The Hidden Power Dynamics of the Office Potluck

Deviled eggs are a currency and nobody admits it.

I watched a woman get fired once. Not for poor performance or stealing Post-it notes or telling the CEO his tie looked like a fishing lure (which it did, and someone should have said something sooner). She got fired for what HR called “creating a hostile work environment” but what the rest of us understood to be the Great Potato Salad Incident of the third-floor kitchen.

She brought store-bought potato salad to the company potluck. In the original container. With the price tag still on it. And set it down right next to Diane’s homemade German potato salad, the one Diane had been making for five consecutive office events, the one Diane had printed a little tent card for that read “Diane’s Famous Kartoffelsalat” in a font I can only describe as Bridgerton exquisite.

She didn’t get fired for the potato salad, of course. That came later, after a series of events that all traced back to that moment. But I remember standing in the break room watching Diane’s face turn to anger when she spotted the Kroger container, and I thought to myself, this is where careers come to die. Right here. Next to the deviled eggs.

And look, I have studied the office potluck with the intensity of a documentary filmmaker embedded in a war zone. I have attended dozens of these events across multiple jobs and I can tell you with complete confidence that a potluck is never about the food. A potluck is an evaluation disguised as a buffet. A character assessment wrapped in aluminum foil and shoved in the back of someone’s SUV.

You can tell everything you need to know about a person based on what they bring. The overachievers roll in with a slow-cooker they’ve been babysitting since dawn, something with layers and garnish and a handwritten ingredient card for “allergy purposes.” These are the same people who volunteer for extra projects and send follow-up emails within two minutes of any meeting. They didn’t bring pulled pork. They brought a bid for Employee of the Month and they want you to taste their ambition.

Then you’ve got the people who bring a two-liter of off-brand soda and a sleeve of paper cups and call it a day. These are the same people who leave one minute before quitting time and have never once responded to a group email. And I respect them more than anyone in the building because at least they’re not pretending this is an America’s Top Chef live event.

The deviled eggs, though. The deviled eggs are where things get political.

I once watched two women in my department both show up with deviled eggs on the same day and the tension in that kitchen could have powered a small generator. Neither one acknowledged the other’s tray. They placed them on opposite ends of the table like rival chess players positioning their queens. The rest of us stood there holding our paper plates, trying to figure out which tray to take from first, knowing our selection would be seen as an act of loyalty.

I took one from each tray and ate them both at the same time like some kind of breakfast diplomat and I still think about that moment when I can’t fall asleep.

Every office I’ve worked in has had one person who treats the potluck sign-up sheet like a binding legal contract. They monitor it. They track who signed up for what. They notice if someone changes their contribution from “homemade mac and cheese” to “store-bought rolls” and they WILL mention it. These people have spreadsheets for the spreadsheet and I am convinced they calculate the ratio of main dishes to sides with the fervor of a SpaceX engineer planning a Starship launch.

And then there’s the person who doesn’t sign up at all but still shows up with an empty plate and a confident smile, loading up on everything like they’re preparing for a hibernation they did not warn anyone about. Zero investment, maximum return. That’s strategy operating at a level I can only admire from a distance.

I should confess that I am not a potluck hero. I have never once been the person with the slow-cooker. I am the person who panics the morning of, realizes I signed up for “a dessert” three weeks ago and forgot the second I put my pen down, and then sprints to the nearest store to grab brownies that I will transfer to a fancy dish so it looks homemade. I have perfected the art of dusting store-bought goods with powdered sugar like a pastry forensics expert destroying evidence.

Once, someone asked me for the recipe and I said “oh, it’s a family thing, I can’t share it” about a container of brownies that cost six dollars and nineteen cents. And they believed me. They looked at me with envy, like I was harboring some ancient confectionery secret passed down through generations. I was not. I was harboring a receipt in my coat pocket and the shame of a person who cannot be trusted with advance planning.

The greatest trick the office potluck ever pulled was convincing us it was optional. It is not optional. Your participation is being cataloged by no fewer than three people who will remember your choices at annual review time. Did she bring something homemade? Team player. Did he bring napkins? Not committed. Did he skip the potluck? First to go in the next round of layoffs, mark my words.

So the next time you see that sign-up sheet circulating through your office, know that you are not choosing between bringing a casserole or a bag of chips. You are making a declaration about who you are as a human being and how much unpaid emotional labor you are willing to perform for people whose last names you will forget the second you leave the company.

Choose your dish with care.

The deviled eggs are watching.