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?

Doesn't bother me at all and in my office we all eat at our desks at varying times of day.

If anyone has brought something smelly in to eat they generally ask first if anyone minds and if anyone objects this go elsewhere to eat it. Nobody ever really objects though - except me when I was pregnant and ever smell set me off!

god we certainly arent allowed to consume wine, or any alcohol in our lunch sackable.

I eat muesli and yogurt at my desk every single day whilst I'm working, but I do put the pot away straight afterwards and I have my own office. I can think of far worse things to inflict on colleagues than cereal in the mornings frankly. Stinking fish in the microwaves, not wiping up spills, leaving dirty washing up in the sink...and that's just food related. I'm sick to death of the bloke who goes into the accessible loo every morning, has a great big shit and then kindly leaves the door open onto the corridor so we all get the benefit of his vile stench, and the bloody woman in the office next to mine who has her phone on loudspeaker at full volume all fucking day so I want to scream at her to use a bloody headset! Wish I could afford to retire, instead of spending every day surrounded by arseholes.

I dislike seeing people eat breakfasts at their desks. It annoys me because we have a fully open plan office and also many visitors, plus a spacious kitchen for eating in, so there's no need to eat at your desk.

Charlie that made me laugh but I do feel for you! Sniffing that mans bottom wastage all day :(

I eat my breakfast at my desk, usually porridge or fruit and yogurt. Before my start time as I'm usually a bit early. I like to catch up on the news or my emails at the same time.
Most of my office does it, there is one guy on some kind of diet that involves a lot of eggs. He scrambles them in the microwave and stinks the office out every morning.

I can't eat first thing in the morning so would have porridge and cup of tea at my desk but always in 30 minutes early and read emails while eating. Wouldn't have something smelly and wouldn't turn up at 9 then start eating.

We have a no eating at the desks rule so can only eat on breaks outside the office

It's pretty common to eat breakfast at work. I don't very often but when I do I'll be working while eating.

How do you feel about beer and wine at your desk?!

I'm freelance and most of the companies I've worked at over the last few years, as well as providing free breakfast, tea, coffee machines, fresh fruit (and some companies had fridges of soft drinks you could help yourself to), have had some sort of office beer or wine set up on Thursday evenings. One had weekly cocktails. Another had a beer and wine trolley that brought them to your desk!!

Agency culture is a long hours culture so I can't imagine anyone ever knocking off at 5!! Often have meetings scheduled until after 6, so dunno how saying 'sorry I'm off!' at 5 would go down?!

But equally if things aren't too heavy going you might knock off early. Coming in late is fine as long as you don't have any meetings obvs. We're all grown ups and expected to manage our time to be a part of the team and get your work done

Having to listen to or watch people eat can be a bit annoying (not really to me, it's just a low noise and I don't stare at colleagues I state at my work) but it's not annoying enough to stop them doing what they are doing. In the same way them playing dance music without headphones in is annoying and is intrusive enough to intervention and ask them to stop.

If you get that annoyed with just the normal sound of someone eating for the period of time it takes to eat breakfast I would suggest it is your own problem. Ditto for smells, unless it fish it's really not that offensive.

Everyone on here that doesn't like it has complained about slurping or cutlery but they should understand the world doesn't revolve around them and working in an office means having to listen to general sounds. Whether that's sneezing coughing, chewing gum, sniffling or eating. What next stop the slurpers drinking tea?

Essentially having someone next to you eat their breakfast for 10-20 mins has such animal impact on other people that you should just get over it. It's not like they're throwing their scrambled eggs in your face!

I have to eat basically as soon as I get up. I often have a second breakfast at work too...

banana - the company I work for has a 'happy hour' , and it sometimes has a 'breakfast tuesday' or a 'fish&chip friday'. But I don't think people are supposed to take stuff back to their desks. (I work from home, so miss out - but I can eat when, where and what I like).

If we didn't eat our breakfast or lunch at our desks I'm not sure where we're supposed to eat it?! They provide free breakfast to anyone who wants it but the kitchen isn't a canteen. And who has the time to eat lunch out in a cafe or something?!

My work provides free cereal and milk so it's positively encouraged to eat at our desk! So sorry YABU

We have a break room so eat in there

1. I can't eat breakfast first thing
2. Even if I could, it wouldn't last until lunchtime if I ate that early, I would be hungry by 11
3. They provide cereal bowls and cupboards for us to store cereal, so it's expected
4. If a company has a problem with it they should inform their staff
5. It's no different to having a cup of tea or munching on some fruit
6. Our work canteen is open all day, so I think they expect people to eat whenever they please

Depends where you work. Where I am the vast majority of staff work 50+ hours but are only paid 37, some work even more. If we decide we want to eat, we eat (in fact as meetings tend to overrun you eat when you can as you never know when you'll next get food). On a recent business trip I had to go 15 hours without food due to bad planning by organisers, and that's not that unusual. So I eat if I get a chance.

I got really pissed off once when a colleague from a department that is very much 9-5 was very critical of what he saw as this sort of piss-taking in other departments. He had no idea what hours we work, that we're commonly on the phone to the US at 11pm, having started at 7am with another country. If I want to have breakfast at my desk, I damn well will. He also criticised the concept of working from home. I did ask whether he expected me to be in the office from 7am to 11pm every day.

I used to have to leave the house at 7 to get to work for 9 due to dropping dd off first and had to get train to where work was then bus out to sil (her nanny too). I'd get to work really early as sil needed to take her on school run so I'd often prepare some cereal without milk or something else then eat it when I got there. If you have to leave early sometimes you are starving by the time you get to work! I don't get people cooking fry ups in the office though

You are reminding me a bit of a horrible woman I worked with who would think she was superior because she got up at 5.30 every morning (her choice) and was in work for 8 doing work then used to go on about how no one appreciated her then told me that the managers would tell me off for eating my cereal out of a plastic box one morning at 8.30 because I was also early.

I will take what food I want to work, eat in my break or none work time and it's none of anyone else business

Yabu op

For one there is a very good reason I can't eat breakfast when I wake up. There are many people whom taking medicine on an empty stomach and not eating for a set period will possibly require them to adjust their lifestyle to having a later breakfast.

Makes me glad I work from home.

I don't have a major problem with people eating at their desks, provided:

• It's in their own time i.e. before or after work starts/finishes or at a designated break time
• it isn't smelly or messy
• they eat nicely (no shovelling, slurping, dropping bits down tie/shirt/PC etc.)
• customers can't see them
• they clear up afterwards
• it isn't celery (I've allergic to even the smell)

YANBU, it's gross. You're supposed to eat breakfast within 30 minutes of getting up, so do they sleep there too? Pigs.

Just read a bit more thread. What is this 'break' people talk of? Professional jobs do not have timed breaks. Also what is this 'lunch'?

Sounds like some of you breakfast complainers have cushy jobs. Do you actually have set coffee breaks where you go and sit and have a cup of coffee, and lunch breaks where you go to a room and eat your lunch? How long do these breaks last?

Do you complainers realise that most of us squeezing a breakfast in around emails don't get time for breaks or lunches? If meetings are scheduled, then we sit in meetings (if lucky someone might bring us a cup of coffee which we might sip in between presenting slides).

In professional jobs you work many many hours over your contracted hours. It is unpaid. It eats up your evenings, weekends, and holiday. If you looked at the hours we worked, our higher salaries probably would translate into a pretty low hourly salary.

Good god are you lot still going on! Boring hell fire!