greed is good, big man. Greed is good.

39 is exactly right. I much prefer "there is cake in the break room. get some if you want it, or not" to "everyone must stand around and look at each other and eat" events. And I'm not anti-office treats. Not at all -- I even occasionally bake and bring in cookies or cupcakes. I just leave them in the break room and send out an email.

43: Are you kidding me? Ask whoever's ordering to order more pizza. Or, you know, supplement.

42: Our cake is home-made cake. I'm just not a cake person, really. I like it all right, and there are some cakes I enjoy, and I do like frosting, and I love baking cakes, but as a general thing I'd rather have something savory than cake.

Solution to all your problems: get the office manager or whoever orders the pizza to order more. I've never noticed rule 5 because the pizza here always lasts for at least three hours (either that, or because of male privilege!). I would have to deliberately gorge myself, like eating half of a full pizza at noon, to keep women from getting any.

OK, that's admittedly not a solution to all the problems, but it addresses 1, 3 and 5. As for 2 and 4, I have to fall back on having a job where excuses to get out of the office are easy. That, and I'm still close enough to college (I turned 25 two days ago, boo, hiss) that a preference for eating at home on my own time is easily outweighed by free pizza.

I typically refuse cake, too. I used to say "Nah, that stuff'll kill ya," but I've moderated to "Gotta keep my girlish figure." Fuck 'em.

Also, with pizza, in particular, people seem to want to pay the least amount for it, so they always come back with $6.99 pies. Blech.

Also, on preview, agreed with 44.

You know, there was a Seinfeld on this. Also, 44 is creepily right. "Eat the pizza" is the new "drink the Kool-Aid."

43: That's why you need to adopt the "Unlimited pizza but you only get one chance to take yours" rule. I usually take five pieces and a lot of the other free-food-appreciating grad students do the same. There are young Chinese women who take four pieces every time.

I absolutely agree with the hate for work cake parties and pizza lunches, but (weirdly?) have no problem with the work (where work is an academic institution) after-talk reception, despite the obvious similarities between the two. At afternoon receptions, I am happy to gobble exactly as many finger foods as I damn well please, and drink two glasses of wine while I'm at it, and consider it something of a genuine treat.

Solution to all your problems: get the office manager or whoever orders the pizza to order more.

It may be that the pizza money is expected to come out of the employees' pockets, though, or that they have to take turns ordering such things (as we did in my earlier lab with cake).

It's better when the pizza must be plentiful in order to get people to come to a series of talks that they would otherwise resent coming to.

51: I order pizza for the entity for which I work. And because I do a lot of the account reconciling I always make it such that we order as nice pizza as we can get away with.

This is an instance of the larger, irksome phenomenon of workplace culture confusing co-workers with friends. I like all you people fine -- as co-workers. But I will have lunch or coffee or cake with you as and when I feel like it (rarely) and not "to build community," so help me.

At a previous job eating lunch with the group was a norm. Seconds were frowned on (I took them anyway; I'm a pig). I stopped going. Then I was frowned on.

You want to build workplace morale? Keep your community pizza and write me a check.

There are young Chinese women who take four pieces every time.

Communism is about egalitarianism.

absolutely agree with the hate for work cake parties and pizza lunches, but (weirdly?) have no problem with the work (where work is an academic institution) after-talk reception ... drink two glasses of wine

I recant. You want to build workplace morale, you can buy me booze.

God, I'm a cheap date. At least I know rfts will be there with me.

Of course, universities are making it harder and harder to serve booze. What kind of country is this anyway?

"Eat the pizza" is the new "drink the Kool-Aid"

I woke up in the middle of the night one time to the sound of screams coming from the living room. I went downstairs and found my roommate Jon and his friend Adam, freshly back from the bars and blind drunk. Adam was sitting on the recently-subdued Jon, shoving a slice of disgusting Mario's pizza in his face and screaming "EAT THE PIZZA! EAT THE PIZZA!!"

So I guess I'm saying it could be worse.

Either I am socially oblivious (quite possible) or a lot of you think people judge you way more then they actually do. I don't care about other people where I work enough to judge them or bother to keep track of how much they are eating. I think all the social pressure is imagined more then anything else.

Except that I recently met you in person, and no, you're not fat. Which is highly irrelevant to the conversation,

But surely it's relevant to whether or not one's co-workers will think "have another slice, Piggy" at Pizza Lunch. I mean, I know about self-perception and all that, but surely there's some recognition that, despite our society's fucked-up attitudes about weight, the mildly overweight aren't scorned for eating the way that the truly obese (a loaded term, but I'm thinking in terms of 'can't shop in a regular clothes store') are.

I think all the social pressure is imagined

I'm judging you right now, CJB.

I think all the social pressure is imagined more then anything else.

I think the social pressure varies tremendously from group to group. And is often under the radar of men.

I love "there's treats in the break room, help yourself" e-mails. I just love treats in general.

a lot of you think people judge you way more then they actually do.

A point I think ogged has made in prior posts. And apparently manfully ignores.

I wouldn't say the social pressure is imagined, because in my limited time dealing with the corporate machine, appearance and weight was the sort of thing that was noted ("When she started here, she was kind of heavy, but she's looking a lot better now.") and there were some girls that did the Weight Watchers thing together.

But I do think that obsessing whether you've taken the right sized slice allotted to you by your weight class is probably overanalyzing it a bit. Most people aren't that observant.

A point I think ogged has made in prior posts.

Yeah, but not in this case. Everyone really is judging how much you eat.

The "there's treats in the break room, help yourself" emails are starting to annoy me, frankly. But that's because I telecommute from 600 miles away.

You can't deny that there's an age/gender breakdown with the behavior of people when a "treats in the breakroom" email goes out. The just-out-of-college guys always run back there as soon as they get the email and load up on like 5 cookies, not even thinking about whether that means there will be any left for others. But it doesn't matter as much because there's no obligation for everyone to have one (so many won't) and because I always factor that into the number of treats I bring. (I'll usually replenish the treats throughout the day from a reserve.)

67: "Take off the skirt" is probably the wrong response on a thread about teh food sexism.

(And which doesn't bother me because I remember the "woo! free food!!1!" reaction from when I was an intern/just graduated.)

But there are never emails saying, "There's Scotch in the break room." Why are butter and sugar socially acceptable, but not alcohol? I feel persecuted by all you bakery supremacists.

69: But the college guys do that because they correctly assume that everyone else's spirit has been broken by the working world and they wouldn't really enjoy the cookies anyway.

Back when I had a regular job, the company rolled up cake events into one monthly birthaversary party. I had a recurring monthly task that took me out of the office and I would always schedule it so that I missed the cake event, even for my own birth month.

