I Refused to Eat Meat at a Work Lunch, Now HR Is Involved

She should've told them that she's vegan

I'm vegan too. I applaud you for standing for yourself.

She should have ordered a salad. I know vegans don't eat food that may be contaminated in a kitchen full of meat, but it's time to take one for the team or find another line of work.

This is the best comment. Not recognizing the name of the Steakhouse should have been a reason to avoid going going on a first meeting. Her planning committee/ boss should have the best staff to " shake hands" with the client. The client reacted as should be expected to include a staff member not bother to do research on what are the marketing goals of a client. Losing the client is the boss's fault not knowing his possible client.

I ran a federal union. The issue at hand is not about being vegan but rather as an employee in a marketing firm that was going to be whining and dining a client not being aware of where you were going for your meal. Preparation with any meeting is key to winning the client. People in these comments are saying it's great you stood up for your values but actually you made yourself look foolish and many of your beliefs are correct in terms of how you feel about yourself with regard to this situation. By coming out making it declarative statement that you're a vegan and I'll just drink juice that's an automatic insult. You might not think it but that is the way that it is taken. It's just the same way when my late wife was going for a book deal as a food blogger she destroyed herself by saying yes ma'am to the publicist a woman in New York City who worked with scary Mommy and pioneer woman. There's a good possibility that you lost a lot of perceived integrity within your group by your actions. I don't know that your office Dynamics but it may not be recoverable. I actually hope it is for your sake. In future what you need to do and what this woman needed to do was research the client well enough beforehand. Once again this is different if you were selling software but you're a marketing company so a marketing company looks at the client's values and the client is evaluating you not with regards to your values but how will you stand up against theirs. It sounds like this is a person of integrity but the truth of the matter is you can't simply declare yourself anymore especially if you are dealing with clients. Vegan is synonymous with woke and woke does not align itself with business intentions. Personally if it were me and I were the client I'd be like that's cool I wish I had known we could go somewhere else. But, if you were going to a steakhouse, steakhouses also have dishes that you can get that do not have meat in them. You could have ordered us people have said a salad. Specifically a garden salad. And when you got the salad you could say I need to eat like during the day. Well I'm primarily remote work now there was a time I worked in an office and everybody wanted to try different restaurants all the time I do not like third world cuisine. I specifically do not like Ethiopian food because some of the food sounds like a question for example the staple dish of Wat. And actually wat is pretty good but it's too spicy for me so I tend not to go to lunch with people and part of the reason also for a long time money was so tight trying new restaurants and going places was not in my budget and I would go places that would provide large portions that I could take home and make two or three meals out of and I knew the quality was good. Living on the South shore of Massachusetts there's plenty of fish places seafood restaurants that were like that at one time before covid.

Theoretically and Private industry and while I do not agree with is having been a union leader they could have fired you over this incident and there would be nothing that you could do because your actions cost them a client.

I remember the good old days when bosses didn't feel compelled to micromanage so much that they thought they had the right to demand employees inform of their diet. WTF.

This is kind of the company's fault actually. With so many people having so many different kinds of dietary restrictions these days the company should have been gathering dietary restrictions from every employee during onboarding. What if it had been an allergy? That would have been the company on the line since it was a company event.

Too bad you don’t have a good imagination or think on your feet.You could have run circles around that situation 🤭🤭

Every restaurant has vegan options, even if theyre just appetizers. She should have just ordered a vegan dish, but she chose to advertise her martyrdom by her ridiculous virtue signaling. I wouldn't want to work with such a drama queen either. Leave your "moral" pretentions at home and be a darn professional.

This comment section that thinks it's ok to insult a client makes me all the more sad for the world. Why is it so hard to order a baked potato, or a gluten free wrap, without needing to scream to the world that I don't eat animal products or wheat? Noone cares. Order what you can eat as that is the social norm and do your job. Not every outing needs to be a statement ffs.

I don't know how someone got as far in the company to be this deep into a business meeting without the company having the slightest inkling that they were vegan.
My partner was a standard shop floor employee and the company knew he was vegan because as bleh as a business they were, they knew who people were and if they had allergies or preferences.
It's actually hilarious in a tragic sort of a way that the company had such little knowledge of the staff high up enough to sit directly in front of a potential major client, that this is considered being blindsided.
That no one even considered the tiniest dietary requirements whether allergy, intolerance or ethical stance of their employees. It's so basic.
But hey, we all love an opportunity to dunk on a vegan so it's probably totally their fault, right?

You should have walked right up and spit in his face .Bert Lahre.

As the joke goes: A vegan, a crossfitter, and an atheist walk into a bar...how did I know? Because they told me!

Sigh...of course you cost them a client. I would never involve you in client relations simply because you did not do your research...that, alone tells me you weren't ready to be involved. I would never trust you again.