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Does the smell of a coworker's food bother you? What about eating around workspace?
- Thread starter TheOfficeMut
- Start date
It's simple. I've worked in an office where fish was simply not allowed to be reheated in the break room. I imagine that rule meant not to bring canned fish, either.
Smelly means "smells bad", not "has a scent".
You heat up your food then let it get cold.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
The poster I responded to means anything that smells in general.
The answer was that management decided.
Just had someone microwave fish at 9:30 in the morning. He's not well liked at the moment.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
Yeah, that's fine. I disagree with it though. That's the threads premise I guess.
yongeandcollege
Member
Someone brought food to a meeting the other day. It was in their bag. Too distracting. I had to tell them to take it out of the room.
ChemicalCutthroat
Member
We don't really have a choice. Particularly on Saturdays where you don't get a lunch break. You gotta eat when you can. So it doesn't bother me, but then again not a lot of stuff does. Unless you're actively sabotaging my ability to make money at work, I don't care if you show up in a banana hammock and eat curry all day.
TheGrizz
Member
It's not the smell so much, it's the sound for me. I have a lady that sits right next to me who eats soup or salad for lunch. She sips/crunches for literally 2 hours. She eats sooo slow and it drives me fucking nuts! Just eat your fucking soup/salad and be done with it. I hear slurrppppp and crunchhhhhh for hours. Even headphones aren't enough to muffle the guttural sounds that emanate from across the cube.
RAGEEEEEEEEEEE
RAGEEEEEEEEEEE
Smell doesn't bother me, but I'm one of those people who can't help but get bothered by the sound of people eating. In the lunchroom, fine, but a lot of my coworkers eat at their desk while we're in an open office environment and it drives me completely nuts. To make matters worse, a lot of people in the office eat constantly, since apparently you're supposed to eat smaller meals more frequently.
It's one of those things where I just have to get over it, since they're not doing anything wrong.
It's one of those things where I just have to get over it, since they're not doing anything wrong.
Snkfanatic
Banned
I don't really care as long as it's not seafood. Sometimes it's not that bad but other times...holy shit. It makes me want to leave the office.
TheCthultist
Member
A teacher in came into the lounge yesterday with a freaking durian shake/smoothie that she got from one of the Korean take out places nearby during her lunch break. Apparently it tasted fantastic, but it smelled like a septic tank and our teachers lounge is a very very small, hot, cramped room... So thats going to linger for a while.
ChemicalCutthroat
Member
This.
When most of the smells at my workplace are gear oil, gasoline, or the nearby toilets backing up, I find the people trapped in cubicle world would either have a aneurysm or go postal if they had to deal with stuff that REALLY stinks.
I feel like anything goes in the break room (within reason, if someone ate weird pickled fish every day that might be a bit much), but I just wish people wouldn't eat meals at their desk and then throw the remnants in their desk trash cans. I don't want to smell your burrito all afternoon. If there's some crazy time-sensitive emergency work that requires you to eat at your desk, fine, but wanting to justify leaving work 20 minutes early by "not taking a lunch break" isn't a good enough excuse.
*dies*
I don't care about food smells. There's this one guy who brings in cold boiled eggs as he's doing a lot of weights/needs the protein. It stinks I must admit, but I've never complained. I did hate once how I cooked some pork sausages and a few people complained about the smell. :/
Admittedly not many offices have an oven like ours does, but the one time I used it I annoyed someone, when others have cooked much smellier foods.
I've also seen this and I just don't understand why they do it. What's the point?
shnurgleton
Member
If it's tuna, yeah. You are a horrible person if you subject others to that horrible tuna smell.
UnemployedVillain
Member
I bet some of you were the same kids who made fun of kids in school cafeterias with foreign parents who made them ethnic food which actually had smell...and taste
tell me more about myself because I find the smell of microwaved fish unpleasant
I think you mean flavor. Almost everything has taste, which simply implies sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Flavor profiles are what you aim for when creating meals.
I recommend saving up for some noise canceling headphones.
notworksafe
Member
just no fish in the microwave. everything else is fine. but i also have my own office so this stuff rarely affects me in the first place.
