Let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-workers

am i ruining the fun? idk

at my old job there used to be this woman who would glumly eat lunch in the kitchen from time to time w/ the door closed and it would always make me feel really guilty when i had to go in there for some reason

cuz she was eating your lunch?

guilty would not have been the emotion, so no

also i would never keep my lunch in a rancid communal refrigerator

This popcorn girl has exploited the single biggest weakness of democracy in the 20th and 21st centuries: If popcorn stinks, well then people whose cultures require them to microwave food which stinks such as chana masala or eat food for religious reasons could not eat their stinky, religious food without you getting upset, therefore i will continue to eat popcorn whenever i want.

Pretty much every boring, lard-ass honky I know who can't even eat onions because they're too "ethnic" realizes deep down that they themselves are the fucking problem and that smells can be tolerated in various degrees. not everyone likes every smell, fine, we'll figure something out.

Eating microwave popcorn, though, is really, really fucking selfish. Nobody likes the smell of microwaved popcorn. That's fucking selfish.

I still think a nebulous "actually, some clients complained..." is the way to put the brakes on this woman's disgusting habit. It's kind of taken as read that it's a lie, but it's one of those corporate lies that the woman will have to abide by and there's really no comeback to such a statement by your boss.

Nobody in a place of business should be eating at their desk five times a day whatever the food. It's just gross, apart from any notions of what's acceptable professional behaviour.

I think the way to put the brakes on her disgusting habit is to require everyone in the office to get a colonoscopy. When she sees what eating irradiated buckshot is doing to hear fucking insides she'll wise up.

Plus there's the side benefit of a free colonoscopy for you! Think!

Really feeling for you, it's the little things that can really become stressful. I would still recommend some direct action, you could start gagging and act like your going to be sick next time she has some?

Breaking the microwave is what I'd like to see Jon do, even though it's not really a solution. At the very least, unplug it.

I'm more emotionally invested in this matter than I probably should be.

This chick is gonna shit out an ear of corn one day. Then eat it the long way.

Man you guys really hate popcorn. Sure burnt popcorn is pretty gross but reg popcorn smells awesome. I had no idea people felt so strongly about this.

Ahh, I'm enjoying being able to actually smell my tea this morning, first day of her being out of the office.

Even cooked properly, cheap "diet" popcorn smells completely awful. Also, I think pretty much any "good" smell can become annoying when you have to smell it all day long.

Yeah I guess if it was something you smelled constantly it would get sort of annoying after a while.

Well, it's specifically microwave popcorn in an open-plan office. I love popcorn too, but there is nothing - not even mackerel nuked to cinders - that smells more repulsive than cumulative microwaved popcorn odor. Except the lingering smell of cigarette smoking in offices back when it was allowed, which smelled exactly like someone dumped Coffee Mate into the ventilation shafts.

If you want to diminish the smell in the meantime, suggest that the microwave interior is cleaned properly once a week. This will involve bleach.

I don't mind the smell of popcorn at all, but if someone is scarfing down four or five bags a day, they are bringing their eating disorder into the workplace. So the smell of popcorn might become repellant because it is associated with a person who has self-control issues.

Chana masala smells incredible as does most Indian food...however I am often self-conscious about eating hot take-out at work unless it is in the break room.

cornists

i would like to know who in this office is the culprit of little rolled up toilet paper balls that are shit encrusted and left on the back of the toilet. SERIOUSLY are you jamming your finger up your ass when you are wiping?

Guys I'd just like to say that you could all have it worse I have written about it before but I'm not sure if it was on this thread and I'm not loading 10000s of msgs to find out. When I worked as a civil servant in London, I counted the following two individuals among my co-workers

a) man who masturbated every day in the mens' room after he finished his lunch which was packed daily by his mother with whom he still shared a bed
b) someone who literally just took a shit in the middle of the mens' room floor one day

I can't say there isn't a part of me that thinks that a) and b) might have been the same guy but I'm not certain.

Yikes. How do you know about a)?

Nobody in a place of business should be eating at their desk five times a day whatever the food. It's just gross, apart from any notions of what's acceptable professional behaviour.

THANK YOU. I feel like a fucking killjoy as I seem to be the only one on my team who thinks someone bringing in a large container of homemade snacks (extra-crunchy of course!) that they munch from constantly throughout a day is just bad manners. Like, I can get a couple of pieces of fruit or whatever, but this is on top of lunch too.

Fuck that. You're supposed to eat 7 small meals a day.

Or something...I read that somewhere.

I'm extra not-give-a-fuck about my office manners lately though after they moved me from a shared office into a receptionists desk in the hallway (and apparently gave the shared office to a group of people who are in Africa half the time).

"Oh, you didn't want to see me with plum juice dribbling down my face? If I had an office again this little problem would just go away."

