Keep in it your own office or the bathroom, and not a shared area – where the clippings are left on the carpet, slobs.
It’s not, and anyone who thinks it is acceptable is mistaken. Personal grooming habits should be tended to in private. If you have a hang-nail that needs to be tended, go to the restroom. If you want to click your nails, do it at home.
As i was reading your story, i had the exact same thought as your assistant. By mentioning it to you, and saying that she doesn’t know what to do in this situation, she made it very clear that she was looking for some guidance, at least, and probably some active assistance from you.
Does the nail-clipper outrank your assistant? If so, it’s easy to see why your assistant would be worried about direct confrontation. Does the nail-clipper outrank you? If not, i think it would be completely appropriate for you to help your assistant out here.
At the very least, you should make clear to your assistant that, if she asks the nail-clipper “What the fuck are you thinking?” and it leads to problems, you will support your assistant.
Just MHO.
In my line of work, broken nails are a common occurrence, and we keep a manicure set right by our work area for quick trimming of torn nails over the waste basket. No one thinks anything of it because it happens as a part of work. But an extended trimming session? No way.
I shared an office with a guy who did this and I found it to be odd. I don’t guess it hurt anything, but I found it odd and would not do it myself.
Why can’t your assistant point out to the offender that it’s no longer a common space and is now her office, and that going in there to cut her fingernails is unacceptable? Is the offender blind? Can she not realise that someone’s actually working in there and that it looks more like an office than a lunch room?
Personally, I keep a nail file in my drawer to sort out snagged nails but that’s as much as I do in the office. Serious nail trimming is done at home because mine need to be trimmed, filed and buffed so it takes a little while to do the job properly and I wouldn’t feel right about doing that in the office.
I’ve sat in sales meetings with a customer who routinely picked his nose and wiped the result on his shirt or pants. Since he was ‘the customer’, we (the sales team) never said anything to him about it, but you can imagine the discussions before and afterwards!
This is also a guy who called in sick to attend an anti-abortion rally and ended up getting his picture in the paper which was subsequently posted all over his workplace!
I was just thinking about that this morning, as I was clipping my nails (at home, so calm down, folks). The sound of my own nails being clipped actually seems almost comforting, but the sound of someone else’s (which, so far as I can tell, is exactly the same sound) gives me the heebies and the jeebies.
With that said, I’ve been know to occasionally clip my nails at work, in my office with (presumably) no one knowing the better. Er, with the scissors from my desk if nothing else is available. Oh yeah, and I’m just the sort of person that if someone asked to borrow my scissors, I probably would forget to mention that I just cut my nails with them.
Probably TMI, but:
I just keep mine trimmed by biting them off in private. Am I the only one who does this?
I’ll file mine if one has caught on something and torn on the way to work, but I’m not sure my nail clippers have left my bathroom since I bought them. Maybe they just don’t grow fast enough that they need emergency clipping.
Nope.
Eesh, for whatever reason, the sound of nails being clipped drives me up the wall. It’s like nails on a chalkboard – I guess nails are meant to be seen and not heard in general.
What are you, a logger?
Awesome!!!
If fingernail clipping in public becomes acceptable behaviour, can nose hair trimming, anal bleaching, etc be next?:eek:
I never saw any issue with it (and certainly wouldn’t be bothered at all by anyone else doing it), until a coworker went batshit crazy on me about it one day. I noticed a nail was a little longer than usual, and it was hampering my typing, so I gave it a quick snipping.
“Oh my God, are you actually cutting your nails? At work?! That’s so fucking gross how could you do that and blah blah blah…”
Errr…it’s a fingernail, you fricking wackjob. It was a three second job, and now it’s done – stop acting like a took a dump in the garbage can.
Still, in deference to her, I stopped doing it in my cube. It simply never occurred to me that someone would be that sensitive over such a non-issue. Another one for my list of reasons I’m thankful every day that my company went to telecommuting.
I clip my nails all the time at my cubicle but I don’t really see what the big deal is. Its dry, there is no wet detritus laying around, and they’re so small that you wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it. I don’t really get the whole disgust feeling people seem to have towards hair and nails. My nails are clean for the most part and it remains in my vicinity until the night custodial crew vacuums them up.
I used to have a very big problem chewing on my nails so now I bring clippers with me almost everywhere I go. I’d rather someone clip them than see them hungrily devouring their fingers and wiping the spit on their pants.
Right, it’s no big deal.
Who claims it isn’t acceptable behavior? Are you Miss Manners?
OK, I asked. NO ONE noticed. Maybe its becasue everyone has a headset on and can’t hear any clipping. My clipper catches the nails and I throw them in the trash, no one is eating around them.
I occasionally do it at work, and sometimes borrow a colleague’s clippers to do it. Neither her nor the two people sitting next to me seem to mind.
Do you at least TRY to get them to land in the garbage can?