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....

Ha, I sit next to a guy who pops his knuckles continually and inhales his rice at lunch time, its like a slurping hoover. I wear an ipod to drown it all out.

I've never realised it was an issue either. I ate at my desk all day when I was pregnant! Is this not an 'office issue' like borrowing someone's stapler is for some people..?

"Sandwiches (non-smelly ones only!),biscuits etc ok, as long as you don't chew noisily".

The Food Police. I shall await the memo of what I can eat, and how i must eat it:

ALL COMPANY EMAIL: THE FOOD POLICE LAWS:

Do Not slurp soup
Do Not eat with metal cutlery
Do Not use pottery bowls/plates
You Must wipe your fingers with a soft cloth. Do not lick your fingers, and do not use tissue as this crinkles and makes noise.
If you eat sandwiches, take the wrapper off before you enter the office environment, the noise of plastic ripping grates on some people's nerves.
Check with all your colleagues, by way of email each day, what their particular dislikes are, prior to going to the sandwich shop
If have any lip or tongue piercings do not drink from glass.

The following foodstuffs are not allowed under any circumstances:

Fish
Curry
Smelly cheese
Onions
Pasties
Chips
Any kind of soup as it all smells
Home made food that might contain flavourings such as garlic, pepper, herbs
Fruit, especially bananas which have a pungent smell
Salad. Many people have an aversion to celery. And lettuce makes a noise as you crunch it
Crisps
Anything in a plastic wrapper
Drinks cans
Anything that is high in calories (cake, chocolate, biscuits, cookies, jelly babies)- this is insensitive to those on diets

posy i think you are right. I don't mind people using my stapler if I don't know about it. I don't mind people eating leftover curry next to me as often it is the only time they get to eat All Day and why be forced to have a manky plain old sarnie 5 days of the week? But...

...DO NOT ADJUST MY CHAIR. or. DO NOT MOVE MY PAPERWORK. or DO NOT WRITE IN MY DIARY.

I am staggered. At every place I have ever worked it has been perfectly normal behaviour to eat lunch at your desk.

And anything you like - not many places to buy nice food round here so many people bring leftovers from the night before in for lunch. And people don't complain about the smell, they are interested and make comments such as - "that smells nice" etc.

YANBU simply because I eat at my desk. Why? Because it took me over a year to work out that those who eat at their desks in effect get a double lunch break, so i'll have some of that please!

Saying that i hate 'cacky' eaters.

Urgh.

Double lunch break = time at your desk to eat and chill and also their 'official' get up off their arse and go for lunch lunch break.

Haven't read all the thread but wanted to say ime it's not the actual eating that's offensive (assuming people have reasonable table manners and don't make slurping noises), it's the lack of hand-washing afterwards that's disgusting.

I volunteer a couple of morning in an office environment, and i've lost count of the amount of times i've seen someone openly licking their fingers after eating crisps/chocolate/whatever, and carrying on using the pc or phone with their hands covered in spit.

Makes me and < boak >.

God, I'm glad I don't work with you guys. We all eat all day, throughout the day. Open plan offices. 5 floors. 50 people on each. I eat cereal at my desk at 8am. 3 sandwich vans come round between 10am and 1pm. people eat throughout that time. company lays on a lunch bus that takes people into town. so people come back from tescos or sainsburys with a sandwich or salad. we regularly have cakes in the afternoons.
I eat salad or last nights dinner-sausages,mash and peas or curry.
Eating all the time. Everyone.
No problems.

Some people are really quite precious about this! I'm surprised. I have worked in places where I have eaten in a canteen and I have worked in places where a canteen was such a luxury that we didnt have one.

In my current work the only issue we had was when one colleague made kedgeree (sp?) which caused a few people to complain, which is fair enough, but anything else was no bother. We have officers on late shifts who eat their tea at their desks and apart from making the rest of us hungry we wouldn't dream of telling them to stop. We do use plastic cutlery though, but only because we're not allowed proper stuff.

I don't think you're being at all unreasonable. I think some people need to let go of a leetle bit of control...