There is nothing I miss about the office, except benefits and free pens and a printer. The people I liked personally were the people who simply did their jobs and helped me to do mine and brought nothing social into the workplace. I have two offices in DC through various pubs and I would never visit either if the Flophouse had a printer. (Sidebar: What's a good printer for a Mac-based home, anybody know?) In the officeplace, I don't even like seeing the people I know socially who happen to also work for the paper.

It goes beyond "fuck 'em"—I just work so much better when I'm alone and isolated. Spencer's about the only coworker I've enjoyed having, because he also just works and doesn't chatter. I've been thinking recently about taking a regular position writing and the officeplace is by far the biggest deterrent.

The problem is that pizza is not a polite food; only the most rudimentary etiquette applies. It's a poor match for forced office socializing. Also, happy is the office where convenient pizza is good pizza, so the hapless secretary is the one who 'chose' the nearby cruddy place. Bread & cheese and a nice fruit plate would be better, but would alienate the savages, some of whom are inevitably salesmen and thus temporarily high in the pecking order. What a drag to have to cater to opinion; I simply tell people who think ill of me that only Monday is a soap day so that they stay away. I'm already looking forward to the candy buffet on 1 November.

I much prefer "there is cake in the break room. get some if you want it, or not"

I much prefer "there is cake in the break room, if you want some".

The people I liked personally were the people who simply did their jobs and helped me to do mine and brought nothing social into the workplace....In the officeplace, I don't even like seeing the people I know socially who happen to also work for the paper.

Yay Smasher! Not only the hottest, but the smartest.

Standpipe Biscuitplate.

5 is true enough, but only because pizza is an inherently masculine food. If there were tiramisu or something, the men would have to take little pro forma slices, leaving most for the women.

I have a story involving me, the Ex and a "shared" tiramisu that calls into question either (a) the comparative masculinity of pizza vs. tiramisu, or (b) the masculinity of the Ex.

I do have my theories.

What changes recent grads from beautiful liberated pigs into autobots who accept their two-slice lot in life isn't success, its the onset of awareness that the office really does watch how much you eat.

Sidebar: What's a good printer for a Mac-based home, anybody know?

I like my Brother HL-5070N.

70 - This isn't a thread about food sexism. See Ogged's 43. Bad pizza parties hurt everyone. There's also the reverse pizza party punishment (usually inflicted by women on men), like the girl who spent an entire luncheon telling everyone all about the diet she was on and why that meant she had to eat the specially-prepared food that she brought instead. I. Don't. Care.

What's a good printer for a Mac-based home, anybody know?

Do you just want a printer, or one of those scanner/all-in-one thingamajigs? If the latter, the HP-something-or-other that I got for free when I bought my laptop is pretty good. If the former, I have an old one in my closet that you guys can have.

Sidebar: What's a good printer for a Mac-based home, anybody know?

If you don't need color, I'm a huge fan of the Samsung SCX-4200 (Official Printer/Copier/Scanner of JRoth, Architect). It's a laser, so it's wicked-fast, great quality, and cheaper per print that ink-jet. Compact, and cheap - ~$200, depending on promotions.

Caveat: very limited in paper size - I think that ever legal has to be sheet-fed. But that's a tradeoff for compactness.

I like my Brother HL-5070N.

Your inappropriate feelings aren't at issue, SB.

61: I thought about saying something like that. I think about peoples' perceptions of myself, sometimes to an intense, unhealthy level, but I very probably wouldn't notice something like this in someone else.

I almost didn't go to an office pot luck party after work about a month ago because I felt so guilty about only bringing a chips and salsa. Thinking about it now, the only person about whom I remember what they brought is a woman I'm attracted to, who brought something that turned out to be pretty unusual. I'd be very surprised if anyone else had been more attentive than I was.

Smasher: I'd just scope out bensbargains.net until a good deal came by. Here are a couple: wireless color inkjet for $63; monochrome laser w/ USB for $65. Here's a print server for $45 if you want to make the laser network-accessible.

86 - We have an office potluck once a year and people are definitely (unspokenly) judged by whether they bring something storebought or homemade (and, for homemade, whether they made it or whether their wife made it). The bar is much lower for men than women, though.

80
What changes recent grads from beautiful liberated pigs into autobots

I don't know, but I saw the movie a couple weeks ago, and that would be awesome.

The social pressure can be real, and yet it can be successfully flaunted. The crux is whether or not it fits one's identity to flaunt the social pressure.

If it is in sync with your identity to flaunt a convention, then you haven't introduced anything new into anyone's mind when you gobble down cake and ice cream. However, if it is out of sync with your identity to flaunt the convention, you will draw attention to yourself and people will notice.

(For example, if Bitch gets genuinely upset, and says "fuck the patriarchy" then no one modifies their perception of her, because it is in sync with her identity. If Laura Bush, or someone who stakes their identity on being demure, gets upset and says "fuck the patriarchy", it causes more cognitive dissonance.)

Flout.

I'm sorry.

FLOUT FLOUT FLOUT

NOT FLAUNT

Otherwise 90 is a very good comment.

Flout, heebie, flout.

Let that be a lesson to the lurkers.

God, I'm so glad we don't have pizza parties where I work. I hate eating with a group of people I don't know too well (and coworkers, most of them at least, fall into that category), especially if we have to stand around (which given the configuration of our available spaces, we would need to do.) My hands shake, I get very uptight and awkward, it stinks.

On the other hand, I'm not so glad for the reason we don't have any of these events. Evidently some time before I started here, my division used to have regular office parties, which many people enjoyed--except people in the other divisions, who got annoyed by them, and got them banned on the grounds that our division was having too much fun. I don't normally think of where I work as a cheerless place, but nevertheless, no parties anymore. Of course, it all ties into the many layers of resentment between our division and the others.

We do have cake, typically only when someone leaves. That's not as problematic, as I can take a small slice, play around with it for a while, and then unobtrusively get rid of it, and it doesn't impact my lunch at all. On those rare occasions someone has tried to take our office out to lunch, I've so far managed to successfully feign illness or the like and avoid going. Just leave me alone to eat lunch in my office in peace, please.

FLOUT THE PATRIARCHY!

All office treats should be smoked fish or pickled herring.

No problem -- I'll take home the leftovers.

90: This is true. While I recognize the existence of this convention, it's not one that I respect particularly because I'm kind of committed to ignoring that class of conventions -- given that I'm wearing unattractive flats and no makeup, not eating heartily in public isn't going to get me enough femme points to make a difference.

And limburger cheese, John.

You all are idiots. "Flout" is that amusement park ride where you get in a log, and ride down the fake stream. Sheesh. I'm like a flountain of wisdom around here.

Heebie is flaunting spelling conventions.

In honor of the flaunt/flout correction, may I ask everyone to join me in making a sincere effort to abjure the use of "teh"?

I ask not for myself, though that particle of studied whimsy cuts me to my very soul, but for the children/society/the workers/the environment/the underpaid teachers/the deserving poor.

