Eating in office way before and after lunch time is antisocial

[DyslexicScientist]

A few people in the office eat about 11am and 3pm. I wouldn't mind so much but the food is smelly andthey are noisey eaters (cutlery on a plate like they are playing a drum).

Aibu to think eating at your desk should just be limited to around lunch?

"people nursing their bowels of muesli" brought up an interesting image in my mind

My bowels would need a bit of nursing after bowls full of fibre, mind

Lots of workplaces don't have somewhere for people to eat. So there is no choice but to eat at a desk.

We have a break out room at work. It has 5 tables, each with 4 chairs. 1000 people work in the building, so unless you're very lucky you don't get a chair there at lunchtime.

You would get on well with DH, OP.

He has no issue with people eating sandwiches etc. at lunch time or later (if people are eating lunch at 3pm doesn't it generally mean they had to work through their lunch break?) BUT he does work near a chip shop. And he does complain (only to me, he wouldn't actually take it up at work) about people bringing fish & chips in to the office to eat at their desks.

Mainly, he thinks that as a professional open plan office where they regularly have meetings with important clients (meeting rooms glass fronted things around the edge of open plan office), it isn't incredibly professional to have the whole place stinking of chips.

There is a canteen but some of the office staff refuse to use it as it generally has warehouse staff in it. And they don't want to mix .

People eating crisps make me want to strangle them with a cable.

Rustle rustle rustle, chose a crisp. Gob wiiiide open , place crisp on tongue hanging half out , close. Crrrrrrrunch crunch munch munch munch smack . Rustle rustle rustle. Reeks of cheap fat, old spuds and sometimes vinegar to top it off.

I know I have issues.

OnlyLovers it was the place I've just finished temping at, and it was either get there 30 minutes early or just on the cusp of 9, giving for rush hour traffic. I also got there early to deal with emails and catch up on tasks for the day. Wish I'd had the luxury of an official starting time of 9.00 but being able to rock up to my desk at 9.15 with the excuse of 'traffic' and then having another 15 minutes at my desk with my head in a pile of toast. I'd rather be early than late, and it's to my detriment but it's people like me that make up for late people and people who sit at their desk for the first hour of work eating toast and cereal and reading the internet like they were at home. Why not bring your slippers and pyjamas?

I don't think it really matters tbh.

We have a kitchen area with a table but as our office is small, food smells do travel to every corner of the office. As a vegetarian I hate the smell of the beef and lamb ready meals my colleagues microwave but have just got used to it over the years. And the smell lingers all day anyway so doesn't matter what time they eat.

Boogers, it's quite unfair to assume that people who are eating are not also working. (I appreciate SOME might be, but not necessarily all.)

It's perfectly possible to eat and work at the same time, but whilst you're eating toast you're not taking phone calls and you're not answering the reception desk, hence you're not doing your job. It depends on the job itself, and if it were a job that didn't involve facing the public then fine, have a picnic, but when your job is as I've just described (which it was with was me and the person I'm talking about) with office opening hours of 9am to 5pm, then it is expected that you will be able to do your job between those hours. Arriving at 9.15 because of traffic and then proceeding to make toast and cereal and then go for a cigarette is just taking the proverbial urine.

*We don't have a staff room, or a car park. If you wanted to sit in your car you'd have to traipse through town to the multi storey, or go home or wherever else you have left your car.

I don't really like sandwiches, smelly leftovers are MUCH nicer and cheaper*

Totally agree! Plus not everyone gets a whole hour for lunch to go wondering off to eat somewhere else

Rustle rustle rustle, chose a crisp. Gob wiiiide open envy, place crisp on tongue hanging half out envy, close. Crrrrrrrunch crunch munch munch munch smack angry. Rustle rustle rustle. Reeks of cheap fat, old spuds and sometimes vinegar to top it off.

I've never ever seen a person eat crisps in that manner before

Every one in my open plan office eats at their desk, despite having an area to sit and eat. Anything goes, cottage pie, lasagne, curry, soup and even mackerel/kippers.

The other day one woman had boiled eggs and kippers for her breakfast.

reni2 you sound like me! This is us... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia

DH works 8 or 12 hour shifts and doesn't get a lunch break. It's eat at his desk or don't eat.

Where I work you eat at your desk or in the toilet.

booger I also have breakfast at my desk but I do arrive 10 minutes early to turn on the PC and make my toast. If I eat at home then DS wants to have his at home rather than breakfast club - he is very slow.

We all seem to eat all through the day in our office, plenty of snacking on the endless supply of cakes, sweets and savouries. We're all a bit chubby unsurprisingly.

Yes, Diddlydokey! I don't have an anger problem, but an affliction called misophonia! Wikipedia: The most widely used treatment is to add noise to the patient’s environment. They mean put on the music when people eat ? I do that.

Try sitting at the desk nearest the lunch area and putting up with 60 people over a three hour period eating their hot lunches 5ft from my desk. It was grim.

I do that too. I frequently say to DH (particularly when I am tired) if he is snacking later on that I have to go to bed as I want to hurt him.

DiddlyDokey that's exactly what I mean - you and I eat our breakfast on our time, before we've actually clocked on. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with someone turning up for work late and then proceeding to eat breakfast at their desk and not do their job.

YABU. Smell is quite subjective. I hate the smell of most perfumes and find them worse than most food. I once worked somewhere where people complained of my marmite on toast smell yet couldn't see their chicken cuppa soups made me want to gag. Apparently, that wasn't smelly, but marmite was.

During my pregnancy i pretty much ate twiglets at my desk continuously. My nausea was so bad the dry saltiness kept me from wretching or running to the loo. If i hadn't have been allowed i honestly don't think i could have gone to work.

Also most offices i have worked in people do exercise/run errands on their lunch breaks and eat either before or after at their desks. I wouldn't have time to go for a swim/queue up in the post office and eat. It's just part of how busy every ones lives are. (Same as being on phones in shops, for me it was part of managing the admin of life. (numerous solicitors, agents, accountants calling etc with only a one hour window to do it in).)

However, the lady who brought in a fish and cabbage stew to our open plan office and absolutely nuked it so it exploded in the microwave was not popular!

I really think there are too many people on MN who take an unhealthy interest in what their coworkers are doing or not doing. Just get on with your own jobs and stop being a nosey parker.

As long as you don't bang on about how many points or syns are in what you are eating i just don't care.

Yabu (unless it's smelly food).

I only get a 30 min lunch and that's used for a power walk so I always eat my food at my desk.

maybebaybee I think there are too many people on MN who take the flack for co-workers who take the piss. We rant on here because we can't do it in the office, and I'm not being a nosey parker, I'm just trying to do a job that's difficult enough at the best of times, but when my co-worker is refusing to speak to a client because she has her mouth full of toast at almost 10am it's downright unprofessional and disrespectful.

I agree with mrskoala. Food smells don't bother me but perfumes really repel me.
Working in an office just means sucking up other people's smells and habits, really.

I hate eating food at my dek. I always take my meal away from it.

I've just finished my desk lunch. Cup of soup, china cup, metal spoon, clink clink clink. Couple of rice cakes, crunch crunch. Some sushi, veggie so not necessarily potent, and I didn't crack open the ginger. Fruit salad.

And to reference another thread, it's taken me nearly an hour to eat.