please bring food

[MsApril]

My coworker broke her foot and will be out for a while.
One of our coworkers sent out an email asking for dinners and desserts.
I don't want to supply a dinner or dessert.
How do I gracefully decline?

Some information that might be relevant:
She is married, so dual income.
Has tons of paid time off, never takes time off, so no loss of income.
Has a 25 year old and a Senior in high school living at home who can help, and her husband does all the housework and cooks all the meals.

[TootsNYC]

Just never respond.

You don't have to answer every piece of junk mail or marketing appeal that you get.

This is just like that.

If she ever approaches you directly, then say, "Oh, I can't. I'll drop her a note, though." And email her to say, "ouch! best of luck--heal fast."

[lowspark]

Yup. Don't respond. There's certainly no obligation on your part to do anything.

[SamiHami]

So now we provide food for a broken bone? I'm all for being generous but that seems a little ridiculous. If if were someone who wouldn't be able to afford to eat because of her injury I would be all for helping out. But under the circumstances you describe? No way. It seems to me the other coworker (the one trying to voluntell everyone what to do) wants to be seen as a hero. While I am sure you have nothing but good wishes for a speedy recovery for your colleague, I would certainly save my charitable giving for someone who actually needs it.

If the "volunteller" asks you directly to provide food all you need to say with a friendly smile is, "Oh, no. I won't be doing that. But I'm sure she'll appreciate you thinking of her."

[jaxsue]

I had a bad ankle break in 2013, and was laid up for over 4 months. While I was very grateful for visits from friends and neighbors, i never expected them to provide meals.

Ignore it.

[Lynn2000]

I would just ignore. I really don't like being voluntold for things. If the email had been like, "I'm doing this, in case anyone wants to go in with me," that would be fine. But it sounds like the sender was assuming everyone would contribute, like it was the office potluck or something.

On the other hand I don't really think the additional information is relevant. I would think the email sender is being presumptuous even if the injured co-worker was a low-income single parent with twelve small kids at home. Unless there's more to the story, no one appointed Sender the Food Fairy Leader.

If I, personally, did in fact want to help out my injured co-worker, I would probably do so without consulting the sender of the email, based on my relationship with the injured co-worker.

[jmarvellous]

If you don't want to participate, ignore it.

At one job, I got about 2 requests a year for money to help out someone in our building going through a rough time; I was the lowest-paid person in my department and never knew any of the people who we were helping, so I always ignored them. We had 2-3 bake sales for similarly needy colleagues; I might buy a cookie once a year based only on whether I wanted a cookie.

Once or twice, we had meal or errand requests; those were similarly ignored.

I wouldn't think ill of the charitable giving organizer or person who was willing to drive a dinner over. It's very nice; it's just not the way I prefer to share my limited resources.

[SoCalVal]

I once worked for a company where one of the supervisors was always collecting for some cause.  I thought it was strange that she seemed to know everyone in the company who had a crisis and would go around collecting for that person (there were a lot of people in the company; no one knew everyone).  I didn't contribute because I didn't know any of these people (plus I made very little money and supported myself).  I think we all came to suspect that she was keeping the money for herself because people stopped contributing when she came around.

One day, one of our coworkers died after a short bout with cancer.  We all adored her so a collection was being taken up to get flowers.  No one trusted Supervisor to handle it so Guy said he'd take care of it.  We trusted him so lots of us contributed.  The day of the funeral Other Guy said he saw the flowers that came from us, and they were pathetic and totally not worth the amount of money that was contributed.  OG said they looked like they were left over from Easter (the funeral happened after Easter) because there were a few decorative eggs still in the pot.  We were so puzzled that Guy couldn't/wouldn't get something better.  Guy arrives at work, and we ask him about it. <sigh> Guy tells us that he didn't have time to go get the flowers so Supervisor offered to take care of it for him so (incredibly stupidly) he hands over the money to her.  Guy didn't go to the funeral so he didn't know about the flowers.  Other Guy told him what was procured.  Guy felt bad (he should have!), especially since we all told him why we didn't trust Supervisor to handle the money (and wondered why he didn't come to one of us to take care of it).  Anyway, that incident pretty much confirmed what we'd always suspected -- that she'd been pocketing the money.  I began to very much despise Supervisor after that.