I concur will all items here, although with a qualifier for 5:

5. Social conventions dictate that women...etc. UNLESS they are Chinese postdocs -- who are all women -- in which case they will arrive en masse, pile their plates as high as possible, and leave immediately without socializing or whatever the point of the pizza party was, creating in turn a building-wide arms race in which people arrive earlier and earlier to such events trying to beat the Chinese postdocs.

(Oh, I know, I know. Here, let me do it for you: Racist.)

Fortunately, I got tired years ago of being baited with pizza to come to whatever event some administrator wants to waste my time with. Beer still works like a charm, though.

104: Where by "here," I meant in the original post.

But unless you're built like a lineman, if you eat that much, people are going to think you're a pig, or eat a ton when food is free, or something. So you eat two slices and you're still hungry.

Nah, just get a reputation as that small guy around the office who eats a lot. The "scrawny person who eats a lot because their metabolism is ultra-fast" has been a treasured national myth in America ever since Twiggy was filmed eating a huge cheeseburger for lunch (and I know she's English, we Americans are tricksy like that). Exploit the culture, ogged! Take those damn pills and eat heartily!

I'm wondering now if everyone thinks I'm a pig because I've eaten in public. Instead, I'm going to conclude that everyone on Unfogged is neurotic rather than everyone is noting how wide the slice of pizza I ate was.

Is shouting "flout the patriarchy" in sync with my established character? I think it is.

Things said to me within the last month at the office:

"Are you ever not eating?"

"Do you eat at home?"

"That's not breakfast." (Said of my usual chicken salad in pita breakfast.)

Everyone has a goddam opinion about what people are eating. (So do I, but let's leave my sins out of it.)

When I was in graduate school I would often be encouraged to come to events by the promise of free food, but I've always found these sorts of events to be unsatisfying. There's light snacking only, and it's hard to eat enough when standing around making polite conversation. Besides, it's not that expensive to get enough calories from the grocery store. Free food events: what a lie.

Ogged, my brother, keep the faith.

This is where my social obliviousness comes in but why do you care what your co-workers think about you other then if you are a good worker. I still stand by my stance that most other people aren't judging you as much as people think. Some of them probably are, but they are ass-holes and who cares what they think of you. The only criteria I care about be judged on at work is my work. I care what my friends think of me for other reasons, but not my coworkers.

110: At least in my department, the draw isn't the prospect of free calories, but that the food is probably at a nice restaurant that's hard to afford. Job talk hiring dinners... thumbs up!

It's not a convention if 50% of the participants don't know about it. Just take more.

I like my Brother HL-5070N.

Your inappropriate feelings toward robot siblings aren't at issue, SB.

Is shouting "flout the patriarchy" in sync with my established character? I think it is.

I was gasping and falling out of my chair at your abject un-demureness. Ow, my cognitive dissonance hurts!

I'm going to conclude that everyone on Unfogged is neurotic

Well, yes, of course, that too.

Your inappropriate feelings toward robot siblings your comrades in Gitmo aren't at issue, SB.

Everyone has a goddam opinion [...] (So do I, but let's leave my sins out of it.)

Rollover text.

But ogged, do they give you shit over your blueberry scone and tea lunch?

119: C'mon, everyone knows that Mexico is more Spanish than the Spanish, not more English than the English

FLAUNT THE PATRIARCHY

There's light snacking only, and it's hard to eat enough when standing around making polite conversation.

There's an easy way out of this, Labs: don't make polite conversation.

The "scrawny person who eats a lot because their metabolism is ultra-fast": tapeworm.

Free food events: what a lie.

My twenty year old self rises from the grave to howl in protest. While it is true that simple cheese platters are hardly worth it, a decent department function should feature pleasures far beyond "cheap calories."

Furthermore, free food in the academic building in which you're toiling is invaluable - a break without lost time in transit.

The Ogged you never knew. Speak to him in his native language. Learn about his unique culture. Perhaps he will perform one of his native dances for you if you ask him nicely.

I was shocked when I discovered that the Flophouse does not contain a printer.

We were SOOOOO DRUNK when we made those stories up, John. LOL

There isn't much need for a printer when you can send email to your phone. I pretty much only use one when I have to print out tickets to something.

Ecologists have been able to observe the ogged in its native habitat.

124: Try telling that to the department accountant. Believe me, I would provide more than cookies and lukewarm bottled water if I could.

Incest with robot siblings is the height of virtue. Are you listening, Slate?

Labs, if I remember correctly, it was you who advised all the grad students to go to all the receptions.

Hmm, I'm stuck. Go to the receptions because you're a good citizen, but don't go for the food.

I liked the predacted version of that post better.

Hey, me too.

125: Hey, I have that book. Here's an abridged version of one of the stories:

Once, a long time ago, a bear was roaming around the hills. The poor bear was in dire straits because he was so hungry...

***SPOILER ALERT***

...The man gathered his courage, reached up, grabbed the bear by the balls and threw him down the mountain, and the unlucky bear died.

I will occassionally buy pizza or some other lunch for my office. I don't care if you don't eat pizza. But, it ticks me off when you come into the room, load up your plate, and walk out without socializing.

Who made you the boss of me, Will?

OMG I AM GOING TO BEAT YOU ALL ABOUT THE HEADS WITH A BASEBALL BAT LABELLED "INTENTIONAL FALLACY."

Look, the point isn't that other people notice and judge. That isn't how social conventions work. They're as much internalized as anything else. "I never notice what people eat" = "I like fat chicks."

And Becks is more or less right. There is a social convention that women will hold back to make sure *everyone*--not just men--has had enough. Alas, Ogged is mistaken when he says that fatherhood changes men's tendency to just grab. At least in my home.

I abused your persona in 90, Bitch.

Do flautists flaunt, or do flutists flout? Jesus only knows.

Also, speaking of semi-bizarre cultural conventions, has anyone seen this article in the WSJ? Probably one of the more entertaining "oh those crazy foreigners / we must think outside the box!" pieces I've read in a long while. Since it's behind a subscription screen, let me know if anyone is interested so that I can put a few of the best paragraphs up.

Who made you the boss of me, Will?

My pizza. My rules.

Or, I get to decide whether I am pissed off, not you.

Flaunt, flout, flatus, afflatus. Let's call the whole thing off.

If I knew where you were, Will, I'd walk into your break room tomorrow and take a whole pie. No one tells me what to do.

When I buy pizza, I assume two slices for girls and three slices for boys. Then, I buy slightly more than that.

I love how Will comes in and says he does all the things that people said upthread annoy them.

OK, then: "Pianist". Pronounced PEEuhnist, or PeeANNist?

Not according to David Lewis.

I love how Will comes in and says he does all the things that people said upthread annoy them.

I haven't read the whole thread. But, I buy slightly more pizza than I think people will want to eat. If I have extra, we have leftovers. I encourage women and men to eat the entire freaking pizza. I am but one man. I can only encourage the violation of the two slice rule.

