Eating in an office

[Gazza77]

For the last four years, I have had my own office. This is actually a double office, but due to restructuring, I have been the only occupant.

For the last 5 weeks or so, I have had company in the form of someone from another department, which is on a temporary basis.

Every lunchtime, I go over to the canteen to eat my lunch. Every day, my temporary lodger waits til I am back from my lunch, then goes to the canteen and brings back a take out meal. This means consequently means that the office smells of stale food all afternoon, invariably curry, burger & chips or something similar. Given we have canteen facilities with plenty of space, am I being unreasonable in thinking that a guest in my office ought to be more considerate and eat elsewhere?

[Kinvig]

You could always suggest that you go to the canteen together and bond?

[Biker Biggles]

Drop a few hints by f&rting (silent but deadly of course)in retaliation all afternoon.

[Quedos]

an air freshner placed on their desk.
i would be honest and ask if he would mind not eating at their desk. plenty of offices have banned this so its not tot ally unreasonable just make sure yo have a resonable reason why you are asking it

[mkz9876]

i would make some form of egg sandwiches for lunch tomorrow, leave them sat on the corner of your desk all morning nearest him open so he gets to enjoy the smell of egg all morning and the affect its likely to have on you lunchtime will enable him to also enjoy the effects of your eggy lunch all afternoon,

[Bri w]

We all have little foibles. Live and let live.

However, if you have customers/colleagues coming into the office I'd go with the 'don't eat in the office.'

[Owenski]

Simple, it goes like this:
You: Oh that looks nice, may I have a dip/chip/bite/sample?
Them: Yeah sure,
You: Thanks, (Then take a MASSIVE chunk of what ever it is, cough in disgust and spit it in the bin).

Tomorrow:
You: Oh that looks nice, may I have a dip/chip/bite/sample?
Them: Ok, (maybe a little unhappy)
You: Thanks, (Then take a MASSIVE chunk of what ever it is, cough in disgust and spit it in the bin). Thats worse than that **** you ate yesterday!

Day After:
Repeat to increasing levels of been inconsiderate. Maybe (if you can stomach it) spit it into a tissue and leave it on the furtest edge of your desk thats closest to theirs. IF they offer to move it into the bin, politely decline and say you'll shift it later.


You can count on them eating their meals in the canteen before the weeks out.

[Viney]

You have a desk!! Your lucky, i hot desk most of the time! Just ask them if they dont mind eating in the canteen. Its not an unreasonable request.

[hindle8907]

if it was just butties and a packet of crisp then yes thats fine but if its meals that stink i can see where your coming from .
should be eating food like that in the canteen anyways.

[Littlepeahead]

I agree - just an unsmelly sandwich is OK but no curry. Buy some Stinking Bishop cheese on the way to work and let it ripen nicely near the heater.

[Spiderman]

poor guys probably just trying to show you what a hard worked he is, in case any one asks.
Hence he waits for you to return (does he answer your fone and pass on message while you're at lunch?) and then goes off and brings food back so he can work and eat.

He'd probably appreciate you saying something to make him feel at ease about going to eat in the canteen. You will only know by chatting to the guy.

[Richie]

I've just banned eating in our rest room / office areas,

as we have a little visitor.... field mouse who is not welcome.

[Ed]

Yes I think you're being reasonable, I don't like the smell of stale food in the office either.

[boot]

Personally, I don't think eating smelly food is acceptable in a small office. If it were a large office with air-con the smell wouldn't linger for too long.

It may be the case, that they don't wish to make friends or integrate with the rest of the company, and feel happier eating their lunch in front of a PC with the web for their entertainment.

Our canteen is a bloody noisy place, and I like a little peace and quiet at lunch time, most of us sit at our desks and chill, or more often than not, sadly work through lunch.

The other option is to play them at their own game, find out what really turns their stomach and have yourself a good few days feasting.

[speedplay]

Lock the door and tell him to **** off.

Nobody eats in my office... its my law!!

