Co-workers eating in office

FLAKMA wrote: »

So I work in an office building. My office is located in a hallway of about 20 separate offices. The building had a full cafeteria, but these people INSIST on taking food back to their desks and eating. This drives me nuts. For about an hour every morning, then about 3 hours during lunchtime, the entire floor smells delicious. Why can't they eat in the cafe like normal people?? Stop bringing your food into the offices... Its such a temptation. Especially when the cafeteria pumps out breakfast foods like bacon, sausage, eggs, biscuits, etc.


Anyone else have this problem with their co-workers? What do you do??

Unfortunately it's your comfort versus their comfort. Maybe many of them don't like eating in the cafeteria or they need a quiet place to study for school. This is one of those things that if it's not against the company policy there isn't anything you can do to change it, so getting upset over other's choices isn't going to help. Eat at your desk, chew gum, drink water. You're going to have to find your own personal way to stay on track without trying to change the behavior of others because trying to get changes made for your comfort will result in many people getting pissed off at you.

In the end you're going to have to learn personal restraint to be successful. Temptation will always be around us and it's a good skill to build.

Its actually a rule where I work to be respectful/mindful of others when you are eating at your desk. It's an open environment and not everybody wants to smell your lunch, whether it's because they are tempted or they don't like the smell of your fish or mexican leftovers, it is common courtesy. Don't understand why everyone has to be so nasty on these forums all of the time.

I work in a rather small office so I can smell everything that everyone eats. I have learned to ignore it, but some days it does smell sooo yummy. :-)

FLAKMA wrote: »

Wow ok thanks all, I guess I am just being a wimp about it. I am a firm believer in work is for working and breaks are for breaks. I don't expect people to stop eating because I'm on a diet. I expect people to eat in the place designated for eating. I worked with radiation for a long time. Bottom line for us in that field is you do *NOT* eat where you work. Ingesting some beta particles will ruin your day. Looks like that doesn't carry over in the rest of the world.

Oh god. Now I'm going to to be eying the doctors I work with when they come back from radiology with doughnuts. I shall never crave a radiology doughnut again. All I can picture now is that they are covered in beta particles lol

FLAKMA wrote: »

aakaakaak wrote: »

OP, how about you sack up and grow some willpower. The only person who feeds your face is you. If you worked in a restaurant would you complain that the smell of all the food you had to cook was ruining your diet?

What a terrible metaphor. Take your *kitten* opinion and move on. I don't work in a restaurant. If I did, I would accept my decisions to work with food and "sack up".

For all the passive aggressive sh**bags and your replies, I asked for people who have this problem and what they do about it. I didn't ask for your opinion on my problem, so stick them directly up your rear end.

If you have nothing constructive to add, move the hell along.

@FLAKMA‌ The only person who sees that as a problem is you. Reasonable people know it's reality. They know people are going to eat at their desks. And they don't expect their coworkers to do otherwise. Their life, their decision.

Not only does everyone eat at their desks at work (no cafeteria) but a couple of my colleagues are feeders. They'll be handing out pastries and chocolate all the time.

It's seriously hard to see and smell all the lush food around. But it's even harder to have to say no thanks all the time!

Only advice I would give, is just try and think of why you are doing this and what your result will be at the end of it. (And I definitely need to take my own advice sometimes too!)

Loads of luck!

Think of it this way.... There is so much bacteria on people's desks, keyboards, and phones... Would you really want to eat their food? Nooo thank you!