To hate the office lunch box police

[lastqueenofscotland]

Anyone else have these, the ones that disect the nutritional value of your lunch, the ones that hovver until you have given a full and detailed rundown of exactly what you're eating, or the worst the woman who comes and sticks her face in ot and smells it uninvited to do so?!

I can deal with lost office etiquette but this is driving me up the wall at the moment.

YADNBU.
Several offices I've worked in have had these: from the department who went on the cabbage soup diet and trilled 'naughty, naughty!' whenever I had the temerity to have cheese, to the ones who can't believe I don't actually like Krispy Kreme doughnuts and am not 'being good' in avoiding them.
By far the worst was the Loud Fasting Evangelist who commented on every single bloody thing I ate. I'm quite a keen runner and have a satsuma most days before going out for a run, then the rest of my lunch after I come back. LFE shrieked in horror at the sight of the satsuma and said "Oh, you're not going to eat THAT, are you? It's full of poison!"
I was fairly certain it didn't contain anthrax, but apparently it has Sugar in it and I might as well know I'm committing myself to a slow death because Sugar Is Poison.
Then she noticed I had a dressing on my salad which is also Poison apparently. And I shouldn't have roasted those peppers because that takes all the goodness away and frankly...
Aaaargh! Strangely, she never lectured anyone who had the Krispy Kreme doughnuts - only assumed a saintly expression and said she was either Fasting or Being Good...

This thread reminds me of my office.

Used to get that a lot as a student but had the last laugh.

I love Toffee Crisps and would happily munch on one each day (sometimes two between classes). Two of my student colleagues made a big point of saying they went to the gym three times a week, couldn't eat "that crap" as it would make them "fat and unhealthy".

We had to work out VO2 max (maximum oxygen consumption) as part of a bit of course work. Exercise involved step while wearing a diver weight belt and rucksack full of weights till you effectively gave up / collapsed and they measured the oxygen consumption / heart rate etc.

So they did their session and were congratulating themselves on how well they had done. I walked up and they sniggered and said "oh toffee crisp powered!"

Needless to say, I lasted MUCH longer than they did and was shown to be a lot fitter. They were utterly shocked until one of the lads on the course mentioned that I walked absolutely everywhere and set a "cracking pace" (I thought nothing of waking 5 miles after class from one site down into the town or out to where I was staying). They didn't believe "only walking" could have resulted in my fitness level considering the "utter rubbish she also eats" but the guy who had spoken to them also got a better result from "just walking". My guess, they went to the gym to pose and gossip rather than actually do any training.

As for me, I still eat Toffee Crisps 😄

Haha thanks for this thread. It reminds me why I work from home now.

Our food police officer was a very large lady. I'm fat, so not being mean, but she was dangerously obese to the point she walked with sticks. She went to some boot camp and had a couple of sessions with a nutritionist, and on her return to work she was suddenly Gillian bloody McKeith. I got stick for eating 'too many carbs' when I had a tuna wrap for lunch, while she devoured a giant salad dripping in mayonnaise and coleslaw. She never did any actual work, just wandered around the office being judgy and making racist comments, but never got disciplined because our manager was scared of her. I saw her two years later wandering out of the chippy. I felt like going over and going 'ooh is that your lunch. You know potatoes are really bad for you..." I fear she would have punched me.

We also had protein shake guy. He was a skinny hipster type when I started, then began a diet of all steak and eggs and those fecking shakes. Ugh the farts that man produced. Any of us eating actual food for lunch would get a lecture, then he'd gulp down his cow gland protein milkshake and head for the men's room to do a shit so smelly it'd waft through the whole office. Thanks mate!

You've just reminded me of someone I used to work with a few years back. Fairly good club GAA player back home, ate a very high protein/low carb diet (mackerel and salad for lunch nearly every day etc) and drank loads of protein shakes. With the consequence that he ended up sitting at a desk apart from other people on his team because his farts were so noxious...

This thread has made me SO glad I'm a nanny! Kids couldn't give a shit what you eat, (as long as you share the good stuff!).

This thread has made me so thankful for my colleagues. We don't eat together and last time a bunch of us got together socially, we ate pizza and drank a gorgeous gin provided by the former boss [love emoticon]

I had this once. Me and someone I worked with were both very naturally thin people. We never really got along, but I was always polite to her.
My lunch used to be:
Sandwich
crisps/rice cakes/
two pieces of fruit
small chocolate bar
a cereal bar (as a snack)
One day this colleague said she was trying to gain weight, so she brought in tons of chocolate, crisps, sweets, fizzy drinks etc and ate them for her lunch.
The next day, I brought in a salad instead of a sandwich. She turned to me (whole room was full of people) and shouted at the top of her voice:
"OH LOOK AT YOU, BRINGING IN A SALAD. TRYING TO GAIN WEIGHT ARE WE? YOU ALWAYS EAT JUNK, YOUR LUNCH IS ALWAYS FULL OF JUNK AND THAT'S WHY YOU'RE SO DREADFULLY THIN.
YOU EAT NOTHING BUT CRAP AND THAT IS WHY YOU LOOK ANOREXIC."
Everyone stopped what they were doing so they could stare at my lunch! I was mortified

I wasn't anorexic at the time, but have just been discharged from hospital for an ED. I saw her recently and she came up to me and said "Gosh, you've really piled on the pounds since leaving the job. You could do with some of that salad again."

I LOVE prawns.

The guy I used to sit next to...

"Eww, prawns are just like the spiders of the sea, they live on sewage pipes, they're full of human shit..."

