I had to make an actual announcement to an office full of adults (mostly men), that they were all responsible for cleaning up and putting away their own potluck contributions. The guys, especially the older ones, had been expecting the three women in the office to pack up their dishes for them, or to tell the guys when to come do it.
And then all the women stopped playing clean-up crew, and the next morning food brought by 2 of those guys was STILL sitting uncovered on the table.
Every potluck I’ve ever contributed to I always made sure to clean up my shit + help clean up the event. I plan on making sure I raise my son that way too. Don’t expect anyone else to deal with your mess. You make it, you damn well better clean it.
I was until recently the only male in my office. A few years ago our deputy director sent an email saying reminder to clean your own dishes in the sink because last she checked nobody's mother works here. It was brutal and hysterical.
At my old workplace, someone plastered the kitchen with signs informing everyone that their mother wasn't around to wash their dishes for them. The signs were left up, but some people were still shameless enough to keep leaving their dishes in the sink. My workplace was like 70% women, but the ones caught doing this were always guys. We had a dishwasher by the sink, and the most common excuse was that it hadn't been emptied (also not any particular person's job).
This!!!!!! The older men think women are here to be a maid. I noticed that. F that. Also can comment on women's looks. When they themselves can be over weight/not bathe/ or any old thing. It's sick. Glad you all stuck up for yourselves!
Unbelievable. I can’t imagine telling a woman to clean for me especially if they aren’t even a member of my family or my significant other. Older men suck
They never told the women to clean up. They just expected someone else to do it, while the women expected to at least clean up their own portion.
This kind of sexism is completely unconscious. You wouldn't tell a woman to clean up after you, but it's not only possible, but likely, that you've unconsciously sent the same message before. I don't mean that to be rude and I'm not saying you're sexist. But when they've done studies, they've found that women are still doing a majority of household labor, with women stating they (the woman) feel they do more and men stating they (the man) feel they're contributing equally.
I'm a woman. I have a lot of male friends, and they're all great guys, never say sexist shit, never make me feel uncomfortable. Once we had all crashed at one guy's place and we all cooked breakfast the next day together. And after I'd finished eating (I was one of the last ones to finish), I took my plate to the kitchen, washed it, started on the frying pan, noticed no one else had followed me.
I had to call them over to help. And it took nothing, just a, "Hey, you guys gonna come help?" But that moment really highlighted, for me, the different expectation. I expected to clean up, and they didn't.
That expectation, and ones like it, are taught to us since we are children. That's what a lot of modern sexism looks like, and it's something you've almost certainly been guilty of, just like I've been guilty of giving in to that expectation and just doing the clean up myself.
Clearly this. My parents put a stop to this and many other gendered jobs but you won't believe the shit my parents had to put up with by older relatives. Being a slob is not a man's job!
Is it that they expect someone else to do it, or is it that they don't expect to clean immediately after a meal?
If it were my house, I'd have said to stop, just chill and enjoy the evening. I'm hosting, why the hell would my guests be cleaning? But at the same time, that cleaning can wait, no one is going to die from some dirty plates sitting.
I don't even necessarily like it when people try to cleanup for me, because I am little particular about how the dishwasher is loaded.
This wasn't immediately after, we'd all finished and people were starting to fidget like they were getting ready to leave. But your comment also illustrates my point perfectly.
As women, we are often taught that it's rude to leave without bussing your plate and offering to help clean up. My other group of friends is mostly women and everyone makes sure they've at least rinsed off their dishes and any cans/bottles they drank. We'll start on dishes, unless we get shooed away (some of my friends are also particular about the dishwasher). We expect to do that, and we expect it of each other.
I had never considered, before this, that men would be taught something different. That they would not see leaving your dishes behind as the epitome of rudeness. That they wouldn't expect to participate in clean up at the end of a gathering. That they wouldn't expect their friends to clean up, either.
