To be grossed out by this?

@PrimatePantaloons

hand sanitising and a good hand wash when home is normal in that kind of situation.
most of us would do that
give yourself a break 💐

I once refused an order in Burger King because the man making my kids’ burgers pinched his nose in the way you would with a tissue, but without the tissue 🤢.

My pet hate is when people cough into their hand or blow their nose into a rapidly wittering tissue and do nothing about washing their hands.

I think a big issue is there is a lack of training nowadays. I was a silver-service waitress as a teenager under a scary Sicilian maitre d’. It was a mediocre hotel but he took pride in his work and made sure we were a professional team. As another poster recognised, younger workers now don’t have the same sort of guidance and service generally is dire. It doesn’t enter their mind not to touch their face, hair, money etc before preparing food.

One of my teen DC works in a restaurant and his colleagues just don’t seem to understand how they should interact with customers. They are miserable as sin, don’t get the concept of welcoming people or making small talk and because of this the place is devoid of atmosphere. The management needs to sort it out but they just treat the youngsters as a never-ending supply of serfs. They pay them peanuts but also fail to value them.

We were served recently at the local Wagamama by a lad with the most gross dirty long fingernails I’ve ever seen! Why has no one told him to sort it out?! I think society in general is to blame as people are too scared to call out bad practices and we are instilling in our children the right of self expression at the expense of community cohesion and proper behaviours.

What happened to customer is king?!

Totally with you on this, also people that serve food with huge long painted nails, recently out to eat, lady brought plate to table her thumb nail was in my meal, i refused to eat it, this really grosses me out especially after doing courses of what harbours in nails and on hands from not washing correctly.

I’ve noticed that too. One thing I hear regularly, is people (Warning: stop reading now if you’re sensitive about bodily fluids), snorting up a glob of phlegm. It happens when I’m in shops, walking down the street etc. 🤢

I would have turned away and gone hungry rather than buy anything to eat from there. I wonder what the opinion would be of someone who trains catering staff in hygiene practices?
People saying you’re unlikely to be infected by eating something served to you this way! They just don’t get it. Probably, the same ones who tell arachnophobes that (big,hairy house) spider won’t hurt them!

I absolutely bat all of my eyelids at all of these things… in fact I wish I had more eyelids so that I could bat all of those as well.

Thank you... you so made me smile!

I think that I would be pretty disgusted by seeing this too.
I actively avoid buying food out if possible.
If I do "have to", then I try and switch off that anxiety path, else if I didn't, I'd prob be sick.
Also I do try to employ the thought that I'm likely not gong to die from such things.
It's really not easy, and I don't think I'm a particularly sensitive person either.

I've got no practical answers, I do try to psyche myself up into accepting these things happen, and probably worse things happen behind the scenes that you can't see.... it gets worse, doesn't it?

Us humans can be pretty unbelievable 🤮

I'm absolutely with you on this but, unfortunately, it is my problem. If it were that big a danger, more people would be dropping like flies. The fact of the matter is, they are not. I can't eat out because I know how gross people are. I used to be a waitress and I was the only one I the place who left the sink wet after taking a piss. That, and many other things I saw there, didn't help. In fact, it might be the cause because I was never bothered before then. Made it frigging difficult when I've been in hospital. Living on two pots of yogurt a day wasn't great for recovery, I can tell you. I had to sign myself out before I starved to death. People say, you'd eat it if you were starving. Not always!

As someone who handles food as part of their job- yes, you should be bothered if they touch their headhair.
If you follow food hygiene guidelines then you shouldn't have your hands near for head/face/mouth while handling food. Or handles money then food. The risk may be fairly low, but the issue is bacteria from your body eg staphylococcus aureus being transferred onto your food.
The hair itself is just manky rather than a contamination issue as such.
Sadly people (who should know bwcasue it is their job) are terrible about recognising cross contamination.

And to anothe poster- those vans should all have a mobile handwashing unit inside.

