[wplug-plan] pizza related issues

[Teodorski, Chris]

All,


I wanted to weigh in on the vegetarian issue.  As a vegetarian -- I understand the concern that the carnivores will eat all the veggie pizza before I get some.  I have in the past staked out the pizza room to ensure that I got my slice or two of veggie/plain pizza before it disappeared. (I too feel that Scott handled the pizza dilemma appropriately by allowing the veggies to go first)  

However, I've never had any problem getting my fill of pizza.  Even when I hesitate I have always been able to grab a slice or two.   Frankly, I have always been impressed with this organizations willingness to accommodate the veggies in the crowd.  Lots of places and organizations ignore dietary issues and assume that everyone is a carnivore.  

As for the ordering of pizza by late folks -- it seems to me that the approach has to be -- if you arrive post pizza order, you have missed your opportunity for pizza. 

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: wplug-plan-bounces+teodorski=ppg.com at wplug.org [mailto:wplug-plan-bounces+teodorski=ppg.com at wplug.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Wagstrom
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 7:32 PM
To: wplug-plan at wplug.org
Cc: smk at fyi.net
Subject: [wplug-plan] pizza related issues

Folks,

(This message is CC'd to Scott because I'm not sure if he's on the plan
list or not)

Today brought up two interesting issues related to pizza.  One is
serving those who have specific dietary restrictions (vegetarian, etc).
The other is how to handle people who arrive late.  These seem small,
but both have the possibility to really upset some people if we don't
handle them properly.

Regarding vegetarians, the complaint is that the "meat-eaters" pilfer
the vegetarian pizzas leaving the vegetarians without anything to eat. 
Today Scott handled this by letting the vegetarians get their pizza
first and then announcing that pizza was available. I think that Scott
handled this the right way today and in the future it might be a good
way to handle it. 

With regard to people coming late, we need to establish a policy on
this.  Today we had a few people arrive around 1:30 wanting to get in on
the pizza order.  Here's the issue that I have with this: WPLUG does not
order pizza as a money making venture.  Basically we serve as an
organizing body for those who want pizza - usually we try to make it so
we spend almost all of the money we receive.  From my experience if we
make a profit, it's at most five bucks.  The more people who choose to
become members the more of that cost is beared by the other people who
are paying for the pizza.

Where the issue comes in is if people show up late and want in.  Say we
order eight pizzas for 16 people and pay a total of $60 for those pizzas
(four free pizzas, where their 4x$5 goes to the wplug treasury).  Each
person at this point gets about 1/2 a pizza, around 4 pieces or so.  Now
lets say that we have three additional people want pizza, suddenly
instead of each person getting 0.5 of pizza, they get .42 of a pizza, or
about three pieces (actually $4.20 of pizza) and WPLUG gets their $15 to
the general fund.

Now the question we need to ask is "Is this fair?".  For me, I certainly
don't want people who don't show up on time to lower the value of my $5.
I'm also a little concerned because of the accounting situation.  I
don't think we want to making $15 on the pizza as I'm not sure how we
account for that or if we're legally allowed to make money like that.

Anyway, something for discussion.  We need to have a policy so people
don't get angry about it.  I know it seems small, but I've seen
WPLUGgers go crazy over smaller things.

--Patrick

PS. I realize there are nitpicky ways that you can change how I use the
numbers here, but the general point is the same.  People coming late
lower the value of my investment in the public good (pizza).  In
essence, they're free riders.


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