Throughout your career, work may spill out of the regular hours and seep into your personal time. There's the emergency 10 PM email that needs a response ASAP, the stressed-out client who thinks you're being lazy if you're not working on their project during the weekend, the list goes on.
A few days ago, Reddit user BrushProfessional350 submitted a post to the popular 'Antiwork' community, drawing attention to another way people sometimes have to "be there for the team." Company dinners. Yes, it has food, yes it has drinks, but you know you're expected to show up even if you don't feel like it.
However, in the example presented by BrushProfessional350, the situation was even worse. The workers had to pay for themselves!
Turns out, this appalling practice is quite common. As the post was going viral, other Reddit users flooded the comment section, sharing similar stories of their own.
#21
Oh yeah, I’ve been there. Was at a national sales meeting and got invited by a department VP (outside my own) to an escape room and dinner and drinks afterwards with his team. End of the night, “OK, everyone, VENMO me your share for the night!! I was like…..W…….T…….F??!!? Totes should have stayed at hotel for free dinner and drinks.
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52points
#22
Interesting story in this at my company. There was a dinner that got out of hand. It was like 20 people in Norway (very expensive to eat out) but the bill came to $10K the VP had just got back from some big trip and his credit card was maxed out.
One of the new college grads put it on her American Express. It was a whole big thing and she ended up having to go to the CEO of a fortune 500 company and explain. It was really the VP that should have been doing that.
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48points
#23
My manager did this twice. Throughout the company there was a culture of managers taking out their teams for lunch, once every quarter. However my team's manager left the company and our director had to fill in that spot for about 9 months before they could find someone suitable. Our team had about 40 people, technically two teams run by leads and a manager overseeing those leads. This new manager lied about promoting me twice as well, before he left the company. Throughout his 3 years within the company, this guy took us out to lunch twice. He didn't do it for a long time and one of the leads let him know "hey you know it's good for team morale to go out for lunch and celebrate milestones" so this guy took us out to cpk, and again about 6 months later to cheesecake factory. Both times he left early from lunch and paid only for his meal and expected the team to pay for their expensive-ish meals. I mean I ordered the steak thinking it's a company paid event. I've had other managers invite us out to lunch and drinks after work for helping out their team and cover the bill. Some complained about this around, so the man decides it's better to have pot lucks instead of having everyone go out to team lunches. I'm glad he's gone.
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44points
#24
Had one where they tied it to some charity so we were ok with paying. But the next one they said “hey everybody’s invited to come to this chain restaurant down the road”. Didn’t tell us we were buying our own food and drink until we got handed the menus. Half of us, including me, couldn’t afford to be eating out on the wages they were paying us.
43points
#25
My boss did this too, but for a company lunch. He invited everyone to lunch, which in my experience, suggests he is paying! Then at the end of lunch he asked everyone to pay their share. Wtf
39points
#26
It reminds me of a story I was told by a friend. He and a group of co-workers were away together and eating out every night. Each night a different person would pay (they had company cards). After one particularly expensive meal, they noticed that their boss hadn't paid once so they challenged him!
He explained that he had to approve their expenses, but that his boss had to approve his expenses.
The penny dropped at that point.
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38points
#27
I used to work for a boomer who’d pull similar s**t. He’d saunter out of his office, announce that he was generously buying lunch for the team, tell one of us to go pick it up, pay for it, and he’d approve the expense. There were 8 of us so whoever ended up going was out of pocket $300 until whenever he decided to do approvals.
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37points
#28
My former boss had drinks and appies to celebrate two people getting their property manager licenses. One of them was his daughter. The other one couldn't get there until later. So by the time the second property manager arrived to celebrate, all the food had been eaten, so she had to order her own. And pay for her own dinner and drinks.
That was my ex boss's way of celebrating and encouraging his employees.
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36points
#29
I had the same experience as OP once. Actually had a guy on the team do what you said and skipped out on paying his part of the bill. The rest of us were like "we're not covering for him." I think the manager had to pay his share because we all left.
33points
#30
This reminds me of the time I worked physical labor for 12-16 hours a day and the boss would take us out to eat. He paid, but when I was absolutely famished and ordered a TON of food to get my caloric intake my body needed, he would b**ch.
I finally told him if he's going to b**ch then stop paying for my meals. I need this food and if it bothers you then I'll just buy it myself.
I seriously needed a LOT of food, like near athlete olympic level food. It was really hard work in the heat. He continued to pay for my meals, begrudgingly. I wasn't being disrespectful, I needed that food to perform my job adequately. And I was more than willing to front the bill myself rather than hear him complain. Why pay for my meal if you're going to limit what I can eat? These bosses are seriously stupid.
24points