My team at work created a 'cancellation fee' for lunch plans and it's escalating.
By @noelok2 · Work
What started as a joke to stop people from bailing on reservations has evolved into a fully fledged, unironic micro-economy on a shared spreadsheet. I think we accidentally created a monster.
The full story
Our team loves to do a group lunch every Friday, but we had a chronic problem with one or two people backing out at the last minute, which messes with the reservation. A few months ago, someone jokingly suggested we implement a $5 cancellation fee for anyone who bails within 24 hours of the lunch. Everyone agreed, laughing. For the first few weeks, it worked perfectly. People were committed. Then, the complexity began. One of our project managers—who is WAY too into this—created a shared spreadsheet to track the 'Lunch Ledger.' It has spiraled. The fee is now tiered: $5 for 24-hours notice, $10 for same-day notice, and a whopping $20 if you cancel within one hour of the reservation. All fees are paid via Venmo to the person who organized the lunch that week. Last week, someone tried to pay off their 'debt' by offering the organizer a 'cancellation credit' they were owed from a previous lunch. This led to a 45-minute debate on Slack about whether lunch debts were transferable. Someone else tried to 'sell' their spot at the table to a coworker from another department to avoid the fee. It feels like we're beta-testing a new fintech app. I'm both deeply impressed and mildly concerned. I have no idea if management or HR knows about this, but our simple little lunch plan now requires its own governance committee.
How people voted
- Valid Take — 34% (31 votes)
- I’m Torn — 32% (29 votes)
- Bad Take — 34% (31 votes)
Readers are split: “Valid Take” leads with 34% — 91 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@sashakk — You've collectively created a system that rewards the most terminally online person in your group.
@violetmaybe — If you all have this much spare time to track lunch fees, the company needs a layoff.
@lanemaybe — This happened with the beer fridge at my last job. We had to have a 2 hour meeting about IPAs.
@mostlyokay — i hope hr finds the spreadsheet
@ediey — I would start hosting competing lunches on the same day out of pure spite. Lunch-arbitrage.
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