To eat soup at my desk with a metal spoon and a pottery bowl?

[LovelyJudy]

I work part time and often prefer to have a quick lunch break at my desk while doing some personal admin/surfing. I usually have salad but sometimes if i have soup or something that needs heating up I put it in a bowl and eat it with a metal spoon/fork as appropriate.

Today a colleague of mine came over and very politely said that he found it intensely annoying to hear people eating in the office, as it makes him feel as though he's working in a restaurant, so wondered whether it was reasonable to ask me to either use plastic cutlery/dishes, or eat hot food elsewhere.

I don't know - is he over sensitive? I'm inclined to stop doing it, because even if he's irrational i don't want him sitting there feeling annoyed. Also i know it's healthier to get up and go and eat elsewhere. but i don't always have time....

[Hammy02]

Why would you eat at your desk? Don't you get a lunch hour? Or are you highly paid? Or a prole?

[squeakytoy]

i think i'll start taking it to the canteen. it's just really noisy and smelly in there...

thats because it is a canteen, not an office..

get a plastic bowl, you dont need to have a plastic spoon too..

[curbyburr]

I work on a floor with about 800 people, EVERYONE eats at their desk,and we have 7/8 different companies wandering around selling food...I think some of you would be carried out as gibbering wrecks going on some of the comments...oh yeah, and anything goes here, curry, chinese, anything...

[Aims80]

Do other people eat at their desks too? What a weirdo though! Lots of us eat at our desks where I work and someone saying something like that would be viewed with great amusement.. but every office/work place has different etiquette I suppose!

[Aims80]

oh and Hammy, I don't get a "lunch hour" as such, it doesn't work like that in the industry I work in, maybe it's similar for the OP.

[TobyLerone]

Meh. I eat at my desk every day. I never take a lunchbreak. I have my own office though, but the door is always open into the open-plan office outside. Nobody has every complained.

[PoledrathePissedOffFairy]

I'm with the bloke who politely asked for it to stop. I've have complained to our office manager before about people eating hot food at their desks because yes, it does make the office sound like a canteen. And I really felt for my Muslim colleague at Ramadan - poor girl was fasting and another person in our area regularly brought hot food out from the canteen to eat at her desk just across from the fasting colleague. And, if you cannot manage to take a few minutes out of your day to eat, then you either have too much work to do (in which case, address it with your manager), or you're not dealing with your work efficiently (in which case, address it yourself!).

Disclaimer: this only applies to offices where an eating area is provided - I have worked in offices where there was no choice but to eat at one's desk.

[carminaburana]

I agree with your colleague. If I was your boss I'd ask you to stop, if you didn't I'd sack you.

Desks are for working at - not eating.

[Quenelle]

YABU

I can't stand the smell of other people's food and I think it's unreasonable to eat hot food in an open plan office.

Many companies do ban it, I wish ours did. Some of my colleagues like to eat Caribbean takeaway at their desk so we're all treated to the smell of goat curry a couple of times a week.

[AppleyEverAfter]

YANBU! I eat at my desk with spoons and pots and everything. Tell him not to be so sensitive. We have a clean desk policy at work so have to clear the pots up every night, but loads of people eat hot food in our open-plan office.

[frgr]

thing is, what a lot of the folk who do eat at their desks don't realise is that it does affect your colleagues work.

why on earth does my workplace allow such disruptive setups where I'm having to organise business conference calls outside of the main lunch break gap? i just want to get on with my work.

a ban on workplace eating at desks for significant foods (soups, etc) would make my working life much less stressful and easier to organise. it's not as simple as saying "ew that's gross" - i just want to get on with my work surprised so many managers don't get that.

[TobyLerone]

How does someone eating at their desk affect your work?