I also bring hot donuts to the office in the morning. Or bagels.

Except that I recently met you in person, and no, you're not fat.

Bless you for saying so. I'll have to wear whatever I was wearing that day every single day now.

And I'm not anti-office treats. Not at all -- I even occasionally bake and bring in cookies or cupcakes. I just leave them in the break room and send out an email.

Maybe this is why you keep getting stuck with the baby shower planning.

If I knew where you were, Will, I'd walk into your break room tomorrow and take a whole pie.

Pizza is not "pie." Actual pie is pie.

Re: cake: Cake is yummy. Unless you're living in Texas and they buy those HEB cakes with lard instead of butter in the frosting. Shiver. (At least they used to have lard; do they still do that?)

We used to have monthly cake parties in my current workplace, which they dropped the month before my birthday. Bitches.

148: The former, obviously, but with the final -t elided so it sounds as much as possible like 'penis.' Gould and Richter would just repeat the word to each other until they had tears streaming down their cheeks.

I will occasionally buy pizza or some other lunch for my office. I don't care if you don't eat pizza. But, it ticks me off when you come into the room, load up your plate, and walk out without socializing.

Maybe if your staff weren't so overworked, they would feel like they could afford the leisure time to sit around and socialize. But I can either finish compiling those stupid trial exhibits you need by 4 or listen to another story about how cute your kid is, not both. Grumble, grumble, mutter, curse.

140: I saw. I hereby grant you the right to abuse my persona, a privilege you share with Alameida, LB, and maybe Ogged on a good day and Labs when he's in a good mood.

Did I mention that I have a cute little assistant also? Any eligible men 25-30 in the Richmond area? For some reason, she keeps rejecting my divorce clients.

Catch her now before I feed her too many donuts.

Any eligible men 25-30 in the Richmond area?

Isn't that a pretty narrow range?

You know what's really good from HEB? Their ready-to-grill fajitas. You wouldn't believe it but they're totally on point.

ttaM, I've skipped most of the comments but "Whenever I read things like point 5 on that list, I think, the US must be an alien land." haveyou not seen that Margaret Forster memoir
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Have-Men-Enough-Margaret-Forster/dp/0099455641/ref=sr_1_16/202-5803583-0495823?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186593561&sr=8-16

?

Not according to David Lewis.

In reference to what? Even modal realism only goes so far.

Y'all are weak. I eat as much damn pizza as I can manage. If that means I have to lurk, vulture-like, in the break room waiting for the pizza to arrive so that I can have my first piece before my coworkers smell it, so be it.

If that means I have to pointedly say to the women, "Wow, I think it's really great that you're so willing to flout social norms about your figure," causing them to break down into tears and thus give up their claims on the pizza which is rightfully mine, well, that's just how the game is played.

If that means I have to hook my thumb into an eye-gouge to drag the nebbish guy from accounting away from the pie so that I can take my sixth piece, who are you to judge me?

I know that it is good and right for me to do all this, because on the veldt, people who did not fight for primitive pizzas were eaten by tigers. Thus, my genes are more fit than yours.

I think we've found a winner, will.

Isn't that a pretty narrow range?

She isnt going out with you. You are too old.

I wouldn't date your greasy assistant, Will, but how is she, Mr. Hidebound?

Naa, I always count on Epoch eating 6 pieces. We call him Mr. Piggie behind his back. He thinks "MP" is a nickname of respect.

Hah! We'll see who laughs when, thousands of years after we're both dead, my offspring rule your offspring with iron fists.

I wouldn't date your greasy assistant, Will

Ogged, I know that I am old, but does "date" mean "blog about" now to you kids?

It's not the intentional fallacy to wonder if the norm actually exists.

You know what's really good from HEB? Their ready-to-grill fajitas. You wouldn't believe it but they're totally on point.

They're fantastic.

What you do, is, get the beer, veggies and fajita meat from HEB, and then pick up fresh tortillas from Taco Cabana. It'll be a great evening.

160: If that means I have to lurk, vulture-like, in the break room waiting for the pizza to arrive so that I can have my first piece before my coworkers smell it, so be it.

Damn straight.
Especially when The ratio of people to cake pizza is too big.

Screw B's persona.

What is this HEB you're talking about?

Echh. Worse than workplace pizza parties: workplace birthday parties.

The Becks I know walked naked into a hot tub just to flout gender-related social convention.

That said, the pizza thing is hard. If I'm with friends, I'll take one slice (NY slices are huge anyway, and dudes can barely balance their requisite two on a plate) and then, if there's an even ratio left, take another. For some reason, though, with free work food, people are either obsessed with not touching it or obsessed with fighting to horde every last crumb. We don't feel this way about food we buy, right?

HEB. It's where people in Austin shop when they're either too broke or too far away to shop at Central Market. (Hardcore Republicans shop at Randalls instead, so they don't risk running into any brown people.)

HEB is the main Texas grocery store chain. The best part is that it stands for Howard Edward Butts.

Like, I sit on the faculty committee at my grad school that oversees all the other committees. The other committees do not get catered, but we do. There are nice sandwiches, salads, cookies, pickles, chips, and sodas. I am never hungry for lunch when I show up to that committee, but I feel the need to eat a little of everything, because, dammit, I'm serving on that committee with no compensation, unlike the faculty members, and I am eating my fucking sandwich, goddammit.

HEB is a pretty regular grocery store in Texas that sells great fajitas.

I much prefer "there is cake in the break room, if you want some".

If you don't want some, then cake is a wave.

I often bring cake and cookies to the classes I teach. At schools where there are a lot of men the women will wait until the men have had their fill. Where I teach now, there are usually only two guys in a class of 25, and some of the women will shamelessly eat like five pieces of cake. I love them.

Screw B's persona.

Get in line.

I hate hate hate the forced socialization. We are professionals and I am glad to treat my co-workers as such but I refuse to let work became the alpha and omega of my life. As such, I tend to put up very thick walls between my personal life and my work life to protect my personal life from invasion. Real conversation from a few weeks ago, out having a smoke:

Co-worker: "Robust, how come you never talk?"
Me: "Because you people aren't my friends."

181: Pants is my new hero. You and Smasher should make babies.

Man, I feel weird being the social, chatty one. Mostly I'm a recluse. But I find it immensely professionally helpful to be able to babble randomly about the things I'm working on -- I think best when I'm talking -- and so I'm not happy working unless I've got friends nearby.

Yeah, I try to avoid making "friends" in work situations. I'm really bad at small-talk and will inevitably actually say something personal, which evokes some kind of offended/offensive response in the coworker. During my last office job, I complained about not having received my check on time to make rent, and my supervisor said, "Why don't you just ask your boyfriend to help you out?" "Because I'm not a prostitute, Elizabeth."