I was just asked 1-2 days ago to contribute towards flowers for the wife of someone I've never even met.  CW said the wife of the former director of our department had been in an accident so she was taking up a collection to get her flowers.  CW came up to me to see if I wanted to contribute.  I said I never even met the former director.  CW asked again.  I said again he was way before my time and that I'd never even met him.  CW backed off and went away.  I still don't know why she was pushing me on this, but I wasn't about to donate anything.

[Peppergirl]

^^ Wow.  That supervisor sounds diabolical.  It's lower-than-low to profit off of flowers for a dearly loved co-worker's funeral.   

[YummyMummy66]

Is this done for everyone or is this being done all of a sudden for one person?

If this is the usual that is done for any employee, than I might contribute if I was able to do so.

But, if all of a sudden, this is just one co-worker doing something for a co-worker that she considers a friend, than, no, I would not feel guilty for not contributing. 

[SoCalVal]

^^ Wow.  That supervisor sounds diabolical.  It's lower-than-low to profit off of flowers for a dearly loved co-worker's funeral.   

I agree.  I don't think I was the only whose opinion of her changed, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised that money was so important to her (she used to cheat on her husband all the time and tell these other guys that they needed to come up with some money in order to date her as she had bills to pay; she once told us that one of the guys, after scrabble with her, took $100 in cash and put it on the nightstand -- she said it made her feel like a prostitute; we all thought, "That's because you were.").  Fortunately, she wasn't with the company much longer after she stole the money as she got terminated for other stupid acts.

[Phoebelion]

A co-worker is constantly in some sort of financial crisis.  They are always of her own making. 

About a month ago, her car broke down and is going to cost a far amount to get fixed.  Of course, she has no money.  Our boss generously lent her a company truck so she could get back and forth to work while saving up the money to get her car fixed.

About two weeks later, she brought in pictures of bridesmaid dress' for her foster daughters wedding.  And told everyone she paid for them!!!!  End of company vehicle.

She had to rent a car.  Now her electricity had been shut off for non-payment.  Guess that's how she's paying for the car.

No one has ever even suggested taking up a collection for her.  Thankfully they know better.

[veronaz]

A co-worker is constantly in some sort of financial crisis.  They are always of her own making. 

About a month ago, her car broke down and is going to cost a far amount to get fixed.  Of course, she has no money.  Our boss generously lent her a company truck so she could get back and forth to work while saving up the money to get her car fixed.

About two weeks later, she brought in pictures of bridesmaid dress' for her foster daughters wedding.  And told everyone she paid for them!!!!  End of company vehicle.

She had to rent a car.  Now her electricity had been shut off for non-payment.  Guess that's how she's paying for the car.

No one has ever even suggested taking up a collection for her.  Thankfully they know better.

Sheesh.  Poster child for Messed Up Priorities. 

Reminded me of someone I knew who was behind in rent but went to a cash advance place to get money so she could keep her nail salon appointment. 

[Mary Lennox]

I agree with the others, a general request like this can just be ignored. Unless the email said "MsApril, you must bring dessert for 4 people on Friday. Here are their likes and dislikes..." there's no need to respond. And if they did ever send something like this, you can pull out the ever-useful "That's not possible."

This isn't a "voluntold" situation. This is an email informing you what is happening and inviting you to participate. If you don't want to, then don't. Just like an invitation is not a summons, a request isn't a demand.

[SamiHami]

I knew a woman who used to blow money on nonsense all the time ("but I waaaaaannnnttttt it!") as if she were entitled to all the shiny things she set eyes on. She was lamenting how expensive summer camp/day programs were and how she didn't know how she would afford to send her daughter to one. Now, she had recently told me about the very large tax refund she was getting. I made the mistake of suggesting she put aside some of that money so she'd have it when it was time to sign her daughter up. Well, she looked at me as though my ears had fallen off. It was inconceivable to her that she might save money for a future expense. No, she wanted her XBox/trip to Disneyworld/whatever right now and that's what the money was going toward.

She also used to hint strongly that I should buy her bath towels because she just couldn't afford them. But she could afford to smoke cigarettes and buy crap on Ebay. (I don't know why she got hung up on bath towels. It was weird).