# Break room etiquette - Is there any? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 26, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914 "2009-03-26T20:46:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stainz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Stainz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stainz)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/21 "2009-03-27T16:37:02Z")
What about the “issue” of removing someone’s food from the microwave after the timer goes off? People in my office are notorious for putting their food in, turning it on, then going back to their desks to do more work. Sometimes the food sits in the micro for 10-15 minutes after it’s finished heating … because no-one wants to take it out - they think it’s rude? WTF? To me it’s like a laundromat - if someone’s stuff is just sitting in a machine, and you need that machine, you carefully take it out, set it aside, and carry on with what you need to do. Am I wrong? Am I rude? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/22 "2009-03-27T16:53:54Z")
> [@Stainz](#): > > Am I wrong? Am I rude? After the timer rings, you should wait a decent interval, maybe 15 seconds for your coworkers to walk back from the vending machine or cube. After that, fair game. I’d leave some more slack in the off-meal hours, but if it’s lunchtime and there’s a line I’d probably move the lunch of a vanished coworker in even less time. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/23 "2009-03-27T16:59:00Z")
I don’t have a problem nuking my food or waiting my turn. It’s just the way it is. What does bug me is when the timer has dinged and no one is there to remove the food from the microwave. Do I take it out? Do they need to stir it and heat it some more? I leave the break room long enough to make a bathroom visit, but I’m back before the microwave is done. ETA: :o At our work the fridge is cleaned and everything is tossed weekly. We had some people get very upset that their Tupperware was tossed, but hey, there’s a big honking sign on the door. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/24 "2009-03-27T18:57:46Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Compared to what’s happening in the fridge, it’s usually not that big a deal. What goes on in your fridge? :dubious: [QUOTE=Stainz] Sometimes the food sits in the micro for 10-15 minutes after it’s finished heating … because no-one wants to take it out - they think it’s rude? WTF? To me it’s like a laundromat - if someone’s stuff is just sitting in a machine, and you need that machine, you carefully take it out, set it aside, and carry on with what you need to do. Am I wrong? Am I rude? [/QUOTE] Hell no, you’re not rude. It’s true, some people aren’t present the exact nanosecond the microwave dings, so if you take people’s food out immediately after the chime sounds, you’re being kind of toolish. But the people who take trips to Paris and return three weeks later while their burrito cools in the microwave are even more toolish (toolisher?). Take your goddamn food out already; and if you don’t, I’ll take it out myself. But since we’re talking about laundry rooms, what realy chaps my hide is when people put your clothes on the floor. Listen already, I know you’re in a hurry to dry your clothes, and so am I, but there are courtesy baskets and carts all over this laundry room, and a table, and chairs, and the tops of the dryers themselves (the dryers in my bulding’s laundry room front loads, so it’s especially easy to place people’s clothing atop the dryer), so why in the name of Elijah Craig would you toss other people’s clothing onto the floor? Scentsitivity? Classic. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/25 "2009-03-27T19:22:01Z")
**leaffan** , nobody’s saying that no one should ever be allowed to reheat any kind of fish or seafood dish ever because of our oh so special snowflake sniffers. I love fish and seafood, too, but I’m the first one to tell you that reheated fish tends to smell pretty foul, no matter how great it smelled the night before. Especially oily fish, like salmon. And the smell _clings_, instead of dispersing like most other food smells. Heating up something that might smell bad and bother one or two sensitive people doesn’t make you a dick. Heating up something you know is going to smell kinda bad, but you also know will disperse and won’t bother people for more than 10 minutes or so doesn’t make you a dick. Heating up something you know will smell bad and don’t realize will hang in the air and nauseate half the staff doesn’t make you a dick. But _repeatedly_ bringing in something you _know_ is going to smell bad and hang in the air and nauseate most of the staff, that does indeed make you rather a dick. Now, it’s a free country, and a person has the right to be a dick, but everybody else also has a right to talk about what a dick that person is. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/26 "2009-03-27T19:34:55Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Umm, ya but who made you or your coworkers the sniff experts? I have worked with lots of Viet Namese, Chinese, Korean and other workers who have every right to warm their lunch dishes. These folks like seafood and who are you to discriminate against them because your olfactory senses are impinged upon. Like I said, get over it. It’s only a smell, a smell from a perfectly edible food source. Grow up. Gah…I’m sure that whatever my Asian coworkers are eating smells delicious to them, but there is a reason I avoid the break room around lunchtime. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/27 "2009-03-27T19:50:13Z")
> [@Valgard](#): > > We also have a “scentsitivity” policy (yes, an actual policy by that name) posted on all floors (amusingly, the poster on my floor is three feet from the microwave) reminding people that some folks are allergic to some strong odors. As it happens, I was visiting a different office this morning. Someone overcooked something for breakfast that involved chilies and resulted in what was to me an unpleasant odor, but forced someone else with asthma to leave the building for a while. And I’ve heard of companies banning microwave popcorn because of the disruption from when burned popcorn set off the smoke detectors and forced a building-wide evacuation. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/28 "2009-03-27T19:52:13Z")
My basic rule of breakroom etiquette, which it seems I’m one of the few that follow, is: If you didn’t bring it, or haven’t been invited (either explicitly and personally or implicitly as a member of the office workforce) to partake, leave it the fuck alone! I think people stealing food and beverage out of the fridge is a much worse problem than who’s hogging the microwaves. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/29 "2009-03-27T19:53:08Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > What goes on in your fridge? :dubious: Evolution. Some of those colonies are ready for space travel. I’m talking about the fridge at work, of course. \*My \*fridge is cleaner than the Dali Lama’s thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914/30 "2009-03-27T21:52:09Z")
Sounds wonderful. I once had a job that banned popcorn because nobody could figure out how not to burn it. They came very close from banning use of the microwave altogether for various reasons, all of which I’m sure you can imagine. I quit after something like two months. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/break-room-etiquette-is-there-any/490914.md?page=1)