There is a person at the office who brings the most foul smelling lunch to work every day. That person stinks up the kitchen, and the hallway they walk in, every time they heat up their lunch. The smell is so bad it’s like rotten booty.
Nobody has said anything to the person about how badly their food smells, but they must know. How could you not right? Rich wants to confront the person and let them know that their food smells & everyone hates it when the kitchen is stunk up by it. Nicole and Stan say no way. Confronting the person is just asking for awkwardness.
What do you think? Would you confront someone who brings smelly food to the office? Do you think it’s OK to? What’s the protocol?
I think he needs to know. You should tell him. You don’t have to be rude about. You don’t have to tell him in front of everybody at the office, pull him aside and say something. Especially if it’s bugging everydoy at the office. Good luck
I have an co-worker of Indian descent and his food realllly stinks up the office kitchen, microwave and leaves a trail through the office. His breath also is awful and we want to say something to him, but don’t want to hurt his feelings. Like Heidi said above, I’ll probably confront him privately because it’s getting to be quite disgusting.
People will not know anything unless you say something, sometimes they don’t realize what they doing, just approach quietly and tell the coworker what is going on, plain decorum; now, after you say something still no change I will go to the next step. I will take the responsible to HR for creating a nauseating and intolerable work environment all that in writing of course so there is no confusion with words. Offices should smell like paper and perhaps rug cleaner and from time to time OLD COLD coffee that is all; nothing else should be there.
Maybe he thinks it smells good? I mean even if you talk to him, what can he do? He probably brings leftovers from dinner because maybe he can’t afford to buy lunch? And he doesn’t know how to make anything else?
I’m guessing he’ll apologize but might not stop because he’s techincally not breaking any rules. I don’t think HR can do anything because I’m assuming it’s ethnic food (or popcorn lol), so it’s touchy subject for HR. I guess you can leave air freshner in the kitchen and hope for the best.
Besides if the person is listening to the show, he might already know :p
I laughed when I read the topic, reminded me of my Mom’s egg-salad sandwitches she give us to take to school.
I have some one in my family that loves to cook and make different things all the time, 2/5 of those times they make something that smells really bad and looks even worse but I dont say anything to them cause I dont wont to hurt there feelings.
What ever it is they make no matter how bad it smells or looks to me, to them its great. So I think even if you do tell this person about there food stincking up the office that if they like it enough they will contiue to bring it to work and eat it.
Hey guys, along these lines. If you like boiled eggs there is a way to eat them at work without anyone knowing. Buy then pre-pealed and store bought in a bag. They don’t smell! Now I’ve read the package and there is nothing in the bag that is going to kill anyone. I eat them almost 3 times a week and have asked coworkers if they smell FOR REAL and they say surprisingly no.
Karen TAMPA