As employees try to meet their organization’s productivity demands, many decide that eating while working is an easy way to keep up with daily tasks. The challenge with eating and working is that there may be someone sitting in the next cube over who is sensitive to a variety of odors.
Cubicles, with their low walls and absent ceilings, can allow aroma and sound to travel for an undetermined period of space in the office. While one employee is eating, many others have to endure the scent and sound the food produces.
Eating in the Cubicle
Certain foods will have stronger scents than others. While an individual cubicle may only fit one employee at a time, there are others using the cubes in the balance of the office. Employees should strive to be good cube neighbors. They have a responsibility to understand that there are others who may not want to smell what they are eating.
This short list is representative of foods whose scent will carry from one cube to the next. This not an all inclusive list and there may be other foods that can impact a co-worker in the next cube over:
- Eggs
- Fried foods
- Hamburgers
- Spaghetti Sauce
- Popcorn
- Chips
- Sunflower seeds
Aroma is not the only offender. Some foods are loud to eat, and the sound of crunching chips or spitting seed shells can also be annoying to others. While offending employees may experience an increase in their productivity, their annoying behavior will cause a drop in productivity for those around them. For the organization, this is a net zero for productivity and has a potential negative impact if complaints are filed with the Human Resources department.
Eating in the Break Room
Break rooms were constructed so employees could vacate their desks, take a break, and enjoy their meal or snack. When employees enter the break room, there is an understanding that there will be a variety of sounds and smells based on the nature of what others are preparing to eat. Employees also have a choice to not enter a break room, if they so desire.
Employees need to take advantage of the break room space and leave the desk for work only. They would do well to consider how they may feel if a coworker introduced a meal that they find offensive into their cubicle environment. In order to be sensitive to the rest of the employees in the office, it is recommended that food stay in the break room and stay out of the cubicle.
Jennifer Streeter - For the past twenty years, author and executive coach Jennifer Streeter has been managing, coaching, and leading employees in a variety of ...