Fuck that. You're supposed to eat 7 small meals a day.

Pretty sure that might be popcorn girl's excuse too. I just think it's massively lacking in self-awareness, and it's also very annoying.

Yikes. How do you know about a)?

We had an overnight work thing once where we all went to dinner and then hung out in the hotel bar. People got pretty drunk and somehow this person's name came up and one of the guys mentioned that he always seemed to be doing some strange stuff around lunchtime. One by one the other guys were all like OMG you've heard him too? Every single one of them had had the misfortune of hearing this. I guess he really didn't care or try to cover up what he was doing. Oh man. That guy.

How is it lacking in self-awareness to eat food?

idk, I feel like I shouldn't have to explain why constantly chomping away at your desk looks bad. and this is a once every ten minutes type constantly...

But who's even looking at you?

http://www.livestrong.com/article/253451-how-to-eat-7-small-meals-a-day/

Your co-workers and boss are watching. It seems to show a lack of self-awareness to defy a pretty apparent norm of a professional office environment, apparently obliviously. But maybe she is aware and all torn up about it, but powerless against her popcorn addiction.

Eating lots of snacks s fine, but loudly crunchy food is v v annoying.

Crunching on ice cubes, likewise (I had a workmate who used to eat ice all the time. I think it was some "thing" sportspeople do, or maybe its a quit smoking measure idk)

5 bags of popcorn a day otoh has no benefit, is extremely unhealthy, and fwiw the fumes could in fact be a risk to everyone else in the office just sayin.

She is definitely lacking in self-awareness and professional manners. In addition to the popcorn thing, she also engages in the following on a regular basis:

1) Takes her shoes off and walks around the office in bare feet.
2) Loudly talks about her personal life in embarassing detail, even after she has been asked to "keep it down".
3) Frequently eavesdrops on conversations throughout the office, jumping out of her seat to jump in and interject when she plainly wasn't involved in the first place.

Thing is she's also really smart and knows her shit really well when it comes to her job, so its unlikely that these annoyances are enough to push her out of the door.

I am sorry to hear about that. Thank god I have usually worked in offices where there wasn't that sort of antagonism. In our office it was more "us against the world".

Except for the occasional bad student worker or solicitor. One student used to drive us nuts by not saying "excuse me" while he needed to pass a bunch of people. I'm also sure he didn't wash his hands after using the bathroom.

Eating lots of snacks s fine, but loudly crunchy food is v v annoying.

So you're saying that my celery and carrot sticks...ulp.

Someone burnt the hell out of popcorn at my place today. Is this now an epidemic?

It smelled like a diaper with rotten carrots in it

kkvgz: nah veggies arent a big deal, nor apples. I'm talking more really crunch chips, nuts etc.

I developed anosmia in 2010, so:

Pro: my when sorta co-worker (it's just me and 5 lawyers, so have no real co-workers) makes peanut butter and tuna sandwiches, I no longer have to smell that gnarly shit.

Con: I don't know when my lunch reeks. My solution is to stock the office with lots of what I remember being not-overwhelming apple and cinnamon air freshener and spray it if I'm eating anything except, say, plain white rice or saltines.

TBH I'd rather smell the food than some stanky fake air freshner being sprayed all about, but thats just me.

Yes, I worry about that, too. But IIRC, the apples 'n' cinnamon that I order really does smell like apple pie.

It's interesting reading this as in my office it's very common for people to eat at their desk and it doesn't really bother me in the slightest. But then I'm one of the disgusting savages myself - I just had a bacon roll. The popcorn thing is something else IMO, a step beyond.

I guess if people were eating raw fish every day I'd be against it.

My office doesn't have a break room, so eating at your desk at lunch time or having an occasional appropriate snack is not a not a big deal, but common sense serves me well and I usually don't eat stinky foods or obscene amounts of popcorn.

The only times I've ever heard shit about food in my office:

One person who kept microwaving fish (which earned a PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE NOTE from my boss that I wish I had photographed).

One woman who came by and chastised me for bringing french fries into the office because it made her want some.

People complaining about people who bring in baked goods and cookies around the holidays for the same reason.

Xp Jon, you said that she eats a normal lunch on top of all of the popcorn? Is it made up of a wide variety of foods, or does she tend to eat the same thing every day?

And here you are on a different thread posting about popcorn. This has been on your mind, hasn't it? ; )

xpost - No, she very rarely eats a regular meal. Most days its just three or four bags of popcorn a day. The only times I've seen her eat a regular kind of lunch is when we have a lunch and learn presentation brought in, then she'll eat whatever is offered.

kkvgz, I just saw the other popcorn-related post and I will just say that I really hope D3@7hdr0n3 will one day get hold of this person's popcorn bag.

:-B