Even when people have washed their hands, they often don't do it properly. Briefly introducing your hands to a bit of soap and water does not do the job!

when I was a dental nurse, in training, they sprayed our hands, and showed us under UV light where they were glowing. then we had to go and wash our hands, and put them back under the light to see what we'd missed.
it really made you aware of the areas that you need to make sure of washing, that are easily left contaminated, even after what seems like a thorough hand wash.

I'm sure that they're required to change gloves. or have someone else handling money, at the end of the counter to the ones making the sandwich, when it's busier.
I've not seen this happening. they do vary in how much they enforce certain rules (and how generous or stingy they are with toppings, one near us is TERRIBLE. I had onions and peppers on mine, and it was two half onion rings, broken up, and two bits of pepper broken up. the others are MUCH less stingy)
but, I haven't seen any handle cash with the gloves still on, and I haven't seen anyone leave them on afterwards.
they AREN'T all great at avoiding touching the veg after the meat. some are better at that than others. but they definitely seem to have rules in place about when to change gloves, and some enforce it better than others

yeah, despite my post above, that WOULD bother me. licking your fingers to handle paper has always bothered me though. even as a small child that didn't even know about potential contamination risks.
a teacher at primary school would do that to turn pages, and it always bothered me a lot. if it was just the nails, I'd probably let it slide, but not the finger licking and paper

yes, it's gross. but there's a whole load of gross stuff going on in food prep that you don't see, and it's mostly harmless. just offputting.
I just don't let it bother me too much. there's always going to be people scratching and picking at themselves, or not washing their hands well, and so on. but for the most part, it's out of sight, out of mind.
it's going to be going on in nice eateries too, not just fast food vans.

it always annoys me when on come dine with me, the narrator says things like "excuse fingers" when someone is touching the food they're preparing, as if they are wearing gloves to prepare food in restaurants. they're not. do you think Gordon Ramsey is wearing gloves when he handles the food? not being expensive doesn't make it more unpleasant when the staff touch it.

I'm quite relaxed about that sort of thing though. I hope people do their best to be hygienic. but these things are going to happen at least occasionally.

I'm the sort of person who, if I find a single hair in my food, I'll just pull it out of my mouth and put it on table. no, it's not pleasant, but it's hard to prevent completely. and it's just hair. if there are several, I'd mention it. just the odd one, no biggie. these things happen. if it was a fingernail or a plaster or something, I'd definitely raise the issue. but something like that is just one of those things that happens.

I'm probably less squeamish than most, and if you SEE it, yes it's offputting. but there's probably loads of similar stuff going on we never see, and it's not hurting us

This post is making me want to touch my face, hair, chin, ears like crazy

A man who was serving behind a counter in a coffee shop kept coughing into his hand and then went to make me a pot of tea. I politely pointed out he'd coughed multiple times into his hand and asked him to wash them. He took it well and later came over and apologised and we had a good conversation about other things. I wasn't looking for an apology but I was grateful he'd taken my request gracefully. You'd have thought after covid that people would be more aware of how to be hygienic, particularly when in a job serving others.

I agree with you OP.

Today, on the Tube the young woman next to me was making a big meal of picking her nose and eating it. When she started on her other nostril I heard myself say politely "Will you please stop doing that?" She said "What am I doing?" I said "Picking your nose". She stopped. She had earphones on and her phone and was totally oblivious to the others in the carriage . I felt sick. No doubt someone on here will say I was dreadful.

Yep, gross. I bought a brownie from a stall at a local fair; the woman licked her fingers to open the paper bag and then I also noticed her absolutely filthy nails (no gloves). It all happened so fast that she handed me the cake and I felt obliged to pay but it went straight in the bin. I did report it to the organisers and suggested the business was not invited back to the next fair.

Just a thought given we are all amazed at this persons ability to tweeze a hair with her fingers, was it definitely a hair, it could have been the head off a spot or something?? 🤣🤣 Sorry 🤢

YANBU

It really is - my mum used to eat those “pink & white” mallow things about 10 years ago and once found a hair in the middle of the mallow. 🤢 I can’t even look at them in the supermarket without feeling sick after she told me that.