If you rustle sweets packets in meetings, WHY DO YOU DO IT!?

[towardagain]

I know it isn’t the biggest thing in the world but it makes me so, so angry. We have regular meetings in a large room, and every single week people decide they cannot get through a couple of hours without eating sweets. They take fucking ages opening the packet, and rustling it at the volume of a jet engine. If they absolutely must eat sweets, why can’t they just quickly open the packet and put it down?

Same as people eating crisps. Put your hand in, pick the first crisp it reaches up and eat it. WHY are you making such a bastarding noise!?

If this makes you so so angry, it's quite odd! Rustling sweet packets is mildly irritating but honestly, don't you have more important things to worry about?!

I’m surprised at people eating during work meetings, seems very lax!

Oh for fucks sake.

It is the same people unwrapping the same individually wrapped sweets. They must be trying to open them quietly so it takes them forever and it’s so loud and annoying.

i think its they want the sweet but dont realise how long or the noise it takes etc to get the sweet

You could just say “shall we wait for Janet to finish unwrapping her sweets as the noise is quite distracting” 😆

Sounds like misophonia. Its very annoying. I feel this way when Im stressed or overstimulated.

If i ran the meeting i would say no food. V annoying behaviour

Many moons ago, I used to attend office meetings with people of all levels and sadly it was the women in senior positions who would make unnecessary noise, opening sweets, blowing noses loudly, stirring spoons in cups etc when lower level attendees were invited to speak. Distracting, disrespectful, and rude.

I probably would say this because .my nerves are on a tightrope after 45 years in this job.

Why? They don't notice the noise probably. I don't mind rustling but can't bear chewing.

Its’s just lack of social etiquette to me. Like people noisily eating or talking in the cinema when people have paid to go and watch a film. People having speaker phone conversations on the bus or train. Kids repeatedly interrupting their parents when their parents are talking to someone. All things that should be nipped in the bud as socially rude 🤣

You sound really angry. Is it the rustling noise or is there something else you need to resolve? it just seems excessive fury for such a small thing.
Try and take some time to yourself to relax - you’re doing yourself no good x

This would drive me up the wall and I would have to say something. If I could hear them chew it would be even worse! I agree with the Janet comment above.

This doesn't happen where I work but I've noticed an increase in people treating rhe theatre like the cinema and rustling their way through snacks. It infuriates me.

I'm with OP on this - it's distracting, stops others from working efficiently, and thus has a major negative effect on the economy 🙂

Neither are the over eaters

How is a few sweets in a meeting overeating? Do you know what they eat through the rest of the day/week/month?

It’s possible they are effectively self medicating with sucking- particularly if they are older and weren’t issued with fiddle toys at school! I don’t mean they are fiddling with the wrappers, just that the sucking helps concentration in the same way doodling does. I was in a big meeting (auditorium style) and playing a game on my phone (silent). It frees me up to listen. I ask appropriate questions, and am paying attention, but people assume I’m not.

I'm not a not a snacker so I find some people's habits of having food in every meeting different to my own choices, but this response seems extreme to me.

If it's really that bad and concentration in this particular meeting is that important, I might suggest a pause while everyone unwraps their sweets, but I suspect it's you who'll seem unreasonable. How fragile is your focus if a sweet wrapper distracts you from important matters?

I suffer from misophonia. Some noises sens me in an inner frenzied rage. It's irrational but it affects me deeply. Chewing, rustling packets,scraping the last bits of a yogurt pot,coughing repeatedly,licking lips, fingers biting...The list is scarily long...

I'm with you. I couldn't concentrate

agree.

don't get me started when DH has a bag of crisps...🙄

@towardagain

I think you and I are on a very similar rant today

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5499245-stop-talking-at-the-theatre?reply=150907961

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5499245-stop-talking-at-the-theatre?reply=150907961

See my other thread!

It's easy to think they must know its loud, annoying but they probably don't. For those of us who don't have misophonia, noises are easily tuned out.