Anonymous wrote:Warming up a colleague's lunch? No. Making a colleague's lunch? Hell no.

Maybe if I was a secretary or something, but in a professional environment? Of course not.

Agree that if you see something like that then they're intimate in other ways (or the woman wants to be).

Damn I feel slow. At almost every job I've ever had, some woman has made me lunch or a dessert. A lady made me a cheesecake last year because I said it was my favorite dessert during an icebreaker. Another woman brought me a complete lunch in tupperware yesterday. She's attractive, but I didn't want to read too much into it. Now I'm wondering if I should say something or just enjoy the food.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh, my office is a group of about 20 and we’re all generally close but there are a lot of friendships between males and females that are closer than others but that have honestly no funny business going on at all. I can see myself doing this for my closest guy friend at work and I can see other friend pairs doing this for each other. I’m happily married, zero desire to cheat, just a nice person.

A doormat. Seriously ladies stop behaving like this in the workplace.

+100. What's next, are you going to iron his shirts for him?

Anonymous wrote:Warming up a colleague's lunch? No. Making a colleague's lunch? Hell no.

Maybe if I was a secretary or something, but in a professional environment? Of course not.

Agree that if you see something like that then they're intimate in other ways (or the woman wants to be).

This right here

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve brought lunch to colleagues before. In my old office, there was a group of us who regularly picked up lunch for each other if we were on deadlines and couldn’t go out.

I think if you notice that two people spend a ton of time together at work and put energy into doing things that seem intimate, such as microwaving one another’s food, it’s likely that they are intimate in other ways.

That said, this is the first time I e heard of a microwave as a smoking gun for an affair. Usually they just go out to lunch together alone an inappropriate amount

Op here maybe I’m overreacting but I have had a weird feeling about him and her for the last 3 months basically since he started working at that office. I’m in a demanding program and we don’t have a lot of time together. I’ve been making him lunch. Last week he told me not to bother, but come to find out she got lunch for him. Today she warmed up the lunch I made for him. Maybe I’m crazy.

I dunno, OP. Of course, it's POSSIBLE that he told you not to bother because he knows you're in a demanding program and was trying to lighten your load. I am interested to hear how exactly you found out that she warmed up the lunch that you made for him. That seems like a weird detail to discover. I don't think I've ever had a conversation with my husband about how he eats his lunch or what temperature it is. I vaguely know WHEN he eats lunch and generally what he eats because it's relevant to me being able to get in touch with him and what we have for dinner (e.g., if I'm looking for him at 11:30, he's most likely not at his desk phone because he eats lunch ridiculously early or he had chili at lunch, we have something else for dinner). I suppose that it is also possible that she made something and they were talking about it and she offered to bring him some. That actually happens at my office a fair amount in a mixed gender group of people who just love cooking.

But if the friendship is setting off your Spidey senses, certainly you should talk to him about it. Just make sure that you are not projecting your insecurity due to not being able to spend much time with him onto a situation where it doesn't belong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only time I’ve seen any woman involved with any man’s lunch at the office was in my NYC biglaw days where there were a few old school partners who had their secretaries get their lunches. Even then, they weren’t heating up his lunch. They were heading out to the deli to get him whatever he normally ate. And it wasn’t seen as being kind/polite/friendly/hitting on him, it was a part of their jobs just like opening his mail and answering his phones; it was only old school partners of a certain age that requested their secretaries do this.

Totally forgot about this. My DC firm had this dynamic too but it was 100% a work place responsibility, not being extra friendly to 1 particular guy. Like when people were hired and responsibilities were discussed, one of them was dealing with catering for conference and individual lunches.

We have this at my bank, too. Part of a secretary's job is to get food for her boss. We have male and female secretaries, and male and female bosses (split pretty 50/50 for the bosses, but 95% of secretaries are women).

I felt weird asking the first few times, but pretty quickly realized the pace of work meant if I wanted to eat, I had to get them to bring it to me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, I work in a situation where finding time to run to the kitchen to microwave something is challenging. If I manage to find time and I can tell my coworker won’t then I’ll offer, and vice versa.

Hmm my job involves saving actual lives and still the only lunchtime warm ups involve couples. The only exception is if someone buys lunch / dinner for everyone .