He got sacked. It felt good watching him leave with his wee box of stuff.

OMG toast that's appallingly insensitive!

notquitehuman We had a similar one where I used to work. She would go into pseudo-knowledgeable detail about how my baked potato was too full of carbs while she tucked into last night's leftover KFC chicken wings reheated in the microwave (boak). She was very heavily in denial though to the point where the office had to install a special lift as she couldn't get up and down the stairs any more and she STILL commented on other people's supposed carbs.

Shesgotlions - but prawns are creepy crawlies of the sea ;-)

Can you get some alphabet cookie cutters and cut your sandwiches into the words Piss Off? grin
^^ I'll be doin that on Monday at the office Ha ha ha ha ha

Love it 'Terribleknitter'

My boss is a nightmare whenever I'm eating. If it's a salad she'll announce, "ooh, VERY healthy!" and make a big deal about it, if I dare to eat some crisps I get, "naughty naughty! When did you sneak those in??" with lots of theatrical winking

She has also been known to screw her face up at something I'm eating (most recently bircher muesli made with dark chocolate almond milk) and cry, "eurgh, what the hell are you eating??" so that everyone turns to have a good look. Fuck off, I wasn't offering you a bite anyway!

One of my favourite colleagues shouted across the classroom 'that looks disgusting!' at my mackerel, avocado and spinach salad the other day.

He won't be doing that again.

Trucking yes, but, manners!!

YANBU at all, I fucking hate them.

There was a particularly bitchy little twat in my office when I was pregnant with ds3 and craving raspberries and goats cheese, who kept having loud conversations with colleagues about how "people think they're so healthy eating raspberries but they are just FULL of sugar and SO bad for you". He is such a wanker.

I'm a nanny so work alone, thank goodness. The only judgement I get for my food is from the toddler I care for. "Rattie, Rattie, I have some? ... YUK. Don't like it." Every day. Won't eat anything I make her for lunch and finishes her plate of my lunch every day though

I'm amazed by some comments though, not surprised unfortunately though, some people are dicks!

When I used to work with others I'd get endless comments about how I was missing out on the lovely meat, why didn't I want to try it? And so on. I got enough of that as a child vegetarian, you'd think people would have grown out of it by the time they got to adulthood

I'm now gluten-free (intolerant) and a vegetarian, I'd be screwed in a workplace with co-workers!

Are Mugshots really "acceptable" on an SW diet?!

space Did the Director not just laugh in her face Complaining about the smell of fecking rice. Heard it all now.

vlad Krispy creme donuts are vile. I had a bite of one once and never again vom.

rattie according to colleague they are carb free, just like fruit, and are a healthy quick meal. I'm not sure if they work quite the same as fruit does in her bizarre take on nutrition, which apparently burns more calories to digest than it contains, so eating 8/9 pieces causes enough calorie loss for a greasy takeaway. I have been informed they are a healthy balanced meal though.

My colleagues are generally ok, but we did have one intern who would eat boiled eggs and steamed chicken breast all day (he was trying to bulk up). This bothered me a lot as I had bad morning sickness, but couldn't tell him to stop it as it was the first trimester and I didn't want anyone to know. No wonder I went off eggs and meat for months ...

When someone talks to you after you've taken a bite!

I work in an office of pointy-shoed bearded 25yr old hipsters in which everyone (except me) bring wraps, a bag of salad, some nuts or seeds or whatever, cheese and some Mayo or salad cream. They each have their own pot. The fridge is fecking full of mayonnaise and individual salad bags. It's not as if there's a communal kitty for salad and wraps but it would certainly be easier for them.

My lunches tend to be left overs, stew or pasta and the tutting and sighing when I don't appear to be having enough visible greens (in their eyes) is hilarious. I did try explaining once that all the stuff I eat is handmade, cooked from fresh, all veg grown in my garden and there's very little or no waste, but this went sailing over their twenty something heads. So too did the explanation that the veg is mushed up inside so that the kids will eat it, but this was treated as blasphemy.

Now I'm preg though, I do enjoy scoffing a whole tube of Pringles in front of them and watching their reaction.

So yes, office food politics is generally bollocks but you can have a lot of fun with it.

Oh yes. " oooh...3 jacket potatoes ?????"
They were small ones, honest!!

I don't go near the fridge in work. People stuff in their things like a game of Jenga and some get really territorial if someone else's foodstuff touches theirs.

After seeing some of the rows, I'd rather keep my sandwiches in my drawer and risk food poisoning.

Someone once spent a fortune on an extraordinarily small amount of cheese from Borough Market and stashed it in the fridge. At the end of the day she found it festering in a bin.

The perpetrator was unrepentant. She said it was stinky. That was a good one.

I wish there were a general rule that people not comment on what others are eating. And that "No, thank you" be enough of a response when you don't want to eat something you are offered.

I've also had an incredibly insensitive person comment "oh you have lost soo much weight" after I returned from sick leave for an eating disorder. And her friend who commented that "she had never seen such a skinny person eat so much" after I'd tried to make my plate look a bit like everyone else's at a work buffet.

My typical response to the "should I eat this? Oh, will I get fat if I eat this?" questions is to say "eat what you want, you're an intelligent/creative/talented person and your lunch has no bearing on that". Anything to turn the conversation away from the idea that some foods are bad for you or that what you eat has anything to do with your value as a human being or work colleague.

This thread has brought me out in a sweat, thinking about going back to a workplace and fielding food police comments. Sigh. It's always boring, and sometimes rude and intrusive.