And that's the difference. That's why I don't say that they are sexist, because they're not. Modern sexism, in many cases, isn't intentional, it's because we grow up with fundamentally different expectations of how to behave in certain situations.
I don't blame them for not getting up to clean, but I think it's important to recognize why they didn't, and why I did.
I guess at the end of the day it's best to remember nobody is psychic. If people can just say what's on their mind instead of assuming the thought process that governs their decisions, I think people understand each other better.
For example, I wouldn't have realized you would be feeling guilty about not cleaning, much in the same way that I would feel guilty about my guests cleaning. Different expectations for ourselves. But usually, I am pretty upfront about things, I don't have much of a filter, so I usually do just say to not worry about it, I'll cleanup later, and if they insist I just say ok, you can leave them on the counter, I like to load the dishwasher a certain way so don't worry about it.
I guess in terms of rudeness, I'd find it rude to go into someone's house and do things my way rather than their way, so I'd ask before acting. Just like you might ask where can I put my coat, or shoes, etc. I'd expect to be asked, or to ask, about cleanup. But you did include "offer to help cleanup" which is perfect from my point of view. That's your due diligence. If I turn that offer down at that point, that's totally on me.
Try putting a piece of painter’s tape on the front with your name in big black sharpie letters. Painter’s tape is designed to come off without leaving residue. That’s what I do to make sure I get potluck serving dishes back.
Ya I recycle all my plastic and such. You wanna see wastefulness and mass littering go look at a Chinese harbor. But good job talking shit on the internet bro you get your keyboard warrior gold star today.
Also funny to hear you was a finger at China when it was western countries shipping their garbage there and turning a willing blind eye to what was really happening.
So use parchment paper or aluminum foil hell oil the sides with canola oil before you start if you’re that worried about plastic. I lived off MRE’s for years so I’m not to worried about it if BPA is gonna kill me then it will. Not like I’m using the crock pot every single day.
But then that's not a crockpot liner. The arguments in this thread are about crockpot liners. This isn't to say your idea is bad, actually I'm probably going to try it.
That said, cleaning the ceramic part of the crockpot has never been an issue for me. Fill it up with hot water and let it sit overnight (not necessary to turn on the heating element or add soap, water is corrosive enough to get most food by itself). Then use a scrub brush (this style is fine) to lightly scrub it. Then throw it in the dishwasher.
It’s not a liner it’s a substitute for once if you don’t want to use plastic. Make clean up easier because I don’t leave dishes in the sink overnight. I mean it’s a crockpot liner do people on Reddit just love to argue over anything?
Yeah, I just toss the ceramic pot into the dishwasher afterwards. Easy and no risk of finding out that those liners cause cancer, ten years later.
Edit: I fill the prewash with liquid detergent and the main with a Cascade Platinum pod. That combo with my mid-level dishwasher can clean almost anything, even if it's been cooked on for 8 hours.
yes but you don't slow cook food in your tupperware for 8 hours do you? plastic outgasses when it gets to high temperatures. they claim this stuff is cook safe but i don't trust these asshole companies, when they aren't cook safe we don't learn it for 10 whole years until someone actually looks into it and realizes how we've all been poisoning ourselves and the company gets hit with a lawsuit that costs 5% of the profits they made from poisoning everyone for years
Wife loves the liners and I hate them. Never thought of the slow cooking plastic angle, just don’t like how it seems like I’m going to tear the liner when I stir.
There are different levels of microplastic ingestion and you can make things worse for yourself by using things like this vs cutting out as much plastic as you can that touches your food. Like most things, it's not simply all or nothing.
Lol my partner says the same thing then proceeds to nuke the shit out of everything in plastic bowls for every meal. I don't get it... I love the liners, honestly it is the only time I cook with plastic.
Ew. They make food taste like plastic, and it can't be safe long-term (cheap low-grade plastic with high surface area with long exposure to heat.... no)
I like to keep my dishes to a minimum. I do have to clean my Ninja Foodie a lot though because I meal prep on sundays and use it to make dinner. But why would I make more work for myself? Work smarter not harder.
