AIBU to think one of my co-workers has a point ?

[SeptemberFlowers]

I work in a small team and one of my colleagues smokes, she'll nip out in the morning and have one followed by an afternoon one, however she is always at work early to cover the extra break time.

One colleague said to her this morning "Off for another death stick ? You should try quitting you know, you're doing your health no favours." Smoker colleague has tried a few times but non smoker colleague is always making a comment or two, I feel it's none of our business. She's a grown woman who makes her own choices.

This morning after non smoker colleague said that, smoker snapped back. "How about you stop snacking on all the junk food and crap that you eat ? You are doing you're health no favours you know, I hear Weight Watchers is good." Then she left.

Colleague sat their stunned and quite promptly burst into tears. She is morbidly obese (she tells the whole office this fact so it's not me being unkind).

A small part of me feels actually that smoker has a point, why is it ok for non smoker to make comments but as soon as shoe is on the other foot it's bullying ? (non smoker wants to complain for bullying now)

Over to the MN jury !

Your non smoking colleague sounds like she deserved the comment she got, good on the smoker!

I'd advise the smoker to get in there first and let boss or HR know what's happened in case the obese one is stupid enough to make a complaint.

FoxesRevenge

Foxesrevenge, excellent advice!

Mothra, what does 'she won herself a ninja suit' mean?!

NHS is being over sensitive, if she can't take it, she shouldn't dish it out.

I hope you stick up for s colleague if the silly m&s puts in a complaint t

Haha or do what foxes suggests!

'Mothra, what does 'she won herself a ninja suit' mean?!'

DS's way of dealing with people he can't cope with, once he's tried all the usual stuff. He deletes them from his world.
So she's in the shop, but he can't hear her snippy comments about lazy teenagers, the feckless youth of today and the rest. She's blending into the background for him, present but invisible.
It's a coping strategy.
This volunteer job is teaching him many life skills that were not necessary in school.

Thank you. I thought it must be an auto correct fail as it didn't really make sense.

I often don't make sense.

Mothra, what a cow. Slagging off a teenager about being lazy whilst he is volunteering? Awesome lack of awareness.

[Grin] I thought it was a failed autocorrect for some kind of HR suit

There will be many ignorant cows in his future. I see her as practice in that he hasn't thrown her into the skip. Well done DS. Excellent strategy.

at Fox

I've spoken to manager on way out to lunch and said what had happened. She thanked and said she'll deal with it this afternoon. If I had to take sides then I'm with Smoker.

If I was smoker, and NS was lodging a complaint, I'd be putting one in too.

HR need the full story.

Why do you have to take sides though? It's not really anything to do with you. It's only going to cause trouble. The non smoking colleague sounds very good at twisting things so she looks like the victim.

I can see it now, NS is going to sit on smoker and smoker is going to dimp out a fag on her.

Seriously though, HR need to highlight the fact that personal comments should be kept out of the workplace. they can fight at the school gates at hometime

I am with the smoker . It used to annoy me when non smokers preached and ruined my smoking breaks .

Op if I had to "take sides" I would probably go with smoker. But you don't need to. That's HR's job. You still have to work with these people so I would be sitting on the fence with splinters in my arse to stop this escalating any further.

Oh good, I was a bit worried it had been a day forever since the last fat bashing thread!

Vegetarians you get a double whammy with this one. Fat bashing and smoker bashing

The only time I would have an issue with smokers is if they're unfairly taking up work time to smoke and not working it back or when they're breathing their freshly fagged breath directly onto me. Apart from that, they can do whatever they want.

And the only time I would have an issue with 'fat' colleagues is when they don't share their treats with me. That's just pure selfish that is.

I'm glad I don't work in HR anymore. This is the sort of shit that would take an entire afternoon and a box of tissues to sort out.

I think if I was the SC, I would not have said something like that about someone else's weight, as one is clearly a lot more personal than the other. Yes they are annoying ongoing comments, but something NSC may have felt was ok between friends if there had been no complaint til now. Some people don't feel 'atmosphere' and are a bit obtuse.

I would have said something like "can you stop making constant remarks on my personal choices, or is it ok to do the same with you?" It would still get the point across and warn her off as she would probably understand what I was getting at, but could pretend not to, iyswim?

I do think that SC was really mean, and if this had been happening over a period of time (days, weeks), then she had plenty of time to come up with a suitable retort that didn't involve a nuclear bomb, which she has in effect detonated.

Also, doubly mean as she had that last crack at NSC about the salad.

The things is the obese are a far bigger drain on NHS resources than smokers are, so the NS was being a hypocrite and a patronising one to boot.

I'm a non smoker btw.

I'm with the smoker. I always say that you should treat others how you wish to be treated yourself. So if this woman thought it ok to make personal comments, she should expect the same back.

this coming from both an ex smoker and ex obese woman