AITA? Coworker meal train

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the heck is a meal train? never heard of it.

It’s when a friend uses a sign up genius or similar to get friends/family of someone to provide meals for something. Could be a new baby in the family, an illness. We did one for a friend going through chemo. The recipient gives very basic info on likes dislikes and then it’s shared.
Once you get the info you sign up
For day that works for you and take that family what you provide. Usually I assume people a double of what they’re making at home. I do dessert as well.

[Anonymous]

OP I feel sorry for you. You seem… tortured? Like you could’ve just deleted the meal train email and gone about your day. No one cares if you bring a meal or not. But you like actually thought about this, decided not to contribute - not because you’re too busy or whatever, but because of how this guy voted and how big his family is- you then came on this website, made a post about it.. damn! Get a life OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am so over the meal trains in the age of available food at a moment's notice. It used to be that people would bring you a meal because it was hard to shop for and prepare dinners. Now it's like meal trains where people order you Uber Eats. I am with you--get on Uber Eats yourself. Why am I paying for this?

This is how I feel too. I contribute to meal trains when there is a financial need for meals (which its easy to pick those cases out, lets be honest) but ANYONE can door dash anything now so logistically its just not necessary.

I feel the same. It was nice back in the day when people actually made meals for someone in need (and I still do sometimes!) But the modern day equivalent of purchasing a 200 dollar gift card to Uber eats and calling it a day is obscene in a city where it's basically trading cash amongst UMC professionals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I feel sorry for you. You seem… tortured? Like you could’ve just deleted the meal train email and gone about your day. No one cares if you bring a meal or not. But you like actually thought about this, decided not to contribute - not because you’re too busy or whatever, but because of how this guy voted and how big his family is- you then came on this website, made a post about it.. damn! Get a life OP!

+1

[Anonymous]

Volunteer to provide one meal on condition that you can also give them a pack of condoms

[Anonymous]

If an unmarried woman in your office was pregnant, would they step up and provide a meal or other assistance?

If yes, then I'd participate.

If no, then it means they use their political beliefs to opt out of helping others, which means you are free to do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Coworker and wife recently welcomed twins they have 5 children at home. They are pretty staunch Catholics and Trump supporters based on his " pro life" stance. They don't believe in birth control and don't think non married women should have access to it. Judge people who have kids before marriage.

Any the office now wants to organize a meal train.
AITA for thinking hmm you made your bed figure out how to manage all those kids you wanted to be blessed with alone and not contributing to the meal train

NTA. People like your coworker usually belong to (tax-exempt) mega churches with thousands of members. The church should take care of their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so over the meal trains in the age of available food at a moment's notice. It used to be that people would bring you a meal because it was hard to shop for and prepare dinners. Now it's like meal trains where people order you Uber Eats. I am with you--get on Uber Eats yourself. Why am I paying for this?

This is true. One time I mentioned to an organizer “ooh that’s great. I don’t have time this week but ask me another time.”

She said, “you can always get Wendy’s and bring it. It doesn’t have home cooked.”

I just didn’t respond. You all know why.
THEY can easily get Wendy’s. It wasn’t an incapacitated family. It was a new baby too, and I love babies, but I know dads can go through try drive through as easily as I can.

[Anonymous]

This is a troll thread. This did not happen and is made up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I feel sorry for you. You seem… tortured? Like you could’ve just deleted the meal train email and gone about your day. No one cares if you bring a meal or not. But you like actually thought about this, decided not to contribute - not because you’re too busy or whatever, but because of how this guy voted and how big his family is- you then came on this website, made a post about it.. damn! Get a life OP!

This is all you need to know

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did the smoked also cause YOU to have cancer? Did the motorcyclist crash into YOU? Because the pro-Trump “pro-life” is all about affecting everyone in the country by their choices.

Ever heard of birth control?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If an unmarried woman in your office was pregnant, would they step up and provide a meal or other assistance?

If yes, then I'd participate.

If no, then it means they use their political beliefs to opt out of helping others, which means you are free to do the same.

I’m Catholic and know people like the OP’s coworker. They probably do have a lot of people supporting them and are perfectly capable of caring for their family and don’t need OP’s help.
But they would almost certainly want to help an unmarried woman who accidentally got pregnant. I guess the question would be, would they still support someone who decided to become a single mom by choice. Or someone who went through IVF and then had a reduction? Are you obligated to support someone who purposefully decides to live their life in a way that you feel is immoral?

[Anonymous]

Yes, YTA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If an unmarried woman in your office was pregnant, would they step up and provide a meal or other assistance?

If yes, then I'd participate.

If no, then it means they use their political beliefs to opt out of helping others, which means you are free to do the same.

I’m Catholic and know people like the OP’s coworker. They probably do have a lot of people supporting them and are perfectly capable of caring for their family and don’t need OP’s help.
But they would almost certainly want to help an unmarried woman who accidentally got pregnant. I guess the question would be, would they still support someone who decided to become a single mom by choice. Or someone who went through IVF and then had a reduction? Are you obligated to support someone who purposefully decides to live their life in a way that you feel is immoral?

How is having a baby immoral?

[Anonymous]

It’s always nice to do a little something to help people.

But when these sort of things pop up at work, then it sometimes feels obligatory…and it can get out of hand.

I’d prefer to focus on that angle rather than evaluate this through a political or religious lens.

As a senior staff with a lot of direct reports plus tons of broader team members, I’m really over it when it comes to constantly passing the hat to chip in for food, gifts, etc. for birthdays, work anniversaries, babies, weddings, death in the family, etc. Add on the obligatory holiday gifts plus other holiday parties and it’s just too much.

It’s one thing for the office to host something. That’s always nice and it prevents staff from having to shell out money. It makes sense to do a nice send-off for longtime staff who retire or move on to a better opportunity (note: longtime staff…not Dave who bounced after 2 or 3 years; you can take him out for a drink after work if you like, but the entire office need not grind to halt to eat cake and give him an Amazon gift card). And if someone wants to bake a cake or bring in some cupcakes or donuts for a birthday, that’s always nice. But do we really need to circulate a birthday or work anniversary card with a note that Jan is collecting money for a cake and gift?

Why are people celebrating birthdays at work to begin with? And how do people even know your birthday unless you are widely broadcasting it?

Back to babies: a shower for a first time mom on a team of mostly ladies makes sense, but I’m not sure it needs to be a big deal. If you aren’t invited to the real shower, then you probably shouldn’t feel obligated to throw one at the office and make people feel obligated to buy a real gift.

Now onto meal trains: we do these when colleagues are battling cancer or have surgery. It’s optional and largely entails collecting money for meal delivery rather than actual cooking. Practically speaking, everyone lives in different parts of the dc metro area (including VA and MD suburbs with some commuting by train from far flung areas). As someone who received a meal train, I honestly would have preferred a simple flower delivery rather than a bunch of random meal delivery gift cards that required me to write multiple thank you cards and buy stamps to mail them. Flowers from the office really only requires a group email thank you note.