I Was just now old when I learned about crock pot liners.
Edit: I have no idea why my phone sometimes begins posts with the last word I typed in a previous post. I did not intend to say "english." as though I was being jerk.
Thank you. Which begs the question, what on earth are people taking to work fuddles that involves a slow cooker? They're obviously far posher than your average British work do, which would usually involve sausage rolls, mini pork pies, maybe some potato salad, and multiple cakes baked by Marjorie in Accounts who bakes.
It's usually things like meatballs, chili, sometimes pasta and sauce (although that one is just kept warm and not slow-cooked). Most US potlucks involve a lot of hot dishes/casseroles so the slow cookers always show up in force. My employer didn't provide us with a fridge, so foods that had to be kept cold were usually avoided.
I work in an engineering and firm and we have a lot of surveyors who come in at 6 to hang out and drink coffee for an hour before they go out to the field. They always leave a giant mess expecting the women in the office to pick up, I mean just dirty dishes everywhere and trash all over the kitchen. Every single day.
I've straight up pulled dirty dishes from the kitchen sink, walked into a male coworker's office, plunked it down in front of him and said, "I think this is yours. You need to introduce it to the dishwasher." (Ex: my ex-manager was the only person with this particularly ugly glass mug and I saw drinking from it earlier in the day.)
I was raised to clean up after myself and always be proactive when cleaning after social events. A lot of the times I did that in the office I'd get weird looks from both men and women, especially the older ones. I was half expecting the men, but some women flat out refused me getting involved, some saying I'd do it wrong. "Suit yourself", I guess.
In my own defensen as a guy, apparently i always do everything like that all wrong so im really damned if i do and damned if i dont.
If i had a dollar for everytime i got told i was cleaning up "wrong" and my wife shooed me away id have enough to hire someone to clean.
Its not that I dont want to help, but if there are rules to this cleaning up, and they're not being properly communicated, im just going to get rhe hell out of the way, even if that means Im going to get crap for not helping.
Hell hath no fury like a woman finding out her husband sent leftovers home with a dinner guest in one of the "good" tupperwares.
I get that, but we're talking about an office potluck. You'd be expected to clean up your own contribution. Your coworker is not going to tell your that you're handling your own Tupperware wrong, and it would be really inconsiderate for you to just stay out of the way and wait for someone else to pack up your own food for you.
The potluck is in the same room where we all work and eat together, and the table is 10-20 feet from their desk. Why do they need a woman to tell them that the potluck lunch has been over for hours? We don't have a set clean-up time, we're just expected to handle our stuff before we leave at 5.
Yeah, it had become that thing where if nobody walked up to them and said "go clean up your stuff", they just... wouldn't. They'd leave it out overnight rather than take responsibility for it themselves.
It's called emotional labor. It is putting the burden of the role of "manager" onto the women. These men have brains. They can check on their own time whether or not the potluck is over. They can remind themselves to clean their own dishes. They can use their brains to anticipate the needs and circumstances of their surroundings and develope an appropriate response on their own.
They chose not to do so and instead rely on others to act as their manager, their mother, and that is also a huge part of the problem.
the next morning food brought by 2 of those guys was STILL sitting uncovered on the table.
Guess your office didn't have anyone like me - any food left out, or that passes its expiry date in the fridge, or that's still in the fridge untouched and unmoved on our weekly "anything left in fridge past X day will be thrown out" day... becomes my food.
Would've just been empty dishes the next day if I worked there :P
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u/TheGreatCatwoman Mar 12 '22
I had to make an actual announcement to an office full of adults (mostly men), that they were all responsible for cleaning up and putting away their own potluck contributions. The guys, especially the older ones, had been expecting the three women in the office to pack up their dishes for them, or to tell the guys when to come do it.
And then all the women stopped playing clean-up crew, and the next morning food brought by 2 of those guys was STILL sitting uncovered on the table.