[metalangel]

You're unreasonable IMHO. We've recently had eating banned from our office, by our total w***er of a new manager who is throwing his weight around and is actually coming in out of hours so he can nobble other people breaking his ****ing rules (none of which, incredibly, mattered in the previous office)

I would LOVE to be able to eat at my desk. We have a 'breakout' area (why are they called this? It's a stupid name) with a freeview TV but it's invariably filled with tossers who are using it as a meeting area or to have loud business-related phone calls (there are two meeting rooms with doors just off this area, they've never been used). This means I can't enjoy the TV, and would therefore happily sit at my desk and read the internet while eating. This would also ensure that any work that crops up during my lunch can be dealt with immediately rather than coming back in to a huge pile of stuff.

I dare say this is why your guest is doing this. Too much work combined with unpleasant eating facilities.

[Dicky Ticker]

I would ask your associate if he had some bizarre reason for eating at his desk when there is a perfectly good canteen facility,after all he is temporarily "sharing" and it is only manners that he respects the surrounds of the person he is sharing with.I also think that it becomes a health and safety issue eating in the workplace when facilities are provided.
I am not the most subtle of people regarding situations like this so is this accepted protocol by the other office employees.Quiet word in the H&S Representatives ear perhaps.

Probably wrong in todays forward thinking society but I always make my grandchildren sit at the table when eating,TV lap type dinners are a strict taboo in our house

[timwilky]

When we had a canteen on site, they would not allow you to eat food purchased elsewhere. They argued would you take your own food into a restaurant.

Thereby, people where forced to eat at their desks. Now not having access to any facilities. I had to eat my curry at the desk yesterday.

[shonadoll]

It depends IMO if your office is shared, and if the public come in. My colleague used to microwave herself a nice curry and garlic nan, in the vets, where people were coming in and out all day, and it stank. I'd have a word with your colleague-I don't want to be smelling stale chips all day.

[Gazza77]

Interesting to see a near 50/50 split in opinion on this. To give a bit more info....

The person in question is in my office as overspill from the office across the corridor, as the person he is on a fixed length contract to replace is on maternity. He's been here for over a year now, so it's not like it's someone I don't know, as I've seen and spoken to him daily over that period. It's a finance office in a hospital, so no public are ever in here, though I do get regular visits from senior members of staff.

All his colleagues eat at their desks on a daily basis, (which is there choice) and they often all go to get their lunch together. However, rather than all eating together in the canteen, they bring their food back to their office, or in this case, my office. Eating itself I do not have a problem with, it's the smell of the food that drives me up the wall. It's like spending the afternoon working in a kebab shop at times!

[metalangel]

I also think that it becomes a health and safety issue eating in the workplace when facilities are provided.

In case you accidentally cut your head off while biting into a sandwich? ;)

The person in question is in my office as overspill from the office across the corridor, as the person he is on a fixed length contract to replace is on maternity. He's been here for over a year now, so it's not like it's someone I don't know, as I've seen and spoken to him daily over that period. It's a finance office in a hospital, so no public are ever in here, though I do get regular visits from senior members of staff.

All his colleagues eat at their desks on a daily basis, (which is there choice) and they often all go to get their lunch together. However, rather than all eating together in the canteen, they bring their food back to their office, or in this case, my office. Eating itself I do not have a problem with, it's the smell of the food that drives me up the wall. It's like spending the afternoon working in a kebab shop at times!

I will admit, it used to drive me nuts when I'd get the train back to university and someone would come on with a Burger King from the kiosk in Paddington and stink the carriage out (and Burger King does NOT smell nice). But I just accepted it - y'know, we're all in a situation sometimes where we don't have much choice. If you know this guy, why not just have a polite word to perhaps eat at his desk while you're out of the room in the canteen? That way you'll miss the smell at its strongest?

[vardypeeps]

Yeah anything un-smelly is fine I would say.

[Milky Bar Kid]

Sometimes I eat at my desk, but thats because I have to or I would have to make the choice between eating or getting my paperwork done.....So I do both together.