This is my take on it really. Do I enjoy all the smells? No, but people gotta eat, and I'm not going to dictate what they eat or give them shit for it.
CaptainCook
Member
Like everyone else already said, fish. It's just to damn strong, and unless your in the mood for fish your not gonna wanna smell it.
FreeMufasa
Junior Member
Eh. Seems petty to complain about something like this
Some people don't want to have to work in an environment that is filled with unpleasant odors every day.
shnurgleton
Member
As somebody who has in fact put on noise canceling headphones to drown out the sound of an office mate's loud chewing, I can attest that they do not work
Just knowing that somebody is being gross and loud near me is enough to put me on edge
We're not allowed hot food at our desks in our large office, there is a cafeteria you can eat at there though and loads of options within walking distance. Given the number of people I just can't see how you'd avoid pissing someone off if it was open season. I really don't give a shit and would happily work next to someone scarfing down a mackerel curry but some people are sensitive to food smells and for certain diets having to inhale something you wouldn't eat doesn't seem fair.
crimzonflame
Member
Last week I brought in some salmon to work and it smelled pretty strong after I re-heated in the microwave. A few people were complaining to me, but I dont really care. I want to eat healthy and I pack my own lunch. Everyone shut up when the president asked what smelled so good in the office.
People really should exercise some common courtesy. I'm totally fine with people eating at their desks because where I worked, we had varying shifts so some people would be hungry by the time they were on their first break which only lasted 15mins. You can't expect them to go out and eat somewhere else and we didn't have a cafeteria closeby.
BUT, people really shouldn't be reheating fish, hard boiled eggs, or other aromatic foods. Try to stick to sushi, sandwiches, subs, salads, burgers, and commonly inoffensive smelling foods.
BUT, people really shouldn't be reheating fish, hard boiled eggs, or other aromatic foods. Try to stick to sushi, sandwiches, subs, salads, burgers, and commonly inoffensive smelling foods.
UnemployedVillain
Member
I dunno, I grew up also eating fish (the kind where you can still see the head and that's sometimes bony if they haven't been cooked till they're soft) so maybe I'm just used to the smell of it. I can't think of too many foods where the smell is downright unpleasant for me and strong enough that I can smell it from a distance
SliceSabre
Banned
I despise these people at work. The fish is always overly smelly fish and the popcorn burners are just lazy people who can't be bothered to watch the microwave for ~2 minutes while it cooks. And it is always the same folks in regards to the popcorn then they walk through the whole department floor with their burning popcorn because the rest of us want to smell it right?
Junior Asparagus
Member
I actually never found the seafood smell to be unpleasant. It just smells like seafood. I don't mind it.
I have no choice but to eat at my desk so I'm super conscious about what I eat. Once I took a chance and ordered crab meat fried rice from a Thai place. Absolutely amazing but made the surrounding area smell like a fish market in the dead heat of summer. Never again.
Damn, I know what I'm making for dinner tonight.
Damn, I know what I'm making for dinner tonight.
This. The scent of microwaved fish occasionally wafts over the cubes here and I don't care for it at all. Only scent that bothers me. The office food smells are usually pretty great though.
How about no. What is and offensive smell culinary to you does not apply to everyone. If it bothers you so much, wear a filter.
It's not some niche preference. The smell of dead fish is supposed to be naturally repulsive to the human senses. Its bacteria is chemically oxidized and turns to ammonia.
There isn't really any office etiquette about it where I work. My office is on the floor above the cafe, and a lot of people either get food and eat in their cubes, or heat up left overs / packed lunch and eat in their cubes. It's a very diverse group, so all kinds of foods.
I'm fine with it, people eat what they want and we're all busy so a lot of us work and eat at the same time. That said, I don't attend working lunch meetings. It's one thing in the open office, but in a small room, the concentrated mingling odors from a bunch of different foods really bothers me.
My courtesy is to make microwave popcorn only after 5 pm when most of the office has left.
I'm fine with it, people eat what they want and we're all busy so a lot of us work and eat at the same time. That said, I don't attend working lunch meetings. It's one thing in the open office, but in a small room, the concentrated mingling odors from a bunch of different foods really bothers me.
My courtesy is to make microwave popcorn only after 5 pm when most of the office has left.