I'm glad to know that you're more important that I am. I'm also glad to know that your job schedules things in a way that means you can make it to the microwave. I'm not sure what either of those things has to do with the fact that other people don't have the same level of flexibility in their jobs.

Someone is a little defensive. I’m assuming pp is a nurse or something similar. They don’t have time for lunch ever. I assume the point is if someone with that kind of job can find a way to feed themselves so can other people. Namely an engaged man. If you are feeding the taken men in your office stop. You are not their mother and the only reason for you to do it is because you want their attention namely sexual attention.

I’m the one that asked about what job doesn’t allow enough time for lunch breaks and if men are bringing lunch for other men and women for other women as well. And my thought is if it’s a job wide thing, then the person that is microwaving and bringing in lunch for you also has the same time crunch to get and eat their own lunch much less do for someone else. Once in a while is different than a regular thing. I also just couldn’t picture a job where it’s both too busy to eat and men bring a specific other man (not the group) lunch in a non romantic sense on a regular basis.

If she's more than 30 yrs older than him and the office grandma, let it go.

Otherwise, this woman knows EXACTLY what she's doing. I grew up in a close ethnic family -- lots of Sunday dinners etc. The etiquette in my family was you made sure everyone was served in your home before you started eating -- so often you were walking a piece of cake over to Uncle Bob and your cousins sitting on the other side of the room; and yes disproportionally it was the female relatives/cousins worried about whether everyone was eating.

So one time in high school we had cake in some class for some occasion and as it was being cut, I noticed that some of the kids sitting in one corner hadn't made a move towards the cake and didn't have any yet so unthinkingly I walked a few pieces over to them as I would at family functions.

I STILL remember the reaction of surprise, thanks, you didn't have to do that (and prob thinking OMG she likes me) from one boy. And that's when I realized -- at like age 14-15, serving a man food is seen as a "close" connection and one I don't want with men who aren't my boyfriend/family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Warming up it coming his lunch? Absolutely not. But I'm a female manager in a male-dominated office (something like 80% male), so I make a point to about the gender-traditional roles like cooking or cleaning up after others.

But if a bunch of us are working on a time-intensive project, and one or two of us run out to grab takeout, a quick "hey, can we grab something for the rest of you while we're out?" would be fine even for me. Or ordering pizza for a large group lunch. But I would never single one guy out, or put myself in the role of food-provider with any consistency.

THIS. Asian female here and I've made it a point since day 1 not to paint myself into the docile, subservient Asian role or the mom role. So I don't even bring in homemade anything for potlucks (bc I rarely cook and not well enough to serve anyone), so I certainly am not going to warm up some man's lunch to make sure sweetie has a hot meal. I'm all for team stuff -- I'll pick up food or a coffee box or whatever for the group if I'm out and they've asked/I know they won't have time -- but that's not a man-woman thing, it's for a whole team.

I feel like the only time anyone was involved with anyone's eating was back in my biglaw days where I was young and high energy enough that I could just blow thru deadline after deadline and not eat. And in those instances I had exactly 2 people -- 1 female senior and 1 male peer -- both of whom were friends outside the office, who'd remind me once in a while to eat/take a break; but I'd do the same for them too. And in my current office, I feel like we ask each other if they'd like us to pick up something if we know something is going on with them -- i.e. late in pregnancy and it's hard to walk over to get lunch; just came back from some kind of medical recovery and aren't feeling great etc. and that's done for everyone, man or woman.

Same in my office but it's not really a man-woman thing. It can be, but often it's a female asking 9 mos pregnant Lisa if she needs anything since she's walking over to get lunch anyway. It's often a dude asking Steve if he wants him to pick up lunch bc first thing in the morning Steve regaled him with tales of his week hiking in Denali was the best thing ever but he totally sprained his foot. I mean nothing wrong with asking an opposite sex coworker if you know what their issue is, but it's something done between friends and often the closer friendship in my office are same sex.

Anonymous wrote:Only time I’ve seen any woman involved with any man’s lunch at the office was in my NYC biglaw days where there were a few old school partners who had their secretaries get their lunches. Even then, they weren’t heating up his lunch. They were heading out to the deli to get him whatever he normally ate. And it wasn’t seen as being kind/polite/friendly/hitting on him, it was a part of their jobs just like opening his mail and answering his phones; it was only old school partners of a certain age that requested their secretaries do this.

