To think people should have breakfast BEFORE work?

[candybeek]

If you work a normal daily shift like 9-5 office hours, then I feel it's really odd people come in to work and immediately start pouring milk on their cornflakes or dashing to the canteen for a greasy fry up.
I'm in the minority at my work place that have breakfast at home before work.
I understand it if you work shifts etc but 9-5??

I find it really odd, what's next - people using the kitchen to cook their tea before they leave for work?

It's even worse as they bring their smelly breakfasts back to their desk so I have to inhale it all.

Am I on my own in this thought?

elodie2000

My company doesn't offer flexible hours at all. I do have a work colleague who never turns up before 10:30, 11am is a safer bet. He "doesn't do mornings", bless him. However, he can be found in the office at midnight. We are grown up, we are fine.

However, this could not be acceptable for the receptionists, the post room guys, the maintenance team etc... Some role allow flexibility, some not, it's common sense! The office workers eating at their desk don't then to take breaks.

Life would be so much easier if we could go back to private offices and get rid of the open plan model, (food, noise, heating, smells...) but that's never going to happen

I find it irritates me too, you aren't alone. I don't mind those who don't make a great sodding fuss over it. However there are some that make a right song and dance and they are the irritation .

However as long as you aren't picking up the slack for them not doing their job its probably something that is more annoying than anything else; i.e they come in, log on, fuck off for breakfast but forward their phone to you so you have to deal with their calls whilst they are away in the canteen for 30 mins!

Many of my colleagues eat breakfast at their desks while checking emails or proof reading or similar, which I'm fine with. I even do it myself on days when I have to be in at 7/7.30 to set up for an event, but then end up back at my desk starving when all the trainers, delegates etc have turned up.

The only time it's ever bothered me was an ex-colleague who worked 9-2.30 3 days a week. She'd wander in at 9ish, turn her computer on, then pootle off to the kitchen, make a bowl of porridge and eat it while browsing BBC news. Then she'd complain all morning about how much she had to do before switching her computer off again at 2.15 and spending 15 minutes 'tidying her desk' before leaving. I suspect it would have cost too much to make her redundant so they were just letting her potter along til she hit retirement age

In defence of elodie and teachers; my friend has just left the career because, contrary to popular belief, she wasn't getting 'six weeks off' a year. She wasn't even getting weekends off. It was endless lesson planning, marking, top up training, etc, etc - and it was having a serious impact on her marriage and the time she got to spend with her DCs. Teaching is most definitely not a 'doss'!

I can't eat until about 10am. Then I'm starving.

OP fair enough - people eating breakfast irritates you - that's totally up to you and your choice to let it get to you.

But to conclude that they do it and you don't because you a) have higher standards, and b) are more conscientous, is an erroneous leap of logic on your part.

(And I say that as someone who hasn't ever, that I can recall, eaten breakfast at work, so no personal axe to grind.)

People who eat crunchy cereal at the their desks should be stuck in a dungeon. Munch, munch, crunch, crunch. You might as well be chewing gravel!

I have to commute across the country, so am up at 4.30am every day. I can't eat that early, which leaves the alternatives as eating on the train or at my desk when I get into work at 8am. As long as I get my work done, nobody gives a stuff about the hours - surely people are more likely to be measured on outputs anyway?

I don't see how it affects anyone else if someone has their breakfast at work. Every office I've ever worked in has had people doing that.

I much much prefer a relaxed working environment, ime employees are more productive when they have autonomy.

It affected me when my irritating colleague would spend an hour chewing his homemade gravel granola in a quiet office.

Oh well, sucks to be you then.

People breathing loudly irritates the life out of me but I suck it up and wear headphones if I have to.

I eat breakfast at work sometimes. It's a shame if the eating noises are irritating, but TBH I think you just have to put up with stuff like that in most offices. Headphones/earplugs?

Doesn't suck at all to be me koko. In fact I'd say it's delightful being me! Gravel crunching colleague was dealt with when another colleague asked him to stop.

Ovenchips award to taking my post out of context goes to you!

My point was that people are slacking off when it's perfectly easy to have breakfast before coming to work!

After smelling everyone's greasy fry ups all morning and the dirty plates still sat on the end of everyone's desk, I've decided to bring in smelly egg sandwiches tomorrow which I will proceed to let fester in my bag all morning then eat them with the fan on with my mouth open dropping food all over the desk and spitting it at people when they want to talk to me about work stuff.

There - I'm officially one if the masses now :)

I'm another one who cannot eat first thing, it makes me feel nauseous, so I'll arrive at work early and have something to eat then - before work starts though.

however in work places where you're expected to work through lunch I think any amount of desk eating is fair game

There is a difference between coming in at your start time then going off to the canteen for 30 mins for a bacon sarnie, and eating a pastry/ porridge at your desk as you work.

But going by this thread a fair amount of MN work on the factory floor where you clock in and out at exact times and can't keep your handbag with you. That's very different to most people's working life

matching yy, that always seems to be the case on MN!

Most people I know who eat their breakfast (and snacks, lunch) at their desks (including me, my boss, and pretty much everyone on the 100+ office floor I work on) are working whilst doing so.

Coffee breaks lol. It's like being in 1950

OP I don't think I can accept your award! We can agree to disagree but I don't think I have taken anything out of context.

socks Is it? How do industries run, then, if working on the factory floor is very different to most people's working life? [sceptical]

I had no idea that sitting in an office, munching throughout the day and Mumsnetting between checking the odd email was the norm.

makes an appointment with careers advice to demand one of these 'normal' jobs

Jess that's not what I do at work all day.

Let's be honest here I can't imagine the majority of MN posters are working in factories.

Not everyone works in an office, Matching. And there are other alternatives to an office than a factory floor.

Laboratories, for one - guess what, hospital labs have rules about having food and drink in the same place as bodily fluid samples (can't imagine why) so yes, tea/coffee breaks and lunchtime out of the lab are normal.

But those environments are therefore not massively relevant to the op are they?

Who does that all day Jess? Someone on here? Their manager should sack them.

And of course people work in tesco, in a hospital ward or a lab. They don't eat breakfast at their desk. So how is that relevant? I do understand there are lots of different jobs you know