Workplace safety has reached a new low: lunch

By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
May 22, 2002

A downtown office worker was so offended by the smell of a colleague’s spicy lunch, she called security. Now that’s passive aggressive.
       
Food can divide and conquer an office. Share a fresh-baked batch of cookies with your colleagues and you’re the department fave. But bring in a smelly bowl of soup for lunch and those same employees may turn on you faster than you can say, “I have enough to share.”
       
The problem: too much food. Maybe it happened when so many of us stopped going out to lunch. Whatever the reason, today’s workplace is overflowing with food. It’s everywhere and there is just so darn much of it. There hardly seems to be a workplace these days that isn’t brimming with edibles. Bagels and coffee in the mornings, Thai food delivered at noontime, followed by cake (again!) for someone’s birthday.
       
Sure, you can bond over a plate of cookies or a piping hot pizza. But it hardly helps matters when so many of us are trying to maintain or lower our weight, says the American Dietetic Association. More Americans are paying closer attention to healthful eating messages and acting on them, taking note of portion sizes, for instance.
       
For those trying to win the battle of the bulge, the workplace as eight hours of constant eating can be a minefield.
       
“There isn’t a lot of time to go out for lunch anymore,” says Angie Lang, an office manager in Morton Grove. “Like many places, we have fewer employees than we used to a couple years ago who have to do the work of two people. We usually end up bringing lunch and eating together. Sometimes, we just snack all day long on cookies and chips and diet soda. Everyone’s pretty good about sharing, so there haven’t been any problems.”
       
Needless to say, alerting security about a smelly dish is an office faux pas that is easily avoidable, etiquette experts say.
       
“Because we are in such a diverse workplace, people bring all kinds of foods that emit odors that people haven’t gotten accustomed to yet,” says Giovinella Gonthier, author of Rude Awakenings: Overcoming the Civility Crisis in the Workplace (Dearborn Trade, $25). “Either the odor is offensive, or it gives people cravings. We tell people to be a little more conscious and considerate. You don’t know if you neighbor is dying of hunger pangs. Our advice is to go to the lunchroom.”
       
But the lunchroom also may elicit a “might-makes-right” attitude that can divide and conquer. On one side are the people happily eating the lunches they’ve carefully prepared the night before. On the other, the poachers who believe anything left in a communal fridge is theirs for the taking.
       
“Stealing food from the office refrigerator is one of the most common workplace dilemmas, even at high-end corporations,” Gonthier says. “It’s not a light matter.”
       
The solution? Try e-mailing everyone in your unit, saying you won’t tolerate theft of any kind.
       
“[Stealing food] may seem petty, but it’s annoying to get your food stolen,” Gonthier says.
       
Mancow Muller suffers from a different food dilemma. It’s no coincidence Muller has had a 50-pound weight fluctuation during his eight years on air in Chicago. Restaurants and vendors constantly inundate the popular Q101 radio personality with free food to sample–La Scarola, Buca di Beppo, Chipotle Grill and Dairy Queen to name a few. They send over enough “to feed a thousand people” so there’s no hoarding.
       
“The food thing is out of control,” Muller says. “It’s very tough, because I’ve been trying to do the no-carb diet–the Atkins thing. But there’s something about free anything that makes it taste better.”
       
Though he works with a woman who can polish off two Whitman Samplers a day and still “look gorgeous,” office snacking is more problematic for him. His crew members relish licking their fingers around him, eating slowly and making orgasmic sounds to signal their pleasure with the free chow they get.
       
“Food tends to taste better around people who are dieting,” he says.
       
Not all office food sharers are trying to sabotage a diet, though.
       
“There are some people who are very giving and they enjoy baking, making things and sharing with other people,” says the American Dietetic Association’s Diane Quagliani. “There are people who have certain foods in their house they’re too tempted by and they bring it in to share. We see this at Halloween. There are a lot of high-calorie goodies that don’t make it easy to eat healthy. You have to decide who is going to be in charge of your eating or you are going to fall prey to anyone who brings something in whether you’re hungry or not.”
       
Let’s face it. Sharing a meal–or a snack–is a social event and you don’t want to be seen as the one who never participates at office gatherings. But at the same time, you also don’t want to pack extra pounds on your hips keeping everyone happy.
       
“There are ways to get around that,” Quagliani says. “If there are goodies or a birthday party or whatever, say, ‘I just finished lunch. I’m not hungry right now.’ It’s important to just be there, to participate in the occasion.”
       
And we know about the office moocher who has a sixth sense for sniffing out snacks. If you want to share, fine. But be assertive in protecting your right to eat that bag of chips by yourself.
       
“When a person comes to eat your food yet again, say, ‘It really seems we love the same kind of snacks. Let’s start alternating–you bring some next week,’ ” she suggests. “That should stop someone in their tracks. Or you could say in a very nice way, ‘Gosh, it seems like you’re really hungry a lot.’ “
       
At the College of St. Catherine in Minneapolis, one office has instituted a policy so one person doesn’t get stuck bringing in the treats for the baker’s dozen of employees.
       
“We set a schedule of Tuesday Treats,” Julie Michener says. “Everyone is assigned a Tuesday and that morning you bring whatever you want. This has worked out as an equitable way to spread responsibility for treats equally and manage the moochers. It also gives you the opportunity to eat less that morning if you have a hard time avoiding treats, or schedule meetings at that time to avoid them!”