The Leftovers Dilemma

I used to work at this fine dining place that would hold large banquets for an assortment of festivities and tech seminars. There were a lot of fancy business credit cards with no real spending limits or budgets floating around, so it was common for people to go all out on the company dime.

A tech startup reserved half the restaurant to celebrate some achievement, and they booked it in anticipation of all eighty employees showing up, so we put in enough orders and set up rows of trays and chafing dishes. Only about fifty people showed up, and at least half the food was left untouched. I’m talking a king’s bounty of high-end, fancy seafood, ribs, and steaks.

I asked the CEO of the startup, who was hosting the event, what she wanted to do with the leftovers and offered to box everything up. She wasn’t really sure but told me to go ahead. There was a literal mountain of boxes. I went around and told all the guests to help themselves to whatever they felt like taking home, and several did. But by the time they all left, there was still a large pile.

“What’s the grace period before we help ourselves?” my hungry coworkers and I pondered. One hour, we all decided, holding tight to something with as much legitimacy as the ten-second rule. The other general rule we had was that whoever was directly taking care of the party got first crack (me, in this case). Also, it was common practice that whatever food was left over we’d haul downtown and hand out to homeless people, so we were not all necessarily self-serving vultures.

We’d already cleaned, wiped down, and closed the banquet hall for the night, and the boxes had been sitting there for well over an hour. I got the clear and headed over with a fork. I hadn’t eaten since noon, so I started absolutely shoveling food down my gullet.

Then, I heard a familiar voice.

Voice: “Hello?”

I turned around with a full mouth, and the CEO was standing in the doorway looking at me. F***. I awkwardly grabbed a napkin and covered my mouth. She had returned with a van so she could load up the boxes of leftovers.

I can’t say she was pleased, but she didn’t seem angry, either. I don’t have much shame, so I shrugged my shoulders, swallowed the chunk of food down, and asked through my obstructed windpipe:

Me: “Do you need help loading the boxes?”

CEO: “No, it’s fine. I brought a couple of people with me.”

Me: *Casually* “Oh, okay, cool.”

Then I headed downstairs and sprinted out the back of the restaurant.

Yeah, lesson learned that day. (Wait TWO hours.)