She’s Expecting But She Wasn’t Expecting This
My coworker announced that she was pregnant with her third child. This would be my first time working with her while she was pregnant, so when the discussion came about whether we should pool together our money for some baby gifts, I was excited and was all in. We also decided to turn it into a small party, and we would each make a dish for lunch.
The tricky part of this is my coworker is allergic to many things — dairy, gluten, shellfish, tree nuts, tomatoes, certain fruits, and many more things. We have talked about her allergies before when discussing what to get for takeout lunches, but we hadn’t committed the list to memory. Over the course of two or three weeks, we would try to have her allergies naturally come into conversation, and someone not talking to her would write down the good foods and the bad foods. When we were pretty confident that we had gotten enough, we shared the list with everyone in the office.
The day of the party arrived, and we set up the table while my coworker was on her morning break. When she came back, we led her to the table, and she was surprised by all of the gifts. Once she opened the gifts, we started to bring out lunch. We went around the room explaining our dishes and what ingredients were included and/or excluded. She realized we had all made the dishes specifically to fit with her diet, and she burst into tears, saying that it was one of the nicest things that had happened to her.
It was a rewarding feeling, to be able to do something so small as make lunch for someone and get that reaction.
Going forward, we don’t make everything without her allergens, but we do make sure there are at least a few dishes she can have, and we prevent cross-contamination whenever possible.