To find my coworker's eating habits unbearable?

[DoubleNegativePanda]

Quite possibly I am but it's driving me mad. She goes out to the supermarket during our lunch hour and brings back a whole rotisserie chicken which she leaves in the container and tears into with her hands. Fingers and hands all greasy and covered in chicken juice etc and this horrible squelchy tearing sound. What on earth? This is 2018 not 1300!

It's making me crazy. I'm going to have to leave the room.

I think I worked with her. Is her name Julie?

From previous threads, I believe cereal is considered the worst possible food you can eat in the office. Pour yourself a bowl every time she starts on the chicken and loudly slurp away. See who cracks first.

What about reheating roasted cauliflower that's been seasoned with curry? Double Whammy!

I do get up and leave, I can't handle it!

Oh my word! I am generally very relaxed about what people eat for lunch. I am not overly sensitive in any way thankfully so generally it doesn’t bother me. However, I think I would be absolutely fixated by this. I mean, it’s in the lunchroom and I actually think it’s no one else’s business what she eats but I would be right there with you watching the grim slimy fingers. Why not strip it with a fork and eat it that way?

I once took leftover fish pie for lunch. It hadn’t been particularly smelly at home but I think just the night resting made it really pungent. I couldn’t smell it myself but it literally stunk the whole block out. I was extremely embarrassed as I could hear people walking into the block and exclaiming about it.

So, try that!

This is 2018 not 1300

Yuck
Why doesn't she prepare a chicken salad at home in a Tupperware and eat it with a fork like the rest of the nation on a high carb diet?????

I love chicken 🐓 but that's just disgusting

Oh dear I hope she washes her hands before she uses a computer or she will make the keyboard all greasy.

I have just made a Spanish omelette to take in for lunch tomorrow. Served with purple broccoli sautéed with garlic and dried fruit. Looks delish.

Kippers, OP.

😱 one nurse I used to work with bought in a weekly treat of mussels in garlic butter cooked in the microwave. omg the smell lingered for days, in fact it lingered until the next time she bought them in😷
nobody dared say anything as she was an old school senior nurse and we were scared

Ugh ugh ugh! Usually I read these threads thinking get over it you miserable self centred bugger, but you've got me with this one. I think I'd vomit if confronted with this on a regular basis.

I have an absolute phobia about nosy eating and drinking. I would find this to be beyond disgusting.
I spent quite a few years just walking out of the staff room, then decided to tell people. If someone started to eat an apple, for instance, next to me, I would get up and tell them that I needed to move away as the sound of people eating made me physically ill. I did it in an apologetic way. Eventually, people would not sit next to me if their lunch was too noisy as they didn't want to upset me.
If I were you, I would tell this person that you find the way they eat the chicken drives you absolutely nuts, and maybe say that your parents drummed good table manners into you and so you can't bear watching anyone with what they would consider to be bad manners. Then just move away where you can't see them eat, put some music on with headphones and see what she does!

She’s in a designated lunch room?
This really wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.

Blimey. I've managed 40-odd years without batting an eyelid at other people's eating habits, but tearing apart a whole chicken and splattering bits of chicken juices around the place would be challenging, I grant you

I feel sick.

Wish I had thought of it years ago when my nutjob colleague used to get up and open the office door the minute I took out my sandwich.... wouldn't have minded only it was always something inoffensive like cheddar cheese, tomatoes, ham and she was on the far side of the office.... But it was ok for her to take out whatever stinky crap she was eat and chew crisps the loudest I've ever heard!

YADNBU - that is most definitely not a poultry gripe, it's fowl
Yep, I’d be spitting feathers......

Nope. That's disgusting. I do this too. our office is also a lunch room and theres one colleague who eats lunch so noisily, I can hear him over the sound of the phone! I just get up and leave. Every day.
Yesterday, he ate a pear. A slurpy, juicy, crunchy pear. He eats everything with his mouth open and smacks his lips so loudly, it fuckin echoes.
I have misophonia. a greasy chicken would make me stabby.

Well I worked with someone who pretty much ate some big meat thing size of an antelope
daily.and I mean daily
Shearing into it,slurping,sucking bones,slopping Greasy gloop,sucking fingers
From 10am onwards. Yes did I say from 10am onwards. Whole day fucking buffet

Can you keep offering her a knife and fork until it would be awkward for her to say no.

Or just yell 'Eat like a frigging human, Linda!' Across the office.

Oh God. DH and I still recall the time a friend of his ordered a KFC meal for 8 (yes.....8) and demolished it on his own in a single sitting. The smell, the sound, and the sight of him tearing apart greasy chicken pieces and smacking his lips with every morsel while wiping his oily hands on his tee shirt has stayed with us both for more than 25 years.

Is it too late to discover a violent allergy to poultry?

If at her desk, YANBU. However, as in the lunch room, YABU and a bit precious

I used to sit opposite a woman who had a liking for breadsticks which she would eat bugs bunny style and chew with her mouth open. I don’t think she realised how close to death she came.

Dh eats some vile smelling stuff. Peeled mussels in a jar or tinned mackerel in stinky sauces would be a winner especially if heated in the microwave. He also eats tinned choucroute from France but it’s very pricey over here. Reheating that is very smelly. I expect you can get something similar or make it perhaps? Alternatively google smelliest cheese and choose one you like, leave it out of the counter to come to room temperature for a while whilst you make yourself a hot drink. Hold cheese over cup as you eat it for maximal waftage.

I feel sorry for your other co workers. Not your boss obvs.

YABU.
Keep your eyes on your own lunch.