The office can be a stressful place, but in this story, the real drama came from the break room.

One new employee had proudly brought their lunch from home when a colleague approached to let them know there was free pizza.

What followed was a moment of tension that could have been avoided with a little tact.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

AITA for telling a coworker to “read the room” when he pointed out the free pizza while I was eating my own packed lunch?

Yesterday, at my workplace, there was a group meeting set during noon.

As the meeting was long, my workplace decided to host a free lunch period (basically pizza and other food). This was mentioned beforehand in an email sent to everyone.

But this didn’t impress this employee, who was quick to mention they had already prepared a lunch.

Due to various personal and family-related reasons, I take my own packed lunch to work.

I can’t see myself eating both my lunch and the free food provided, as that would be impossible. Plus, I don’t want to waste my own lunch.

After the first half of the meeting, we had lunch in the room itself. I opened up my own bag while a lot of other people went to get the pizza.

Soon, a colleague made the mistake of letting them know about this pizza.

After a few minutes, one coworker whom I’ve never spoken to before (as I’ve only started three weeks ago) came up to me and said something like, “Hey, there’s free pizza if you want it.”

This employee saw this as a complete overstep and responded accordingly.

This is where I got a little annoyed, because 1) the pizza boxes were literally across the room, obviously they were there, and 2) I was very clearly eating my own lunch, which I thought made it clear that I decided to forego the free work-provided lunch.

So I told him something along the lines of, “No thanks, I have my own lunch, as you can see. That means I’m not going for the free pizza.”

He said okay and then left.

But when the employee recounted the interaction, their parents objected to how they handled it.

Later, after work, I told my parents about this when they asked me about what we did at work.

They said I was being rude by saying that, and that I could have left it at “no thanks.”

Granted, I was a bit annoyed, but I thought my simple explanation to my coworker was diplomatic and further clarified what was going on.

Was AITA here?

What was really evident here was a complete lack of respect or understanding of professional boundaries.

What did Reddit think of all this?

This interaction definitely isn’t what this commenter would call “diplomatic.”

Putting up with interactions that sometimes make you uncomfortable is pretty much what being an office worker is all about.

If they don’t start doing some damage control, this could seriously impact their reputation around the office.

There was an extremely easy and polite response right there.

No matter what the original intentions were, this refusal came off as unappreciative and just plain rude.

Who knew such a kind gesture could turn into such a conflict?

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.