The poor woman spent the rest of the day trying to convince me that she didn't think of me as a prostitute. From now on, I will resolutely remain sexually ambiguous in the workplace.

181, 184
I think you both would be interested in Schluss mit Lustig, (No More Fun) advocated by a German named Judith Mair.

Her credo is that fashionable notions such as weekend company get-togethers, "flexible working hours" and "team spirit" have led to a disastrous erosion of the boundaries between work and private life, which has crippled company efficiency and exploited staff.
...
It is forbidden to take work home and half-hour lunch breaks are compulsory. The company's golden rule is: Those who think that good work is only work that is fun do not belong here.

She has some other "interesting" ideas as well:

Her dislike of Americanisms including "deadline", "workflow" and "brainstorming" has led her to ban the use of such terms in her office and she charges extra to clients who insist on her using them in their work

Anyone else have that need for professional chatter? Or is this just me?

No, just talking to other people about what they are working on not only gives them an opportunity to suggest something that might unblock you, but gives you the opportunity to do the same.

Plus, then you get to gossip about who is sleeping with whom.

That's what worries me about Google-like work practices. It's all very well and good for Google to treat their employees like a 24-hour family who get endless comfort in exchange for constant labor, but the good-feeling around it supports the idea that 24-hour labor is a "good thing," even separate from the perquisites. The best way to care for your workforce, IMHO, is to make sure they don't stay too late, get burnt out, spend too much time together, and have no private life.

The only places I've worked where I've been encouraged to go home and spend time with friends and loved ones is in academia.

The need for professional chatter is part of why I'm looking around at possible changes to a non-telecommuting job.

Not being able to randomly talk to coworkers is also one of the reasons why I hate working from home.

188: one of the key Google work practices is also to shovel lots of money at your employees, which you make because they are hugely productive.

Yes, the catchphrase I heard at Microsoft back in the day (and suspect Google is there today):
"They make it like home, so that you don't go home."

I have a friend who works at Google, and I watched him and his coworkers interact while they were in town here. It was kind of bizarre. We were all drunk as hell and lots of drama was happening around my friend and a particular girl. He would retreat back to his coworkers, who would expound upon what a loser he was with women, and then they would dance together, and then they'd talk about the presentations they'd seen that weekend. Some of them seemed nice, and curious about meeting people, but then they'd go back to talking about work. I kept thinking there was a mantra in their heads saying "It's fine to go out and get super-drunk with friends, as long as those friends WORK FOR US AND WILL TALK ABOUT WORK."

192: This is precisely what I hate about the idea of being chummy with colleagues. I don't want to go out on the weekend and spend all my time talking about work. Work is a peripheral I plug into my life, not the other way around. How hard is that to figure out?

Another statement I said to my boss right after she became my manager: "I feel like I should say I'm protective of my free time but in truth the more accurate term is 'defensive.'" Happily, she feels the same way and respects that.

One of the most unhealthy things about the academy is the complete lack of boundary between work life and home life. The schedule's flexible but it's very hard to enforce mentally a distinction between work and play.

192: When I was in college, I went to a party that was hosted by a graduate student (2 years ahead of me, but possibly a year younger) who had been in a language class I took.

All the graduate students did was talk about their work. They weren't talking about it as an interesting topic of intellectual discussion. They were talking about writing their dissertations. It was incredibly boring, because it was simulatenously nerdy and anti-intellectual.

one of the key Google work practices is also to shovel lots of money at your employees

This would appear to vary (or at least not necessarily be the case at first). I've had friends get seriously lowballed by GOOG during the interview process.

194: That can be really unhealthy or it can be great. I really loved some of my professors, and I knew which one was yup late at night.

Of course, boundaries are important, but just because someone is in a professional role doesn't mean that real friendship isn't possible. (I'm not talking about corporate life here.) Teachers and chaplains can be like this. There's a youngish priest at my church who does a lot fo work with the 20's and 30's set. Part of that is through fellowship--including a softball league and dinner out. Some of those relationships will be more formal and some will become real friendships. If his family moves somewhere else, I won't be his parishioner anymore and the relationship could easily change. Clergy have to be careful about protecting their private life, but part of what religious life is about--and I think that this is true of really inspired teaching--has to do with relationships.

The last place I worked got pizza from Amicis which is my favorite pizza in the area. One time I ate an entire pizza.

Two slices allowed on first encounter with pizza, gender doesn't enter into it. This is not up for debate. Srsly.

"Screw B's persona."

Get in line.

Which number are you currently serving?

I'm not happy working unless I've got friends nearby.

There are gradations to the level of "friendliness" with coworkers. Collegial chatter about what your working on is, I think indispensable. I mean, it would suck awfully hard if your entire day was spent locked in your hole working all alone, desperately commenting on blogs in hopes of some faint hint of human interaction...

Er, ahem. Then there's the concept of "work friends," with whom you enjoy a smoke, or lunch, or water cooler chatter, but whom you'd never even consider inviting to, say, a gathering at your home. These are good, too, because without them, work is a lonely, lonely place. And when you spend more time at work than anywhere else, it's just plain crucial.

But when you move on to "genuine friends," it gets a little trickier. Getting trashed or telling your stupid sob stories is half the point of genuine friendships, but isn't always such a bright idea amongst mere co-workers. Or say the genuine friend you enjoying pouring your heart out to over a couple cocktails happens to be your supervisor or subordinate -- keeping track of when you are social peers and when you have to observe a professional pecking order is, well, tricky.

Personally, I like the idea of having genuine friends at work. But I've been bitten in the ass by it enough, too, to understand why other people keep their personal lives completely separate.

Who can count any more?

Anyone else have that need for professional chatter? Or is this just me?

Even though I'm somewhat mcmanlypantian about the work/life boundary thing, I definitely value professional chatter. To the point, in fact, that working in a mostly depopulated lab with an absent PI has been one of the most difficult things about my present job. If you don't talk through hypotheses and experimental design with people, it's really easy to miss errors in your rationale, and pretty hard to remember why the long hours and low pay of academic science ever seemed like a good idea.

Although you certainly get a lot of what Bostoniangirl was talking about - it can be hard to get people to talk about anything but the most superficial aspects of their work. I've talked to my colleagues plenty about how hard it is to get a grant, but hardly at all about, like, science. Frustrating.

Re. now serving, and also number of work friends.

Speaking as someone with a scary-ass metabolism that chews through greasy pizza like it was a salad, workplace pizza parties that don't order enough pizza are sad things. It just demonstrates management's skinflint nature. Leftovers are a small price to pay for morale.

Work is a much more enjoyable place if you work with people that you consider to be your friends.

But, that is simply my opinion. Others prefer more of a separation. That is ok.

Finding that balance is important. Each company gets decide the balance that they want to have. If you do not like the company's balance, find another place to work.

