After a 7 month hiatus from this blog, I wonder: is anyone still out there? Anyone waiting for me to post? I bet you are just beside yourself with curiosity about where I’ve been. Answer: first I was trying to get a new job, then I got a new job, and now I’m BUSY as heck. The truth of the matter is that while I was in the midst of my job search, I felt the need to make this blog private. I didn’t want potential employers to be able to find it and not hire me on the basis of my ethics as they pertain to food. And yes, I realize that sounds strange because you’d think any employer would appreciate someone with such strong ethics, but that’s not exactly how things always work in the conservative finance industry. Sigh.
At any rate, I wanted to discuss veganism in the work place a bit. I wish I were lucky enough to be able to work somewhere where being vegan was the norm. Or at least where telling someone you were vegan didn’t result in very shocked stares and a million questions about how it is even possible to not eat animal products. I had been at my last job for 7.5 years, during which I made the transition from meat-loving omnivore to vegetarian to vegan. My bosses thought I was a little nutty, and one of them asked me every day if I was having tofu for lunch. Because that’s all vegans eat, you know.
Coming to this new job, I am interacting with a much larger group of people. Of the other 24 people in my department not one of them is even vegetarian, much less vegan. This presents both an opportunity for education and sometimes awkwardness. I’m probably not making the situation any better by having an 8×10 framed picture of a rooster in my office – this picture to be exact:
Roscoe the Rooster, Kindred Spirits Sanctuary
This was a Valentine’s Day gift from my boyfriend. I took this picture when I was visiting Kindred Spirits Sanctuary and he thought it was so great he framed it and said I should bring it to work. This is the largest picture I have in my office. It prompts a fair number of questions and/or reactions.
One man said “you like chickens?”. I said “yeah, I do.” He replied, “oh you should have grown up on my farm then. We had 400 of them. Slaughtered them ourselves!” Um….not exactly what I meant when I said I like chickens.
Other than that, so far no one has really been insensitive. They’ve mostly just been sort of curious or confused. I’m okay with that. I don’t mind being the “weirdo”, and I figure as they get to know me, they maybe won’t think being vegan is so strange after all (that’s the goal anyway). I don’t expect anyone to convert or anything, but it’s kind of nice to be able to show them that being vegan isn’t some big sacrifice or something.
I’d be interested in hearing about other people’s experiences in the work place. Is your work place vegan friendly? Are you the only vegan? If so, how do you handle that?
great post! most people don’t know, not because i hide it, but because it never comes up. i live in an area where hunting is popular. my boss has a dead deer head in his office. here are how the 2 times it sort of came up at work went…
co-worker: what’s for lunch?
me: eggplant.
cw: oh, don’t you eat meat?
me: no.
cw: you don’t? but you’ll die!
me: um, i seem to be still alive.
another day my boss was talking about when he worked in the chicken houses…
boss: i better stop talking or you won’t want to eat eggs anymore!
me: i don’t eat eggs.
boss: you don’t? but what about cake?!!
as if you can’t live without cake. i had another horrifying experience where one of my co-worker’s and his son came in after a day of hunting and the son was covered in blood from a buck he just killed and they were all proud that he got his first buck. it was like watching a horror movie.
i don’t even bother trying to expose anyone at work to my lifestyle, it’s not something that would exactly be well received, much less curious about. plus they already think i am weird.
boy am i wordy! sorry… great blog!
~wendy
http://conradvisionquest.wordpress.com/
At the job I had before quitting to be a stay-at-home dad, I probably worked there a year or so before the subject really came up. I wasn’t really vocal about it, because veganism was really new to me and I wasn’t sure how to answer the question. One coworker said to me, upon hearing I was vegan, “You don’t look like a vegan.” To which I replied, “Thanks? I guess? What does a vegan look like, exactly?”
Turns out, there was a vegan who worked there before me and he had a piercing in his cheek, I think. And big spiked hair. And chains all over. So… I was happy to reframe what a vegan looked like for my coworkers. Not that there’s anything wrong with pierced, spiked, chainey vegans. I just think it’s important for people to see that most vegans aren’t that way.
Shortly before I quit my job, I learned that the completely “normal looking” 40-something suburban graphic designer, mother and wife that I worked with was vegan. None of the rest of her family was, but she couldn’t bring herself to not be.
I think that for you, MMG, one of the reasons your veganism may throw people for a loop is that you’re an “otherwise normal” person. You, me and most other vegans are normalizing veganism. Ain’t it fun?
just wanted to let you know that i’m still reading! still love your blog and still fighting the good vegan fight over here.
Hey you! Nice to see your blog back, sorry it took me two weeks to find it. Good post, as always.
s.
All the time i get apologetic looks, profuse apologies about not thinking of me when cakes, cookies and what not is brought. It makes me feel annoyed at times. I mean, if it is the twentieth time you apologise, you actually do not give a f***. i do not want them to being be vegan cakes but i do want them to stop apologising!!!
that should have read *bring me*