Hi Melissa,
I’ve already shared my experiences with veganism in one of my
above posts in this thread, but to respond to some of your points directly:
Quote:
Originally Posted by VeganMelissa  I've been vegan for three months now and getting though the holiday at work was difficult. I have told MANY people that I am vegan but they don't seem to get it. [...]
Now, we have to work this weekend and they always provide us food. So I went to our directors office and told her that I was Vegan (she should have caught on at the 2 parties we were at together but I'll let it slide) and could she order a pizza with just veggies on it because I do not eat cheese. I won't tell you the entire conversation (becuase I might bore you) but she ended up throwing her pen dramatically across her desk while saying in a very nasty tone, Send me an email of exactly what you want and that's what I'll get. I just told her what I wanted, what is the big deal. Why do non-vegans freak out about food requests. If I had asked to make sure there was pepperoni pizza there would she have made a big deal about it? I don't think so. [...]
I also must mention that I got 4 boxes of chocolate from people at work that know I'm vegan. What is that about??? |
Some people may know you are vegan, but from my experience, A) most people will forget since it’s easier for them to remember you eating a standard diet (go-go path of least resistance!
), B) some people don’t even know who or what a “vegan” is, although they’ll readily acknowledge that you are a vegan, regardless of their ignorance as to what the label is actually used for, C) some people intermittently forget you are vegan and may be offering you a vegan-friendly recipe idea one minute, and offering you a steak the next, and D) some people may be aware of what a vegan is but have varying levels of acceptance, tolerance, and abusiveness (or any combination thereof), depending on their mood.
Perhaps when you approached your director about the pizza she was not in a particularly good mood and your request (which most non-vegans would consider to be odd, strange, and/or annoying) threw a figurative, unconventional, animal-friendly spanner in her socially conditioned, meat-eating works and caused her to have a less then positive reaction. I’m not saying that makes it ok to have such a reaction (no offence to her or you, but if something so small causes her to send her pen airborne, she isn’t much of a director), but it is a possibility you may want to consider (for this, and future cases) if you haven’t already.
Either way, while it may not always be comfortable to have these experiences, I’d push through and revel in the fact that you have the resolve to pull away from the brainless, zombie-like masses (and other non-vegan individuals who consciously choose that path) and consciously choose a diet that is somewhat unconventional and probably healthier then what the vast majority of people consume. I think it’s reasonable to expect a bit of resistance from those around you, since if their unconscious diet choices are anything to go by, they definitely prefer the path of least resistance, and from what I’ve found, it’s much easier to be completely inconsiderate and ignorant then it is to be highly conscious and compassionate.
Some people may act as if you’ve greatly inconvenienced or insulted them by being a vegan (almost as if you’re doing a
bad thing by no longer contributing to the suffering of animals!), but I’m sure they’d be equally inconvenienced and insulted if you gave them a nice dose of reality and put an intact, dead animal carcass in front of them and told them:
“Come on now, harvest that animal flesh. It’s good for you -- high in iron, and you need your protein! Hurry now, before it starts to decompose.”
By the way, while checking out Erin's website,
VegFamily.com, earlier, I spotted and read a good article that may interest you:
Vegan at Work: Being vegan among co-workers
I definitely like the ideas presented in the article, and if it is appropriate for your workplace, you may want to give them a try. As I'm constantly discovering, if you want to fix a problem, as counterproductive as it may sound, don't focus on the problem! Instead, acknowledge the problem, and immediately focus on what I call an "answer" that takes your mind off the problem and ends up solving the problem through little effort on your part. Often many problems will simply melt away when you take your focus away from them and focus that previously wasted energy on more positive, constructive pursuits (such as those described in the article I linked to). The woman in the article doesn't seem to have any of the problems you describe, so maybe you'd do well to mimic her actions in an attempt to get similar results.