[frgr]

re-posted from earlier:

"our office is open plan (a massive large room, so noisy enough as it is, with people talking, on the phone, printer noises). there are so many people here eating and making clinking noises at lunchtime that i've taken to arranging conference calls before 11am and then after 3pm, it's that bad.

seriously, the woman to my left eats early, she goes for sandwichs and a coffee at 11am, rustles the wrappings/slurps, etc.

then the guy to my right goes and gets his packed lunch at 12, normally it's crisps, so crunch crunch crunch

later on the soup people get their lunch out, so the microwave (at the side of the room hmm) pings, and there's the clinking of the bowls

It honestly drives me mad
...your soup bowl may just be the final straw in a wider issue (poor office planning for the type of office work you're doing e.g. like me, who has to take 3 or 4 conference calls a day, usually with non-native English speakers, so I have to speak clearly and listen intently)"

[TobyLerone]

I just can't see how, in a normal, noisy office, a bit of eating-noise can seriously affect your work. But fair enough.

[carminaburana]

TL - The noise and smells are a distraction - and not a good distraction. for example, if I smell tuna or parmesan cheese I can feel sick & that obviously isn't good for my concentration.

Bosses need to think seriously about this issue - it's not funny.

[frgr]

i suppose the issue is more the volume of people doing it - one or two clinks of bowls and pings of the microwave are ok, but to have all of my colleagues doing it throughout such a large window, that's the issue. our desks are really stupidly designed too - circular desks ("they're not desk banks, they're pods")... honestly, if i could find the designer who thought cramming so many people into a large-ceilinged area, i've shove his "walls impede creativity" sticker right where the sun doesn't shine

[BendyBob]

I used to work next to a girl who, once she'd finished her yogurt, would absently mindedly continue to suck on the spoon and sometimes TAP HER TEETH WITH IT. Nooo! It used to drive me insane.

LovelyJudy I suspect the man in your office has subconscioulsy tuned into you soup and can focus on nothing else. I think he has a point. Ok to eat something non smelly and quiet in a shared office but soup c/w bowl and cutlery and foody niff is possibly going to get on someones wick.

[shitforbrains]

I have a canteen where I work. 2, in fact. And 4 spacious kitchens on every floor.
But we all eat at our desk... soup, fish pie, sushi, pizza, whatever.
No-one gives a toss.

Except when I heated up mackerel for breakfast, that got a few laughs.
Laughs, not looks of horror, dismay and repulsion.

FGS haven't people got anything better to worry about? Bet people in Libya and Japan are WELL BOTHERED about eating at desks.

[mmsmum]

Why not go in tomorrow with no cutlery at all and slurp your soup very very loudly from the bowl

[frgr]

shitforbrains, are you saying that something which is affecting people's work patterns (negatively) isn't that important and we shouldn't be bothered?

Are you a manager?

[BendyBob]

SFB - I shouldn't think people in Libya and Japan are remotely bothered about 99.9% of what gets discussed on mn. Is that the criteria for starting a thread now?

Heating up mackerel next to me for breakfast would make me heave.

[AbsDuCroissant]

If the people on my floor didn't eat at our desks, we would probably all miss out on two meals a day. They even have a special man who comes around with a trolley at key eating times to bring food, so you never need leave the office.

But this is pretty common in the industry I work in. You can do everything at work, shower, get laundry done, new clothes, shoes.

Who needs a home?

[bean612]

Maybe I've just always worked in relaxed offices, but dear god! "If I was your boss I'd ask you to stop, if you didn't I'd sack you."? The word perspective springs to mind...

[Ephiny]

I used to work in a very large, noisy open-plan office and most people did eat at their desks - no one ever went for a 'lunch hour' - so I did the same. Now though I work in a small and very very quiet office and would feel self-conscious eating at my desk here as the slightest noise would seem very loud! Also no one else does it. It's about doing what's appropriate to your surroundings I think, and being a bit considerate to the people you work with.

I've found it's much nicer to get away from your desk for lunch anyway. I don't usually take an hour, often more like 15 minutes, but then I go for a mid-afternoon walk often which makes it up to an hour total.

[shitforbrains]

I'm not a manager.

Sometimes I just get annoyed when people get so hung up on the little things.
And it IS a little thing.