A Jane Story: Tupperware

So State Farm, or at least the actuarial department, has a policy that co-workers do not bring in food to help you celebrate your birthday (or any other celebration-worthy event). That would be dumb since you end up having to bring in food frequently in a large department. State Farm’s solution: the person celebrating is expected to bring in food for the department in order to celebrate. That way, you only need to bring in food once a year (ie your own birthday). While it is not a written rule that you have to bring in food for your own event, everyone will give you crap if you don’t. There’s just something wrong with that… having to throw your own birthday party.

But I digress. The real reason I bring this up is Jane’s behavior on such days. She keeps Tupperware in her desk for the sole purpose of snagging a bunch of the birthday person’s leftovers to take home herself. Can you get more tacky?

But that’s not quite the end of it. You see, people in the department have learned not to eat food that has been set out for general consumption unless they have been explicitly been informed that Jane didn’t bring it in. She apparently has a habit of buying cakes and such from the supermarket. She lives alone and really can’t eat a whole cake before it goes bad. So she will eat what she wants for several days, and after it has become dry and stale, she’ll bring it into work for everyone else to “enjoy.” Such a class act.

Reminds me a bit of my uncle’s co-worker who had a habit of bringing in day-old donuts he snagged out of the dumpster behind Dunkin’. Or the time he brought in homemade “venison stew.” He neglected to mention that he managed to run into a deer on his way to work the previous morning. Tossed the carcass in his trunk and left it there… baking… in the hot sun all day. Hadn’t even bothered to field dress it. Suffice it to say there were some ill people after that one…