I evaluate somebody based on their performance at work. In my work, sometimes that involves working as a team. Social events can foster a friendly environment. But, if I am not paying them, then they do not have to attend after work events. The judgment on their job depends solely on their performance in their actual job, not whether they kiss ass at some baseball game.

But, that is simply my opinion. Others prefer more of a separation. That is ok.

Where's your title to that opinion, Will?

Where's your title to that opinion, Will?

I don't understand your point.

That it is ok to not want to socialize with work people?

She's referring to this thread, Will: http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2007_08_05.html#007307

Thanks Di!

You're entitled only to those opinions you can defend with force of arms.

In my business, you can't afford to be that attached to opinions. So, I keep the title to that opinion on ebay, available to the highest bidder. (Hopefully, our vacationing unfoggeder gets a commission.)

192: Yes, I've been to parties like that. I thought that when I (finally) met some god-damn graduate students in a field I cared about we could talk about, you know, books or something. And they'd have smart things to say! And we could geek out about Franco Moretti! Or Frederick Jameson!

But that's not how it works. It's all anxiety-ridden griping plus department gossip, and while I love department gossip (or at least like it fairly well) it's not what I was hoping for. Another of my humble, pathetic dreams bites the dust.

We have the word "collegial" for a reason.

It's all anxiety-ridden griping plus department gossip

The world of academia is a lot less high-falutin' than y'all think.

THIS is the thread that Kevin Drum links to?

Of course. It's about gender, it's about something he hasn't noticed, and it gives his commenters a chance to rail about how stupid women are.

I get two pieces of pizza on the first serving whenever it's free. I'll go back instantly for more if I'm at all hungry. Really, I'm not sure how much of my eating wierdness is body image and how much of it is miserliness: free food is free food, yo.

Before Ogged yells at me, I should clarify that 'about gender, about something he hasn't noticed' is not entirely meant as a slam. I think Drum is genuinely interested in thinking about this stuff when it happens to fall into his lap.

Sometimes chatting about philosophy is nice, but sometimes I want to chat about reality TV and get drunk. We've mostly been pretty good about occasionally declaring moratoria on shop talk, sometimes enforced by throwing things at the person who pipes up with 'mereology.'

#3. I don't like pizza cause it's too heavy
#5. I want to eat lots of pizza but I feel social pressure not to eat as much.

does... not... compute

218: Oh, I wouldn't mind talking about reality TV or something, or recipes, or shoes, or the finer points of gardening or what-may-have-you. It's just when it's all griping and gossiping and getting increasingly drunk while the non-graduate-students/non-graduate-student-significant-others sit idly by...Sigh. I shoulda gone to grad school; then this would be Somebody Else's Problem.

it's all griping and gossiping and getting increasingly drunk while the non-graduate-students/non-graduate-student-significant-others sit idly by

Yep. Grad students live narrow, narrow little lives, full of neuroses. Just think, if you'd gone to grad school, you could be just like this! How fun!

Although, seeing your comments, you appear to be slowly circling the vortex that is academia. Now, you're merely drifting in a circle, but soon the circle will tighten, and the motion will speed up, and you'll find yourself taking the GREs and applying to Comp. Lit. departments.

LB's right. When that happens, make sure that "find a good shrink" is on your list.

219: Crazy as it may sound, it is possible for Becks both to have no desire for pizza at lunch and to have noticed that other women get shafted by some 'men get the most mastodon cuts because they made the kill' stupidity. An altogether other circumstance that is likewise entirely possible: Becks has no desire for pizza but feels pressured to join in so that she isn't seen as snubbing the rest of the team. In fact, if we check our notes, we'll find she mentions this in both the post and it gets discussed in comments.

Or even maybe Becks hates pizza but it's the only food there and ya gotta fucking eat something. Which is the only reason I ever eat pizza as well.

What about the toppings authoritarians? My last job had a pair of people (a married couple who de facto ran an academic department) who ordered the pizzas (anywhere from 5-10 of them), every one of which had the same bizarre combination of toppings (obviously, the combination they liked). There was no regard whatsoever for the fact that a lot of people would rather go without than have particular toppings they can't stand. But then again, as people have been saying, to not partake is to give insult...

"Social conventions dictate that women may have one slice of pizza, wait to make sure all of the men have had their fill, and only then, if there is any left, have another. Men are completely oblivious to this social convention and will eat all of the pizza."

Wow. This is the dumbest, most hilarious thing I've read this month. Since I've already seen this week's Onion, and the Weekly World News is defunct -- please, share more of these trenchant observations on human dynamics!

Oh christ. I thought the comments section of the Washington Monthly was under quarantine so they wouldn't re-infect the rest of the web.

The maddening thing is that both of my kids just had birthdays, leaving me entirely sick of cake.

I certainly hope the trolls thought to bring enough pastries and a wide variety of them.

I've been the "at home parent" since 1995, earned my degree in 2004, worked part-time here and there, and eventually went back to school to earn a teaching certification.

Becks' opinions on workplace "pizza parties" of course sound familiar to many people, but I have to say #5 is complete BS.

I have to go pick my son up from football practice, but I called my "bread earning" wife to tell her I left this article and comments open to get her opinion. Will inform you later.

What's odd at my job is that we always get far too much pizza, and yet many of the norms described above are still in force. For instance, we had a building-wide pizza lunch a couple of weeks ago. For approximately 350 people, give or take a couple of dozen, the organizers had ordered 80 or 90 pizzas. Of course, when you factor in vacationers, people off sick, people who don't like pizza that much, people who have other lunch plans, etc., that means you wind up with 5 or 6 extra pizzas per floor. And yet, one of my coworkers, a nebbishy, stocky young white guy, was snapped at by an older female employee for taking 3 slices (the pizzas were distributed centrally, 3 floors above us). This, even though the particular pizzeria involved cuts their extra-large pies in 14 pieces, so 3 slices is just slightly more than the size of one slice of Sbarro pizza. People are fucking insane.

And another thing: Do you want to turn your annoyingly correct and prescient radical acquaintances into conservatives? Make them supervise 5 or 10 middle and upper-middle class recent college graduates in a high-stress environment for 6 months. Before today, I did not support torture, but if I was to get one or two of the kids who work for me in a room with a waterboarding set-up, they would be in bad shape in a hurry.

My problem with pizza parties is that about 1/3 of the pizza is ham and pineapple or vegetarian, which only about 15% of people want to eat, when there's other kinds to choose from.

Fruit has no business on a pizza (though I can eat vegetarian if it doesn't have tomato slices and black olives - you can't easily pick off toppings in that kind of setting).

We've mostly been pretty good about occasionally declaring moratoria on shop talk, sometimes enforced by throwing things at the person who pipes up with 'mereology.'

