Why do coworkers feel a need to make disparaging comments on the food I am eating during lunch?
I am a light eater… I usually just eat some sandwich meat (usually turkey) and a cup of yogurt during lunch. I eat at my desk, in my office.
Coworker #1 comes in my office. “[sarcasm]Mmm, that looks good![/sarcasm] A week’s worth of salt and nitrates. Mmmmmm, yummy.”
This irritated me a bit, but I ignored his comments and continued eating.
Twenty minutes later I was holding my cup of Kroger low-fat yogurt when coworker #2 comes in my office.
“Yogurt?!?! Are you aware that’s a dairy product? I don’t eat dairy products anymore. My neighbor is a dairy farmer, but he’s one of the good ones. But he has told me stories about some of the practices of *other *dairy farmers. You see, when a cow’s teats are infected, they should not be milked; their milk is contaminated with puss and bacteria. But many farmers go ahead and milk them anyway, and no one will know since all the farmers’ milk gets mixed together in the same truck. So it’s likely your yogurt contains milk from cows with infected teats.”
At that point I wasn’t sure what to do. Coworker #2 is actually my government customer, so I didn’t want to say anything to him to piss him off. (He’s a high-strung guy, and gets quite animated when he feels someone is challenging him.) So I just set aside the yogurt out of concern I would gross him out. He eventually left my office and I continued eating.
Why do people insist on making rude comments about my choice of food for lunch? Fuck off and go eat your own damn lunch.
Because they weren’t raised any better. I think “Fuck off and go eat your own damn lunch” pretty much covers it.
By the way, I support this rant. I have had the occasional co-worker who felt the need to comment on my food, and it always shocks me by how rude it is. What anyone else is eating is well and truly no one else’s business (unless they’re heating fish in the microwave - then they need to get told).
The issue of rudeness aside, is that guy aware that yogurt necessarily contains bacteria? And, furthermore, that pasteurization would presumably kill whatever bacteria was present in the milk initially? Now, there are real problems with antibiotics that end up in milk because farmers use them to treat infected cows, but bacteria are not the concern.
Anyway, I like eating boiled cow tongue. What now?
Aren’t you one of those guys who climbs power poles with spiked boots, or something?
I thought you guys ate pastrami and pimento cheese sandwiches out of of scuffed aluminum lunch pails. Since when did they start hiring liberal pussies who whine about nitrates and dairy products?
My first thought was that he goes to the fridge in the break room, pulls out the paper bag with his sammich and yoghurt, and somebody has written on it “You ugly, and yo momma dress you funny!”
Speaking as somebody who’s actually worked in a commercial dairy farm, that’s ridiculous. The buyers take bacteria very seriously so the farmers do as well. There’s testing and sanitizing all over the place. There’s no way any farmer is going to casually pass on some infected milk, confident that nobody will notice.
You should have suggested that the reason he was so cranky is that he might be constipated, and perhaps some yogurt would help.
(BTW, ever try putting yogurt in the freezer for a few hours? It’s really good that way!)
You’d be surprised. Don’t know what the OP does for living, but even burly rough and tumble jobs have their fair share of “this is what you should/should not be eating” types. People who depend heavily on their bodies being strong to function, many of whom were once athletes, often have definite opinions about health and nutrition, often more so than office workers.
I get comments on my food, too, and I hate it. I hate even being asked what I am eating - the only time I don’t mind is when it’s “ooo, that smells good, what is it?” But I get asked just because. “What do you have today?” just to make conversation?
I fucking hate it when people comment on my food. Yes, I’m cutting sushi squares off of a live fish. No, I don’t care about the mercury levels in my food. GAWD. I hate people.
As long as it isn’t causing you pain when you do, then eat whatever the hell you like. Healthy, unhealthy, weird and flavourless, obscure with many legs, squishy and still squirming, I don’t care. It’s your stomach, your business.
Try being a vegetarian at Christmas dinner, eating lentils and vegetables while everybody else eats every meat under the sun.
“WHAT. IS. THAT?!” (in a tone suggesting I’d just dragged in a dead cat from the road)
It’s food, you big WANKER, what are YOU eating? Oh that’s right, I don’t give a shit, just like you shouldn’t give a shit what I’m eating.
I hate when people comment on my food. Fuck the fuck off. You would think the vegetarian would be judging everybody else for eating meat, but instead it’s them bothering me about how gross what I’m eating is.
