Time to ditch workplace ‘bring a plate’ functions? Editorial
“Bring a plate” is one of the best things about being a Kiwi.
The sharing of the load of a social occasion speaks to who we are as a caring and considerate nation.
The fun phrasing of it catches out many invitees who are not born on our shores.
Ask any immigrant what they’re expected to do when told to bring a plate and they’ll tell you they’re taking a piece of crockery, not a dish for people to nibble away at.
And as an incident at Hawke’s Bay Hospital over the past few weeks shows, the tradition isn’t without its risks.
Hospital admin staff at the Hastings hospital building inadvertently shared a cannabis cake at a morning tea among workmates.
For a few hours, it was probably quite a good day.
But as two workers began to feel ill, things went south.
With an arrest now made, police and the justice system will decide if it was a deliberate poisoning or an accidental act – but regardless, it’s certainly no Australian beef wellington incident.
In this case, it resulted in two workers taking a very short walk down to the Emergency Department to try to get an explanation of what was wrong with them.
Once the results came back, the cake became the talk of the hospital and, soon after, the nation.
Health NZ says it takes the incident extremely seriously and acted immediately to ensure appropriate steps were taken.
Perhaps one of the steps that it, and other employers around NZ, could take is to look at food-related social occasions.
Good employers will occasionally offer a catered morning tea to staff as a gesture of goodwill.
However, the public service has become cautious when it comes to offering the same benefits, fearing headlines that emphasise the cost and the subsequent public backlash.
A quick look at social media comments on a story about $30,000 Christmas breakfast Napier City Council put on for its staff last year shows the risk of perception that publicly funded organisations face when putting on meals.
Maybe the cannabis cake will change that.
Perhaps, instead of platitudes about it being an unacceptable act, it could be a catalyst to ditch the forced “bring a plate” functions, and instead give workers something they don’t have to prepare themselves.
That might be better than playing potluck.
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