to think that I should be able to eat at work?

[GlassyPinkP]

I work in an office, am not public facing, and sit behind a computer all day. 6 months pregnant and feel hungry throughout the day, but heartburn means I can't eat big meals. I've been eating at my desk (not huge or smelly meals, usually a bowl of cereal, sandwich, fruit etc) throughout the day. It doesn't impact on my work and it makes me feel a whole heap less hungry throughout the day compared to when I eat a tiny breakfast and a tiny lunch in between!

My manager has raised with me that one of my colleagues is not happy that I am eating a lot at my desk (I'm within my calories, it's not a huge amount it's just more spread out). Apparently I should go in to the kitchen area and eat out there. Everyone eats their lunch at their desks but their screens are turned off so it's an official lunch break.

AIBU to think I should be allowed to have a 30 min lunch break to eat my sandwiches and if I want to eat fruit or the odd bowl of cereal 2/3 times a day this shouldn't be an issue?

I'm finding pregnancy really hard and have nausea constantly as well as heartburn and gallbladder problems. Food helps! I don't want to be banished to standing in the kitchen every time I want to eat an orange...

Opinions?

I get heartburn whatever I eat. I have a disorder where my aorta restricts my duodenum so a small clementine won't make it any worse. Pregnancy does make it worse.

It's not a non stop buffet. It would be breakfast at home, an orange at 11, half asandwich at 1, couple of biscuits at 2, a pear at 3, other half of my sandwich at 4:30, finish work at 6. It sounds like a lo but considering I'm usually in bed by 9 and only have something small when I get in it's not much. If I have cereal it's not that often and to be honest it's usually super early if I do an early day and there are only a couple of others in!

I just thought it was normal to eat a bit more through pregnancy. I don't really want to stand in a (pretty manky) kitchen to eat with lots of people buzzing about!

Hmm, maybe IABU. I'm torn after this thread!

YABVU

The office I manage has a complete ban in place on all food or non- water drinks consumption at desks for a number of reasons.

Obviously you have the disruption caused by the noise and smell perculating around the office. But it's also impossible to be completely focused on your work if you're eating and drinking all day. We provide a 30 minute lunch break which is perfectly adequate for staff to use to eat.

You'd simply be told to get on with your work and eat at lunch time, or leave the organisation, at my place OP.

sunshades but I will physically vomit if I eat a whole meal enough to keep me going the whole day within 30 minutes.

I think YABU to think that anyone who is pregnant should be told to leave an organisation because they need to eat. I get that maybe making adjustments is the ideal, but being told to leave the organisation? You'd be asking for a lawsuit!

This thread make me realise how lucky I am where I work! There's 7 of us upstairs in 3 offices with no doors so they all flow into one another and all of us snack all day and eat at our desk. There's no where else to go! We don't bother each other at all and we don't do any less work.

The main point is people in your office eat at their desks (computers on or off make no difference) and there is no provision for alternative seating where you could eat. I would calmly explain the need to eat small amounts regularly, ask your manager for their suggestion of how you can do that, and offer to bring in a note from your midwife if it would make it easier for them to justify it to other colleagues. YANBU.

OP did your manager tell you you need to go to the kitchen area to eat your snacks, or tell you that the colleague who complained about it thought that’s what you should do?

Is there a company policy on eating at your desk? I find it hard to believe you’re the first person who’s ever had a snack at your work. Are you being treated in accordance with your company policy or is your manager allowing your colleague to insist you’re treated differently?

I don’t know if your manager is treating you reasonably here - it sounds a bit like they’ve had a complaint so they are doing what the complainant asked instead of looking at the whole the picture and trying to balance opposing needs.

How often is this happening? I can't see why someone would object if you ate something at 11 when other people are having coffee, then at 1 for lunch, then again at 3. If you're eating on the hour, every hour, it would be more of a problem.

The office I manage has a complete ban in place on all food or non- water drinks consumption at desks for a number of reasons.

Weren't you the same person who works somewhere they lock people into the office during working hours? Assuming you're not a troll, are people allowed to even breathe where you work??

