My chomping colleague

[Glowbuggy]

I work in a small office, only a few of us and EVERY SINGLE DAY, my colleague brings a bag of carrots to chomp on. I can’t even describe how loud her chomping is, and it makes me murderous with every single bite! How do I stop this without being an arsehole? I’ve tried hints about loud eaters, my misophonia and eating etiquettes. Hints don’t work! This is actually stressing me out and affecting my work 😢

'Workers are entitled to take their rest breaks away from their workstation' =/= 'someone not doing so and instead eating carrots at their desk is illegal'. Really. ACAS staff definitely eat at their desks.

How many carrots is she eating and for how long? If she does it for a few minutes a day as a snack then its fine, but if she's munching on them all day then that's not fine.

I have worked at numerous places where there wasn't anywhere else to eat. The vast majority of offices that I have worked in don't have anywhere else to eat. You could leave your desk for a break or go for a walk, but if you wanted to sit down to eat then your desk was the only option. You didn't have to answer your phone or do any work at the same time though.

Misophonia can be formally diagnosed I know because I have taken dd through the process.
Since it can be then reasonable adjustments for this disability have to be made by law
No, that's not how it works.
It's not listed in the DSM or ICD so although a Dr can diagnose it, it carries no legal standing. Even if it did, a diagnosis of a condition does NOT make it a disability!
And reasonable adjustments do not mean that the employer has to do what you tell them you want. It would be a reasonable adjustment for colleagues of a person with a severe nut allergy to be banned from eating nuts at their desks, it wouldn't be a reasonable adjustment to ban colleagues of a person with misophonia from eating anything at their desks if there wasn't somewhere else that they could reasonably eat.

If your DD's problems are so severe that she can't be around other people, then she needs a better diagnosis than misophonia. That should be so easy to manage within a school environment as there is no eating in lessons.

Record the chomping on your phone & play it to her, maybe she doesn’t realise how loud it is.

Ask her if she's put on weight recently. That'll get her to stop.

Ask her if she's put on weight recently. That'll get her to stop.

Good idea. This will have the twin effect of leaving you open to a talking to by management if not a disciplinary, and making you look like you don't know what carrots are. Brilliant.

And would be pretty mean, into the bargain - @pigeondujour is right, this would be a very bad idea.

Given that OP apparently works in a small office, it wouldn't especially surprise me if they didn't have a separate eating area. I have worked somewhere like that, didn't like it at all.

It's so selfish of people to eat at their desks like this.

No, you think it is selfish, for others it is a necessity!!

TO be fair even if there's nowhere else to eat i's obviously unnecessary to eat very loudly and for a long time. Eating your lunch politely? Fine (and OP could go for a walk or wear headphones). Constantly chomping loudly? Not fine.

We don't actually have any information about whether this person is eating for a long time or not. Also, what's even a long time? Anything more than it takes to wolf down a sandwich? She could easily be taking less time than most people take to eat lunch. Hell, it could be her lunch. Some people seem to have read it as her snacking on them over a longer period, but our now long departed OP didn't say that.