eating at desk 16

[jerry1423]

I work near a person who eats at his desk. It really would not bother me if it was quiet foods, but it is always things like chips, carrots, and stuff like that.

Sometimes I wear factory earplugs so that I can concentrate on my work better.

Would I be appropriate to approach our manager and ask if this can be stopped, or am I just overly sensitive to those sounds?

 

[fanadorf]

Depends on if you just sat in your room all day instead of actually interacting with people. But i guess life didn't start with the people here...

 

[SomptingGuy]

"interacting with people"? As in:

Wearing blazers and top hats while playing tiddly winks down Oxford Street during rag week. No thanks.

- Steve

 

[fanadorf]

Compared to:
being a mole in your dorm room while its sunny and 60 degrees outside. No thanks.

 

[nuche1973]

I agree with GTstartup and Casseopia, life is better in the field. I am amazed at the amount of unprofessional behavior I have encountered at the "Professional Association" I work in. Just counting the days to the big test and a change of scenery.

 

[IJR]

This is a great thread.

Most of the time I would tell myself, I would never live around such nuisance. And there are times I dont even have time to notice the nuisance.

What is the dividing line here?

 

[HgTX]

This is reminding me of a recent "Dear Abby" (or similar advice column). Okay, it's not the same situation at all, but it's funny.

Someone wrote in saying that several times recently they've had to change their seating location in a restaurant because they just could not abide seeing others' terrible eating habits.

Was it people talking with their mouths full, chewing with their mouths open, washing their hands in their water glasses? No, it was their switching utensils from hand to hand (I guess American vs. European, though I thought it was American style that switched, and this writer was American) that this person found so loathsome they couldn't bear to watch.

I was disappointed that the advice columnist did not suggest that Gentle Reader seek therapy.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[SomptingGuy]

"Switching utensils from hand to hand"

We Brits have a very strict cutlery etiquette. I recall my old primary school headmaster patrolling the school hall at dinner time, telling kids off even if they held their forks the wrong way: "It's not a shovel".

Americans seem to use their hands if at all possible. If a fork must be used, it's held in the dominant hand. If a knife must be used, the fork is transferred to the other hand, used to hold food still while the dominant hand is used to cut the food. When cutting is complete, the the dominant hand resumes custody of the fork.

- Steve

 

[btrueblood]

"Americans seem to use their hands if at all possible"

Yes, they work better than our feet. UK types, being less evolved, presumably still retain prehensile toes...

 

[racookpe1978]

I'm wondering what will happen when the above - very numerous, very accurate, and very descriptive! - observers all find out they are all describing the same office .....

Still, to compare, all this makes me yearn for the glorious 12 hour days and 7 day weeks in a shiftwork (er, sh*twork) trailer in mud and gravel outside a field office trying to build things with a 12 foot extension cord, 2 foot wide (temporarily-cleared) space on a folding table on a mud-filled worn-through-holed linoleum floor in 98 degree August weather in 95 percent south Louisiana humidity ....

With the porta-poop potties overflowing outside and in the sun all day ....

 

[MikeHalloran]

You had gravel with your mud?
And a table?
And an extension cord?

Okay, I have an office job, in South Louisiana.
I'm even on the second floor now.

My prior office was also air conditioned, and only got damp when the canal came up through the adjacent factory floor, whenever it rained.

The possums in the ceiling were not a bother.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[RichCWUK]

i look forward to one day working in a office. What annoys me is during seminars and such, i look down the rows and someone is playing solitaire, during an event which they paid top brass to get into! Fools!

 

[jerry1423]

I am at a new job, and there is a guy (a computer geek who waits for phone calls) who sits next to my office and eats a bag of Fritos every freaking morning ... not the 1 oz vending size but the 14 oz (more of less) size, so for three hours I hear him eat, brush his hands off, and shove his hand back into the bag.

Why are most computer geeks such assholes?

 

[jmw]

God made them on an off day.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ctopher]

It's not just common to computer geeks, it's people in general without good parenting.

Chris
SolidWorks 09 SP4.1
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[remiw]

For me it's definitely the loud talking people using speaker phone that distracts me. Though, I wonder how many of us complaining have habits that annoy our cube-mates... I know I'm a culprit of cracking my knuckles every now and then.

I just started at a new job several weeks ago. They have my desk located in a corner in the shop/warehouse. They have tall shelving separating the area but that doesn’t stop any of the noise of drills, hammers, forklifts, random banging… Surprisingly I’ve been able to tune out and get used to most of the noise, but the electrical box and panel is located 2 metres directly above my head and it relentlessly buzzes.

A co-worker was asking me if I minded the noises and proceeded to tell me that the previous person to sit here was convinced that sitting below the electrical box for years is what gave him cancer...

I'm starting to think that sitting near the loud talkers wasn't that bad.

 

[PeterStock]

One place I worked we were in a regular office, but just outside of the office was a lab with pipes, etc. This was being torn out over the course of a couple of weeks. I was almost at the end of my rope when they were done. Prior to this that lab had the occasional small leak of a chemical used to give natural gas its smell. Much stronger than the smell of gas.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services

http://www.infotechpr.net

 

[patprimmer]

The guy in my example was eventually fired.

For a few years he managed to convince his boss that he inherited a train wreck and he was fixing it at a cost.

Part of the big staff turnover was due to his blaming all the old fogies with over 25 years of service for his failings.

Also the major product being legislated out of business was an excuse. It still did not explain why he could not manage a deal when he had by far the best market intelligence and the best infrastructure in the country to offer potential new generation partners. Distribution of refrigerant gasses is a very infrastructure intensive industry and that alone should have had suppliers lined up at his door.

Also his boss probably didn't want to admit his mistake. His boss also was pushed sideways and left with a useless post until retirement.

Regards
Pat
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