Grad student 1: "blah blah blah ... mereology"
Grad student 2: (throws beer can at Grad Student 1)
Grad student 1: "Quit throwing beer cans at me!"
Grad student 2: "I didn't throw it at you. I threw it at the mereological sum of you and the planet Jupiter."

It's just that you were the proper part that was easiest to hit!

The toppings thing is pretty bizarre. Otherwise intelligent people just seem to take all leave of their senses when it comes to ordering pizza for a group, and you end up with something like:

1 Hawai'ian; 1 goat cheese, spinach, and black olive; 1 meat-lovers; 1 anchovies and broccoli

Surely nobody has put in two+ decades of life and not realized that LOTS of people are fairly picky about their pizza toppings, or that lots of people are vegetarians? What is it that compels pizza orderers to get exclusively pizzas with like six toppings on them, maximizing the chances that they'll be unacceptable to the largest possible percentage of the eaters? I know that pizzas with just one or two toppings (and none of the commonly disliked ones like pineapple or anchovies) are kinda boring, but you'd think that the safe play would win out some part of the time.

I blame market failure.

112 is like lots of what i say here

I've been wondering for a long time now which of our pseudonymous commenters is Kevin Drum. I have a few guesses.

236: goat cheese, spinach, and black olive

That sounds like a great pizza!

which of our pseudonymous commenters is Kevin Drum

OPINIONATED GRANDMA, of course.

It's all very well and good for Google to treat their employees like a 24-hour family who get endless comfort in exchange for constant labor, but the good-feeling around it supports the idea that 24-hour labor is a "good thing," even separate from the perquisites.

I haven't read this thread since around 10am but this reminded me of a job posting I saw that was pretty hilarious. It stressed that it wanted some kind of hip cool down-with-the-gente worker type, you know, someone fun who'd participate when the office took a break to play some xbox. Slipped in there as if of course it were of a piece with what had come before, this person also would get to the office early, stay late, and like it.

239: Well, sure, if you're black-olive-loving scum.

I really like goat cheese, pancetta, and fresh basil (not pesto), pizza. It's awesome. I also like pineapple quite a bit. But I wouldn't try to serve either to a large group, 'cause you gotta figure that some large percentage of them will be either: freaked out by goat cheese, freaked out by pineapple, or vegetarians.

A fucking tornado???

243: Nah, just the regular kind.

I was all pissed off at the MTA for not being able to handle a rainstorm this morning, but when I heard about the tornado I forgave them. They're allowed to screw up when tornadoes hit Brooklyn.

"Pizza is too heavy and greasy to eat for lunch."

If you were sensible enough to live within delivery range of civilized pizza like Lombardi's or Luzzo's, this wouldn't be a problem.

Proper pizza is many wonderful things, but heavy and greasy are not amongst them.

So is anyone else ordering pizza tonight?

I'm eating leftovers.

246: I almost did. It was such a craving. Damn you, Becks!

Instead, I made an omelette with bacon, parmesan, and little mini peppers. And cooked extra bacon to use in salads tomorrow. And then I ate all the bacon.

Damn you, bacon!

I had a delightful greek salad.

from 104, I am astounded to learn that I am a post-doc, Chinese, and a woman. This will come as a big surprise to my family, I'm sure.

pressure + coffee + free food + everyone else tied up in a mandatory socialization => five more hours of ininterrupted work, thank Ghod, maybe I can actually get something done

Plus, nobody ever orders cheeseless pizza, leaving nothing for the lactose-intolerant to it, even though they're expected to socialize with the rest of the group.

I had lunch at a place called Punk Rock Pizza. It was pretty good.

I think I will make gazpacho tomorrow. Unless it's hard. I should look up the recipe, but I think it involves putting tomatoes in a blender.

Wow. I'm glad I work where I work, like my coworkers as human beings, and don't need to spend energy protecting boundaries (which I'm way too lazy to do anyway). Threads like this are a really nice reality check when I start getting pissed off at what the work world is like in Hawaii.

Way back upthread with the catered office, or departmental, parties comments (176?): sandwiches, salads, cookies, pickles, chips, and sodas

Now, see. I don't really find this "nice." The sandwiches will be roast beef, turkey or tuna on crappy bread, usually. Cookies, chips. Sodas ????

Sigh. There was a day when this didn't count as "catered."

From a menu like that, I'll have a bit of turkey fished out of the sandwich, and a pickle. Thanks. Love it.

This is the insult-other-people's-taste-in-food thread, right?

As a father I might guess that women who follow rule #5 are essentially treating male pizza eaters as children.

When I and some children split a pizza I basically eat one slice initially and then watch how consumption of the remainder goes. Sometimes the child/children eat a lot - sometimes not. However were I to plow through half the pizza and the rest got consumed with the eaters wanting more I would have a bunch of cranky campers on hand.

Face it, in the US pizza eating is a behavior learned in childhood, and some of that childish behavior may extend to adult hood. And some participants try to adopt a stance that minimizes cranky "children".

One thing I've noticed at some "adult" pizza parties is that way too many pizzas are ordered. This may be an explicit strategy to break down "adult behavior" so that everybody can act like children - though why somebody thinks that I would want the freedom to childishly stuff myself with pizza is beyond me.

254 comments and not ONE "awesome". Can I go to bed now?

Stanley:

Order me some College Inn Pizza please.

This may be an explicit strategy to break down "adult behavior" so that everybody can act like children

This has been remarked upon before. I put the provision of doughnuts (donuts) to the workplace in the same category.

More generally remarked upon: the US as a society of "why not?" rather than "why?"

Order me some College Inn Pizza please.

I tried, but the lines were busy with calls from all these selfish fratboy assclowns who wouldn't share with anyone else. Sorry, will!

It isnt that far of a bike ride Stanley. It is the least you could do.

This thread seems to be a case study in how people think their own pet peeves are universal experiences. I agree with Becks' point that women on average seem to hold back while us guys pig out on teh pizza, but I must admit that my own personal pizza party experiences seem to have little else in common with just about any of the previous commenters.

For the record, I love pizza party days. Cheap bastard that I am, I'm always in the mood for free lunch. Our office always takes requests for toppings, and if someone has a hankering for an unpopular combo then we wind up getting half-this with half-that. On average, though, most people seem to respond with 'I don't really care what we get'. The best part is that everyone seems to agree on the awesome combination of spinach, tomato and banana pepper, and there's always leftovers so I get to snack on spinach, tomato and banana pepper pizza in the afternoon. Nothing breaks up the drudgery of the workday like snacking on spinach, tomato and banana pepper pizza.

Now, if you want my pet peeve, it's when someone in the office gets bagels in the morning. My co-workers always pick the worst bagels! And when I get them, everyone complains that they don't like my choices!

There are never enough sesame bagels.

There are never enough sesame bagels.

You have to know your audience.

My family loves sesame and everything bagels.

My office wants chocolate bagels, cinnamon crunch bagels, and plain bagels. Sesame don't get eaten.