See we are all chilled out in our office and typically we all eat at our desk. However one of the new girls has joined in with relish, she has the most stinky meals, kippers or a curry. We usually have salad or sandwiches or something not too whiffy. We feel we can't tell her off as we all eat in the office. The canteen is at the other end of campus and has nasty chairs, the SU has better seating, but you can't always guarentee a spot to sit.

The biggest complaint is her lack of washing up, she washes her dishes up at the end of the week, and they clutter up her desk until she does wash them up, the kitchen is next door, so it's not far at all. If she's had kippers the smell really is bad the next day. While I was pregnant I used to really moan and she told me to wash it up myself if it bothered her. Grrr.

Another grumble is someone opening up a large bag of sweeties and not sharing them [same woman] we always share and she is happy to take but not to share hers. Friday's Sour Haribo days are much missed, as I am on mat leave.

I've also had to request a temp put his shoes back on, not only did he have hairy toes, they also smelled bad and he would walk about the office barefoot too. Yuck!

where i work, there is a policy for sodding everything.

for eating at desks, sandwiches, crisps and sweets are allowed. anything hot is not unless it is a sandwich.

did you know you can a get hot roast dinner between 2 slices of bread?

lol - this is tame !

try working next to someone who leave empty cans and bowls to fester on their desk for days - until someone else clears them up, and clips their nails into their bin!

YANU to eat soup in the office, I do this sometimes! But if the noise of the pottery bowl and metal spoon annoys someone I would use something quieter - try a melamine bowl instead. Or drink the soup from a mug? Make sure it is well blended with no lumpy bits then hopefully you won't need a spoon.
I think in an open plan office you have to try and keep the peace with other people even if they seem like whingers! This sounds like a fair compromise, he isn't complaining about the soup itself but the noise it makes.

Sorry meant YANBU.!

I've never really thought about whether other people eating at their desks was annoying or not generally, as I've worked in a few offices without anywhere else to go, so everyone did it. The only time I did mention it though, was when my boss did the atkins diet when I was newly pregnant and her pea and ham soup really used to make me feel ill (in fact, am feeling a bit queasy even thinking about it nearly 2 years later ) and I did used to make her eat it with her door closed and her windows open :o

some of us don't get an official lunch break so have to eat at desks. You can all fuck off out of the office on your lunch hour while i eat, if you like, as 9-2.30 is too long to go without lunch.

It's the smell that would be irritating, I think, rather than the sound. But your colleague has asked nicely, so maybe soup in a cup would be the way to go. Not necessarily cup-a-soup - heat 'normal' soup in the microwave.

This reminded me of when (aged 16) I worked for the Dept of Health. One day I was eating an iced bun at my desk when we had a surprise visit from the Minister, (big cheese and ultimate boss of our Department). He went round the room shaking hands, and I couldn't escape. I remember my boss had a very funny look on his face as I wiped my sticky hands down my trousers and shook the Minister's hand. He was charm personified.

Next day a memo came round forbidding us from eating at our desks because there had been an embarrassing incident with a sticky bun during an important official visit.

The irony of eating an iced bun in an office of the Dept of Health has just occurred to me for the first time! But this was in the olden days.

We had a squirrel which came in through the window of the nextdoor office and made a good dent in a psychologist's avocado!

Eating at your desk is gross.
Be nice to yourself. Go and sit somewhere more comfortable, away from your computer, your work and your colleagues. Hey, even go outdoors for five minutes.

It def depends on your office enviroment. I work in a big open-plan office where we are definitely encouraged to work through our lunch-breaks. We don't have a canteen so most people eat at their desks. We are in central london so have all manner of food that we can purchase on our doorstep. Therefore we have people eating soup, sushi, curries, mcdonalds, jacket potatoes, all kinds of food. Nobody complains as it's the norm. We also have people eating cereal and porridge in the mornings. I wouldn'd dream of complaining. We also generally have krispy kreme doughnuts, cakes, biscuits, chocolats bought and left in the kitchen most days where an email is sent saying to "enjoy". So I guess people eating in our office is not a problem. I don't think I could work somewhere where eating at my desk was frowned upon. Each to their own though I guess.

I remember once reading a thread on here about people eating cereal on the tube, now that I would draw the line at!

I feel for the guy. The noise I hate the most in the world is the sound of the spoon hitting a cereal bowl in the morning.

HATE IT