About breakfast at work

[WishingILivedOnAnIsland]

Every day without fail one of our senior administrators comes in on time, gets herself settled, then spends 10 minutes in the kitchen constructing a complicated bowlful of breakfast. She takes the bowl to her desk and slowly eats in the open plan office until around 9:30am. She then signals the start of her work day by returning her bowl to the kitchen. Anyone who approaches her regarding work prior to The Bowl’s Return is met with a withering look and an ‘excuse me I am eating my breakfast’ as though they’ve walked into her own kitchen out of hours and demanded a favour.

I’m her manager and I’m starting to get complaints. Both about her commandeering an additional 30 odd minutes break, and also about the tart rebuke she gives anyone who dares interrupt her morning ritual.

Here’s the thing- I don’t really care that she does this as in every other way she is a sensational employee. She is a proud set-in-her-ways kind of person and wont respond well to negative feedback. It would be a disaster if she quit and we had to replace her with a mediocre employee whose only advantage is that they eat their breakfast at home.

So AIBU to let this breakfast nonsense play on? My colleagues seem to think so and are salty with me for my inaction thus far.

We have someone who does this. She eats her breakfast VERY noisily on the adjoining pod. It's not that that annoys people, it's the way she scrapes her bowl loudly to get EVERY LAST BIT of yoghurt out at the end. You'd think there was a global yoghurt shortage.

@WishingILivedOnAnIsland Matt..? Is that you?

OMG I'm so sorry! I'll be more sociable whilst I fill my face with my porridge first thing in the morning 🙈🙈

I know I'm fucking awesome though... Jen in Accounts said so!

" If you're at your desk you are, in my view, fair game to be given tasks to do."

What if you're in the middle of another task that is more urgent. I know Breakfast Brenda isn't it, but I'm talking about your generalisation that you're fair game for tasks at ANY time.

Well, obviously you're still at liberty to prioritise and say "I'm just doing X at the moment, but I'll get onto that when I've finished". You don't just bark at them to piss off.

"You don't just bark at them to piss off."

BB's not swearing at anyone is she, just giving them a 'withering look' and actually if someone asks me for something 5 minutes before the weekly meeting that they all know we have every week, they will not get 'I'll do that when I'm finished' but something a bit more honest.

I often ask colleagues to hold on a moment if I’m in the middle of something more urgent. It’s called adulting. I don’t give them a withering look and refuse to speak to them.

It all depends on the office culture. I can't do breakfast at my desk because my job is to answer the phone. So I also can't wander away from my desk, I may be on a salary but I'm paid to have my bum on a chair available to answer the phone for set hours. My time is also strictly monitored so I can't take an extra minute on lunch or disappear off to chat to a colleague

Other places may be more laid back but I know my colleagues would begrudge working away whilst I took an extra 30 min break as it would be seen as favouritism
But I've never worked in a "normal" office where it doesn't matter if you're 5 mins late/early and I've never worked flexi time either

If your office culture allows her to make and eat breakfast then fair enough. However no one should get away with the refusal to work or being that rude to their colleagues.

As a manager, I’d be pissed off both at this person and at those moaning for creating a situation where there is fuss to deal with.

I expect my team to do their work to a good standard and to behave professionally. They all know that I don’t care how or where that gets done and that as adults I will never monitor their breaks or anything like that. So it applies to everybody. Have as many coffee or breakfast breaks as you like as long as you deliver.

I can sympathise a little with the person doing the eating here too. I find myself getting approached at my desk and interrupted a lot and it pisses me off. I can be sitting on Do Not Disturb on Skype and people will literally appear beside me while I am working and say “I was trying to message you there but I see you are on DNS.....how do I do such and such”

I’m not a helpdesk. And don’t pitch up beside me verbally asking me to do stuff for you. If you want me to do something send me a message so I can keep track of it and i’ll talk to you about it if I need to.

Who can’t eat and work at the same time? If she’s a sensational worker I’m not sure why mouthful of granola stops her logging on.

Missed point of thread I know.

Gwen finding a polite way to defer a request is part of working with other people. If someone was regularly asking me to do things at unreasonable times and my polite deferrals were having no effect, then it would be a management issue, but I still wouldn't be justified in rudeness. And as you said yourself, BB is not engaged in something more urgent when she's being approached. She's eating her breakfast.

Missed point of thread I know.

Actually no - it's the entire point!

And now we have people comparing eating breakfast to making a work DND Skype call... dear god!

Why is anyone trying to defend a stuck in her ways outdated administrator who seems to think that obstructive behaviour and giving colleagues withering looks when she doesn’t want to engage have any place in an Office in the 21st century?

Not that this sort of behaviour was ever ok, but it seemed to be tolerated a lot more in the past. It reminds me of my first job as a young teacher, I was warned not to sit in ‘Mr A’s chair’ in the staff room and was also advised that there were a couple of staff it was best not to approach for advice because they were liable to give short shrift. This was back in the 1980s. Thank god workplace culture has changed considerably since then, and this sort of ‘pulling rank’, older employees expecting others to bend to their self appointed ‘rules’ is potentially a disciplinary offence.

