So, like, a few years ago, I had this co-worker. She was vegan in the “annoying” way. Most vegans? You wouldn’t know it unless you knew them. In any case that wasn’t her.
She wasted no time telling everyone that they weren’t allowed to bring meat into the office- that the smell of it made her ill, and so, we had to be vegan to.
Well. Unfortunately for her that’s not a reasonable accommodation. Not that we didn’t try to make some effort (not microwaving food when she’s in the break room, etc,)(to be fair, our attempt to be reasonable ended after about the third sign declaring the office meat-free.)
In any case she waged a small war on it over the course of a few days- mostly hanging up passive aggressive signs and being snippy whenever some one walked by with anything even vaguely meat like, (including, in point of fact leftover mushroom stew that is, in fact, vegan. It’s why I think she was full of shit about the smell making her ill.)
Things came to a head when she decided it was a good idea to to go into the break room fridge and toss everything into the garbage. (Including another coworkers veg fried rice with crispy tofu,)
Now, do you think that anyone in that office was persuaded to go vegan?
Or do you imagine that HR fired her ass for being an overbearing, condescending bitch- and a thief as well?
I’ll give you a hint: the steaks my boss got and I grilled for lunch were delicious.
The point being: food is integral to culture, and in many ways, part of how we socialize. It’s not something that you can just demand we change and not expect people to react well to.
Making arguments are all well and good, but they won’t really persuade anyone either. You’re literally talking about changing a few millennia of cultural norms.
Sure we can have that discussion, but really, if you have to get preachy, you have to get demanding or “dramatic” like my ex-coworker…. All it does is makes people remember that rather than the actual impactful points of the discussion.
So, like, a few years ago, I had this co-worker. She was vegan in the “annoying” way. Most vegans? You wouldn’t know it unless you knew them. In any case that wasn’t her.
She wasted no time telling everyone that they weren’t allowed to bring meat into the office- that the smell of it made her ill, and so, we had to be vegan to.
Well. Unfortunately for her that’s not a reasonable accommodation. Not that we didn’t try to make some effort (not microwaving food when she’s in the break room, etc,)(to be fair, our attempt to be reasonable ended after about the third sign declaring the office meat-free.)
In any case she waged a small war on it over the course of a few days- mostly hanging up passive aggressive signs and being snippy whenever some one walked by with anything even vaguely meat like, (including, in point of fact leftover mushroom stew that is, in fact, vegan. It’s why I think she was full of shit about the smell making her ill.)
Things came to a head when she decided it was a good idea to to go into the break room fridge and toss everything into the garbage. (Including another coworkers veg fried rice with crispy tofu,)
Now, do you think that anyone in that office was persuaded to go vegan?
Or do you imagine that HR fired her ass for being an overbearing, condescending bitch- and a thief as well?
I’ll give you a hint: the steaks my boss got and I grilled for lunch were delicious.
The point being: food is integral to culture, and in many ways, part of how we socialize. It’s not something that you can just demand we change and not expect people to react well to.
Making arguments are all well and good, but they won’t really persuade anyone either. You’re literally talking about changing a few millennia of cultural norms.
Sure we can have that discussion, but really, if you have to get preachy, you have to get demanding or “dramatic” like my ex-coworker…. All it does is makes people remember that rather than the actual impactful points of the discussion.