No one ever eats the lonely everything bagels.

Will, are there good bagels where you are? I've had the best bagels Los Angeles has to offer, and while I'm by no means a whiny East Coaster, I must conceded that New York is the home of the One True Bagel, and I must content myself with adequate toroid breadstuffs.

Oh, Cala, you're around. Gazpacho: don't forget the rough-diced cucumbers. They are like little tasty ice cubes, breathing sweet crunchy relief into a spicy gazpacho. Even if you don't make it that picante, cucumbers are really vital. Post puree, always.

I made really great gazpacho recently. So good, and indeed garnishes are lovely.

No one ever eats the lonely everything bagels.

Au contraire! I devour them with gusto! Will do small favors for a good one even. Really, the properly baked everything bagel, with the chewy outer crust and the sparkling nuggets of salt, is the key to my heart (until about 2 p.m., at which time stuffed pizza takes over...).

246 So is anyone else ordering pizza tonight?

No, had it for lunch at work. (partially inspired by this blog post)
1. At lunchtime seek out someone who is spending all day at the Summer Intern Report and Evaluation meeting for a quick face-to-face.
2. Explain that you'd love to attend the afternoon session but you are too busy wasting time on blogs ... uh, working up budgets.
3. "Oh, you're having pizza, I really shouldn't if I'm not staying, but OK, if you insist."
4. Grab 3 slices. (BoyZ R00L, girlz drewl. - actually the ratio of people to pizza was not big.)
5. "Oh. You're about to start? Let me get out of your way."
6. Consume pizza in luxurious privacy of visitor cube. Sticking it to the man in style!

to extend 112, i really think most people's perception of hwat is 'allowed' for them is much smaller than what it really is. What gets condemed in one's head is usually totally acceptable if you see someone else doing it. cf my previous posts about doing supposedly socially unacceptable things.

Also, "treating male pizza eaters as children." is right: you can get away with all kinds of stuff if you act boyish about it.

you can get away with all kinds of stuff if you act boyish about it

Believe it or not, there are people, some of whom post at this very site, who view this a problem.

oh. i could have phrased that in gender-neutral terms; i was just speaking from my own experience, which is exclusivly being male.

Basically, I'm saying if you want an entire pizza pie, try eating it and see what happens.

No one ever eats the lonely everything bagels

Youcrazyman? I lummee some everything bagels.

You know you've got a bad office bagel-picker when they show up with all kinds of fruit in the bag: blueberry bagels, cranberry & orange, etc. Somebody needs to make make anchovy & garlic bagels, I could get behind that.

"So is anyone else ordering pizza tonight?"

This thread did indeed cause me to break down and order a Tartufata from Luzzo's. Their pies really are so fucking good. You inhale them rather than eating them.

And so I thank you, Becks.

(I keep meaning to try a Martha from them. I've stayed away from it since it's named for Martha Stewart, and I'm not a fan. And even worse, Stewart's pimping of Luzzo's drove up their prices by about 20%. But the menu description really has begun to sound tasty to me.)

Wrongshore:

There are some places that make a New York style bagel. But, I have also learned to enjoy a softer bagel as well.

I knew that I liked Di. Everything bagels are the best.

By the way, the New York Times today on women's personal ads including a love for meat:

By the time she placed the personal ad, she had come to realize that ordering steak on a first date had the potential to sate appetites not only of the stomach but of the heart.

"Red meat sent a message that she was "unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic," she said, "that I'm not obsessed with my weight even though I'm thin, and I don't have any food issues." She added, "In terms of the burgers, it said I'm a cheap date, low maintenance."

Salad, it seems, is out. Gusto, medium rare, is in. "

I can only express astonishment that no one has mentioned the classic Mr. Show skit "tofutti break" in this thread. TOFUTTI BREAK!!!! "you...don't like tofutti?"

246: salad bar and a bowl of soup.

262: "This message paid for by Friends of Spinach, Tomato and Banana Pepper."

Here's the article about women ordering steak on the first date that Will mentions in 277.

For me, first-date-food-ordering-anxiety is less about worrying about what I'd order and what that signals than an the anxiety about knowing he's probably picking up the check and all the assorted baggage that goes along with that.

And I'm having steak tartare this Sunday. If steak and burgers send a message, what about RAW BEEF?

and all the assorted baggage that goes along with that.

I just don't understand this one. If you feel strongly about this, spell it out when the two of you decide to go on a date. Otherwise, what will happen is that women should offer. Men should decline. Then, the next date, payment of dinner should be discussed.

If this is a big issue for you, why would you want to go out with someone who has a strongly opposing position?

Although, now that I think about it, I am a bit of a neurotic orderer sometimes, like when I'm somewhere unusual on vacation and want to try a bunch of different things but don't want to seem like a pig for overordering. ("I'm not going to eat this all! I swear! We're going to take half of it home!") That's where traveling with my little brother is great -- he's a human vacuum cleaner. "You gonna eat that?"

I don't care how much my gf eats. I just hate it when she wants to split an entree. Or when she tells me she isnt hungry so I only make a little guacamole but then she becomes wolf-girl and eats it all.

I am a bit of a neurotic orderer sometimes

Those Washington Monthly commenters were so right about you.

Why don't you go bring them a pie, Ogged?

Can I put anything I want in it?

re: 283

That's a near universal male complaint. I've seen about half a dozen different standups riff on it.

185: It may be worth noting that Ms Mair is no longer in the advertising business, and, as nearly as I can tell, is also no longer a boss.

I, too, am annoyed by creeping Americanisms in a perfectly (ok, reasonably) serviceable language. On the other hand, Germany is set up such that if you cannot transact personal business during the 9-5 day, you cannot transact it at all. For singles, her attitude amounted to "tough shit." For families, it amounted to presuming that the partner she did not employ either (1) had an employer with different views; or (2) did not work and could thus manage the household. Both seem rather poor attitudes.

Since you don't want the greasy, fattening pizza in the first place, there's no problem. Complaining about being denied more of the pizza you hate is just your seizing on something to whine about.

Also, most men (such as myself) are well aware of the obvious fact that women are holding back from eating more pizza. My feeling, seeing that last piece of pizza just sitting there forever, is, "Oh, hell, I'm just going to take that last piece of pizza if you're going to be such an idiot."

288 It may be worth noting that Ms Mair is no longer in the advertising business, and, as nearly as I can tell, is also no longer a boss.

Interesting. Thanks for the update. I wondered if it was all just going to end in tears.

Having a lot of experience with some of the negative aspects schmearing together of work and private life, I found that I had a contrarian "there's got to be a better way" fascination with her approach.

There are probably several better ways, but I'll bet that the other extreme isn't one of them. Fascinating in a newspaper article, sounds rather hellish after about a minute's thought. Especially uniforms in an ad agency; what, are they trying to reinvent Devo?