Company lunches=2, Me=0

It's a bit ironic, or just weird karma.

Out of two company-sponsored lunches that I've had in the last week, I haven't been able to eat what I actually ordered.

Bad Lunch Karma event #1: We have a power outage in the morning. While we're waiting for the power to come back, one of the manager proposes that if we contribute non-perishables to a local food bank, the company will buy us lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. Cool. So, we all place our orders (I wanted a chicken salad with salsa, beans, etc), get our food donations at the local supermarket and come back to the office to get our lunches. And I'm really hungry. But I open my lunch to discover that it's not salad with chicken but it's pork and it includes guacamole (which I despise -- yes, I know avocado is a magic health food -- but I hate the flavor and the texture. Although, I do like the color :-)) Bleah. I check around and no, no one else has what I ordered. I end up NOT eating lunch because I just don't want to make the trip back to the restaurant and exchange it.

Bad Lunch Karma even #2: We have two new employees and the VP of Engineering organizes a welcome lunch at the local Thai restaurant. I like the Pad Thai at this place and am eagerly looking forward to it. We're a huge group (21+ people) and I'm one of the last people to get my lunch. Which isn't what I ordered. It's a variation of what I ordered, so I figure, how bad could it be. I take the lunch instead of sending it back, because people are already eating, I eat slow to begin with, and I don't want to hold people up as I try to finish up. The Pad Thai variation that I ended up with is horrible. Bleah. I eat as much as I can tolerate. Even then, without me eating all of my lunch, I'm one of the last people to finish. The server was quite nice about it. He knows I didn't get what I ordered and asks me how it was. I tell him, "not so good" but explain that it's not his fault, I know I could have sent it back. He gives me a card with a note about a complimentary lunch. Nice service! Turns out, someone else took my lunch, somehow not realizing that he was not eating what he ordered -- or maybe he did what I did...figured it was too much of a bother to send it back since it took so long to serve our large group. He 'fessed up about it later ...what could I do? I laughed and now it's a bit of a joke.

Seems like bringing my lunch is much safer than trying to get what I want from a company lunch!