Not RTFT sorry but here's what I would do as her manager:

• explain that it is causing some issues with other employees that she is effectively getting half an hour's extra break as she doesn't work while she eats breakfast; it isn't fair and therefore you need to find a way of addressing it.

-offer her a choice of options: Come in early so she has time to eat uninterrupted, if she still wants to eat at the office Continue to eat at the same time but she must be working too; not telling other colleagues to come back later Have a shorter lunch to make up for it (you would need to explain to other colleagues that this was happening if she chose it)

I would document the meeting and which of the options she chose, in writing.

She sounds rude to her colleagues so I'd also be looking to tackle that in due course, but probably once an approach had been agreed on the breakfast issue.

With an employee like this i would be sure to keep good paper trails on her behaviour and how it's being addressed as she sounds like she has the potential to be difficult and obstructive.

"Gwen finding a polite way to defer a request is part of working with other people. If someone was regularly asking me to do things at unreasonable times and my polite deferrals were having no effect, then it would be a management issue, but I still wouldn't be justified in rudeness."

I think if someone is interrupting me at a time they know the whole team is extremely busy, I think a withering look would be quicker and easier than making a management issue of it.

" this sort of ‘pulling rank’, older employees expecting others to bend to their self appointed ‘rules’ is potentially a disciplinary offence."

You're just advocating another type of pulling rank based on hierarchy. Someone who's been allowed to do something for years and you want some short-sighted tick boxing middle manager to come and tell them off.

"But I've never worked in a "normal" office where it doesn't matter if you're 5 mins late/early and I've never worked flexi time either grin"

Sounds shit. Are you in a call centre? That's the only type of office I've been in where people are treated like children in the way you describe.

In most offices I've worked in, being a bit late or leaving early doesn't matter unless you miss an event or a meeting (when it can then be taken very seriously indeed). Talking to colleagues is encouraged and you can take breaks whenever you want including away from desk. People use their phones when they want to and go online whenever they want. You need to consider changing to something else.

“And now we have people comparing eating breakfast to making a work DND Skype call... dear god!”

What do you mean?

Actually I would leave it alone. She is a good worker. She does the job to your satisfaction. That is what she is there for.
Clock watchers and those who monitor other people's comings and goings are a pita.
I would just ask her to say, I'll get right on that, rather than, cant you see I'm having my breakfast, but other than that, if your employee is worth her weight in gold, why would you risk upsetting her.
Tell your other staff that when they are working to the same standard as she is, you will raise it as an issue and not before.

“In most offices I've worked in, being a bit late or leaving early doesn't matter unless you miss an event or a meeting (when it can then be taken very seriously indeed). Talking to colleagues is encouraged and you can take breaks whenever you want including away from desk. People use their phones when they want to and go online whenever they want. You need to consider changing to something else.”

THIS. This is what is normal and healthy. I take a dim view of people who threaten this kind of normal and collegiate working culture by moaning about what others are doing. I don’t want petty people or clockwatchers in my team.

To my mind, it

She’s not being very collegiate if she’s glaring at people daring to interrupt her breakfast because they’re trying to - shock horror, get their own work done though, is she?

I love how everyone defending Breakfast Brenda automatically assumes that it’s everyone else who can’t prioritise and they should all just leave her alone during the All Holy and Sacrosanct Breakfast Ritual because she’s so ace and they’re all crap so it’s entirely justifiable for her to make them wait. There must be a lot of weak managers allowing themselves to be ruled by BBs (and probably privately despised by a good chunk of the rest of their team for their weakness) if none of these people can bring themselves to accept that rudeness and inflexibility are things that need to be addressed in so-called professional adults.

I honestly would not approach someone with a work issue if I could see they were eating breakfast. You can just ping an instant message to say, “can we chat quickly when you have 2 mins”.

I am very often physically disturbed at my desk whether I’m working, eating or both because people want something from me. They normally make out it’s urgent but it very, very rarely is. Normally it’s just impatience. Some people think that whatever is in their head is automatically important and they should not need to wait.

StreetwiseHercules

“And now we have people comparing eating breakfast to making a work DND Skype call... dear god!”

What do you mean?

Quite simple. Eating breakfast is not comparable with being on a DND Skype call or being extremely busy with work.

This seems to be the only ‘excuse’ a small number of posters can come up with to try to defend some stuck in her ways administrator’s rudeness.

She is eating her breakfast not brokering some million dollar deal which can’t be interrupted!

These excuses are bonkers

“a DND Skype call”

What’s that and who was on one?

“She is eating her breakfast not brokering some million dollar deal which can’t be interrupted! ”

But is the interruption really necessary? Probably not.