Totally forgot about this. My DC firm had this dynamic too but it was 100% a work place responsibility, not being extra friendly to 1 particular guy. Like when people were hired and responsibilities were discussed, one of them was dealing with catering for conference and individual lunches.

Only time I’ve seen any woman involved with any man’s lunch at the office was in my NYC biglaw days where there were a few old school partners who had their secretaries get their lunches. Even then, they weren’t heating up his lunch. They were heading out to the deli to get him whatever he normally ate. And it wasn’t seen as being kind/polite/friendly/hitting on him, it was a part of their jobs just like opening his mail and answering his phones; it was only old school partners of a certain age that requested their secretaries do this.

Anonymous wrote:Warming up it coming his lunch? Absolutely not. But I'm a female manager in a male-dominated office (something like 80% male), so I make a point to about the gender-traditional roles like cooking or cleaning up after others.

But if a bunch of us are working on a time-intensive project, and one or two of us run out to grab takeout, a quick "hey, can we grab something for the rest of you while we're out?" would be fine even for me. Or ordering pizza for a large group lunch. But I would never single one guy out, or put myself in the role of food-provider with any consistency.

THIS. Asian female here and I've made it a point since day 1 not to paint myself into the docile, subservient Asian role or the mom role. So I don't even bring in homemade anything for potlucks (bc I rarely cook and not well enough to serve anyone), so I certainly am not going to warm up some man's lunch to make sure sweetie has a hot meal. I'm all for team stuff -- I'll pick up food or a coffee box or whatever for the group if I'm out and they've asked/I know they won't have time -- but that's not a man-woman thing, it's for a whole team.

I feel like the only time anyone was involved with anyone's eating was back in my biglaw days where I was young and high energy enough that I could just blow thru deadline after deadline and not eat. And in those instances I had exactly 2 people -- 1 female senior and 1 male peer -- both of whom were friends outside the office, who'd remind me once in a while to eat/take a break; but I'd do the same for them too. And in my current office, I feel like we ask each other if they'd like us to pick up something if we know something is going on with them -- i.e. late in pregnancy and it's hard to walk over to get lunch; just came back from some kind of medical recovery and aren't feeling great etc. and that's done for everyone, man or woman.

My guy had a “work wife”. They got lunch out often. Very pretty woman, who was happily married, and enjoyed the company of a man who wasn’t hitting on her. I did not love it, but recognized it as harmless. Not an emotional affair. That’s not always the situation with those friendships, but this one was innocent. They didn’t communicate outside of work either. We all have people in our office that we gravitate toward socially. That’s normal. I have no idea what is going on with your situation. For all you know she could be a compulsive baker and he’s an easy outlet for her manic cooking.

Talk to him about it instead of speculating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve brought lunch to colleagues before. In my old office, there was a group of us who regularly picked up lunch for each other if we were on deadlines and couldn’t go out.

I think if you notice that two people spend a ton of time together at work and put energy into doing things that seem intimate, such as microwaving one another’s food, it’s likely that they are intimate in other ways.

That said, this is the first time I e heard of a microwave as a smoking gun for an affair. Usually they just go out to lunch together alone an inappropriate amount

Op here maybe I’m overreacting but I have had a weird feeling about him and her for the last 3 months basically since he started working at that office. I’m in a demanding program and we don’t have a lot of time together. I’ve been making him lunch. Last week he told me not to bother, but come to find out she got lunch for him. Today she warmed up the lunch I made for him. Maybe I’m crazy.

Hmmm. I think that something is up. She obviously told him that she was bringing him lunch; he knew because he told you not to make him lunch for that day. . Getting his lunch and heating it up is SO over the top; she is wowrking to get close to him. The good news is that he's sharing this information with you. Why? He's either oblivious or he's trying to make you jealous and wants you to slow down and pay more attention to him.

Ugh! I’m literally spending all the time I can with him. It’s a crazy schedule, but it’ll be over in a year.! I can’t possibly give him more time and he’s completely out of his mind if he thinks jealousy is the way to go.

Given the historic power inequality between men and women in the workplace, women should be very careful doing stuff like that, it could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Trust your gut, OP.