Ahh. This is such a pet hate of mine! Clipping nails is something you do in the bathroom at home. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen people do it on the train, and then just leave all the clippings on the seat for the next person to sit on. It is revolting!
What exactly is revolting about it? I shake hands with people every day who probably just finished wiping themselves and didn’t wash their hands. Now that’s revolting. But little micro-slivers of inanimate keratin? Not so much.
When I moved into my current office, the first thing I did was clean out the desk of the previous occupant. The guy was saving his fingernail clippings in one of those little compartment tray dealies where you keep paper clips and thumb tacks. I think the guy was a nut for saving them, but not especially tactless for clipping them off in the office. I scooped them out with my bare hands (without even wearing a hazmat suit) and carrier them off to the trash can. I dusted my hands off and went back to the office.
Why is it OK to touch the fingernails of strangers as you shake their hands but it’s disgusting to touch them once the are detached from the body?
Seems like this is one of those things that’s icky for no good reason.
I’m very jealous of all of you who have private offices with doors. Naturally you can do whatever you want behind those doors without offending anybody.
I love the idea that the twenty seconds you spend clipping a nail is time you’re stealing from your employer. As if most people in this thread aren’t posting from work.
MHO is there’s nothing wrong with clipping nails at work, relatively discreetly.
0_o
Its a few clipping noises. No big deal. Hell, one of my coworkers gives himself his insulin shots right in the break room in front of everyone else eating. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Right! Too many people have got too many qualms about little things.
Once I was attending a taping of some TV show in NYC and there was the typical post-9/11 bag/pocket check. I happened to have a couple of nail clippers on me (because I had misplaced the first one in my pocket); the small variety that costs a dollar, max. From their reaction, the pocket checkers seemed to have felt they had foiled a major terrorist attack.
As you may have guessed, I don’t see the grossness, though I agree one should catch the clippings with something.
You need to start hanging with a better group of people.
I do it once in a while to repair a broken nail so it only consists of one clip, possibly two and I’m not leaving for the bathroom to protect the sensibilities of co-workers “grossed out” by it. I think coughing and sneezing are worse but don’t expect people to leave their desks to do it.
Coughing and sneezing are generally sudden onset, involuntary actions. And guess what… if I feel a good coughing or sneezing fit coming on, I do get myself to the restroom.
Hey, if you don’t think it’s gross, that’s fine. If you think it’s silly to think it’s gross, that’s fine too. But since you know that lots of people DO think it’s gross, and do it anyway, well… that’s awfully rude, donchya think?
There are lots of people who think my wearing sandals is gross. I’m not going to kowtow to their prissy sensibilities.
But just to be nice, I won’t take out my nail clippers and make sounds *as if *I’m clipping my nails just to drive them insane.
I trimmed my nails at work today and thought of you all fondly. 
Ok, what if I brushed my hair, and then plucked the hairs out of the brush and let them waft to the floor, desk, chair? Would that be gross?
That’s the best analogy I can come up with that’s equivalent to clipping nails. I was brought up not to brush my hair at the dinner table, in the lunchroom, standing in the street, etc. I guess I equate clipping nails and their leavings with something like that. It’s just not something proper people do.
And the snick…snick…snick… it’s really annoying.
I draw the line at toe nails
No.
Now, let us separate polite and gross. Neither of these are gross. In the case of fingernails, one quick “snick” and a little filing on a broken nail is perfectly OK. More than that is *impolite.
*
Okay, so the coworker in the next cube over has taken part in his self-manicuring on a nearly daily basis at this point. How do I politely tell him to knock it off?
I cannot understand why this is an issue and I have never done it myself. You should not tell them to knock it off. It is your problem and not theirs.
This is precisely what I do. I rank it as being up there with keeping feminine hygiene products and a toothbrush in my desk drawer in case of emergency.
Doing the full ten-finger clip at work is weird and a sign that you have too much time on your hands, but I don’t see it as inherently gross.
Reading this, if I were your assistant (granted, not that your assistant is asking for my opinion), but:
I would move my trash to a very inconvenient location. Say - under my desk and between my legs and the wall.
The offender would then have to risk feeling me up to get to MY trash or clip directly onto the floor, like the barbarian they are.
Either way - I win!
Clipping nails at work is perfectly fine and acceptable–get used to it. I don’t do it at work, though.
I do floss in my cube, especially if I’ve just eaten something and can feel things caught in my teeth–but I turn away so it’s not in full view. If I had a cold and I needed to, I may blow my nose in my cube–I’m not going to get up to go to the restroom every time I feel a dribble.
Me too. I use cuticle scissors to trim my fingernails, and I wouldn’t be bothered if people did that at work, since they make essentially no noise. But a sequence of a few dozen of those sharp little noises of the nail clippers just drives me up the wall.
Fortunately, when it happens, it’s usually over in a few minutes, but it always seems like a loooong few minutes.