Tomorrow (and the rest of the week) I'm going to be in a class at work and they're going to be feeding us lunch (which means they won't be giving us a lunch break.) I have NO IDEA what they're going to be feeding us and don't even know who's in charge of getting the food. How do you handle a situation like this? I'm thinking that I should pack something. Any suggestions for a good packed lunch that doesn't need to be refridgerated?

Talk to Human Resource at your job.

An outside company is running the training so I don't think HR is even involved.

Ask your supervisor if they are able to provide a vegetarian meal. They should be able to find out for you. If they can't, pack a lunch for yourself tommorow, perferably stuff that won't spoil if you don't eat it because they do have a veggie option. If they don't you may be able to ask them tommorow yourself.

In my experiences, all the school, conference and company lunches I have been to have had vegetarian options, but rarely vegan.

Good luck!

If you can't get any veg meals prepared for you, then definitely pack something. Start with protein bars, such as Luna, Clif and Odwalla.

Suggestion for everybody:

I discovered that if you can't refrigerate your food, the next best thing is to get a couple of Blue Ice lunch packs. At Target, a pack of two is about $2.50. Keep them in the freezer until you're ready to pack a lunch, and refreeze after each use. I use a small Rubbermaid lunch tote, but I'm sure you can use other reusable lunch bags or boxes. They're not very big. These Blue Ice things will keep stuff nice and cold for several hours. As a matter of fact, I discovered that if I put a small bag of carrots on top of one of the lunch packs right after removing it from the freezer, and there's some moisture inside the bag, the carrots and the moisture will actually freeze a little. :-/

Well, there's got to be somebody higher up than you who can pull some strings. Just find who that is and tell them about your diet. No biggie. Lots of people have diseases, religions, allergies, and personal choices and a company shouldn't force one of it's employees to go hungry because of them.

Contact whoever you can and describe your dietary restrictions, then bring a lunch on the first day just to be sure. Check out www.veganlunchbox.com for ideas. The little boy on that site doesn't keep his lunch refridgerated.

I'd pack something.:-/

Its probably too late to change the menu now. If you have access to a microwave grab a Boca brand burger or an Amy's microwave meal. You can pack a salad (the Asian salad from McDonalds is very good).

If you give your employer a day's notice then they should be able to accomodate a veggie request.

Good luck.

Let us know how it went, CodeMonkey.

There's ol' reliable, PB&J of course, which will last just fine without a fridge. This happened to me all the time, in another office. They knew there were several vegetarians, but the secretary who ordered the food just didn't care that we "chose" not to eat meat, we could eat it if we wanted to, so she wouldn't order anything special for us.

Luckily I'm not in that office anymore, and they try to make a vegetarian sandwich for me when they bring in food for everyone else.

I would definitely pack a lunch!

You should keep a lunchbox with a freezer pack handy for situations like this! Either way, your lunch won't be left out of refridgeration for long, and I'd assume your office isn't an inferno, so just about anything would probably keep at room temp for a few hours.

Turned out they let us leave for lunch after all so I got to run off to a really good chinese place near my work for garlic tofu stir-fry :smitten:

I'm all proud of myself for resisting the cream cheese wanton they put on my plate.

I did pack a lunch just in case though.