I have health issues which mean I need to always have a drink of water handy, so that'd be me scuppered if I worked for you.

Maybe there was no complaint from a colleague?

Your manager may be the one who disapproves of you eating.

He or she is trying to tell you to stop eating but doesn't want to be too harsh.

bringincrazyback
I have health issues which mean I need to always have a drink of water handy, so that'd be me scuppered if I worked for you

Water is allowed at SunShades office.
complete ban in place on all food or non- water drinks consumption

But coming back to the OP... for the record, I feel she isn't BU at all, her colleagues are being quite petty. But I'm curious... those who are advocating 'adjustments' involving OP having a chair in the kitchen so she can eat there... I don't get it, I agree re adjustments but surely this should mean OP gets to eat at her desk if she needs to while she is pregnant. If OP's colleagues would have to pick up the slack while OP was in the kitchen, I imagine they'd be more irritated by that! Surely it's possible for the needs of pregnant woman to be accommodated without it impacting other people's workloads, which in this instance would mean colleagues being more understanding about OP eating at her desk. (Sorry, I don't mean to talk about you as if you're not there, OP. lol)

I dont think misophonia is a recognised disability with an obligation to make reasonable adjustments. Even if it were, the obligation wouldn't be on the OP to make them. Employer could just as easily put in place provisions for he sufferer to go elsewhere while OP eats.

Hah, SunShades, even if it were lawful to dismiss workers who have a medical need to eat more frequent meals, I bet they'd be happy to be rid of miserable fucks like you for colleagues!

Unless the colleague complaining is a misophonia sufferer, I think they're being a bit of a dick, frankly.

Most of the people I've ever worked with have had something irritating about them: vile perfume, annoying laugh, heavy breathing, insistence upon having their chair so far from their desk that no-one can get by, spreading their paperwork across my desk as well as their own, chainsmoking (only older readers will remember the hell of sharing an office with a chainsmoker)... the list is endless.

When you work in an office with other people, you just have to suck it up and find a way of coping.

If their gripe is that you spend less time working because of your eating, they're being a childish dick.

Water is allowed at SunShades office.
complete ban in place on all food or non- water drinks consumption

Fair dos, I misread that bit. But still... a complete ban on consuming anything else at one's desk??

You totally have my sympathy re needing to keep blood sugar constant in pregnancy - but someone continually eating all day (and what you describe is pretty constant) is unpleasant, distracting and unprofessional. Bowls of cereal especially - yuck, noisy, mess & smelly. Can you limit yourself to an oatcake or biscuit when people are having a coffee/tea round. It's equally unacceptable that there is nowhere else for you to go and have a quick snack, comfortably.

You'd simply be told to get on with your work and eat at lunch time, or leave the organisation, at my place OP.

If that was in the UK, the employers in question would soon find themselves on the wrong end of rather expensive Employment Tribunal proceedings.

If SunShades is who I'm thinking of, she's got previous for claiming her workplace breaks all kinds of laws (and in this instance, if someone was pregnant and had medical evidence they needed to eat more regularly, it'd be tough tits on the employer). A reverse HR troll, if you will. Enjoy, but with appropriate salting.

I’m sorry but your colleague is in the right. The continual sounds and rustles and smells of food would make me feel ill.
Oranges stink, incidentally.

In front of the public or not, it’s unprofessional.

rose should this be the same then when 30 people spend half an hour each eating lunch between 12 and 2:30? Or just apply to me?

I wonder if someone else in the office is pregnant and it’s bothering them.

When I was in the first trimester I heaved every time I smelt food in the office - biscuits, fruit and particularly yoghurt. I spent a lot of time behind the door in my office (which I was supposed to keep open) retching into my paper bin.

The lunch situation is obviously accepted by everyone. What you are doing is not.

rose so would I be able to eat cereal and an orange for lunch?

They have to make reasonable adjustments for your pregnancy. They have suggested you eat in the kitchen instead. Why not just do as they say? It doesn't seem unreasonable.