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Office Aromas


Toliver

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Lunch time at the office is driving me crazy.

There are designated lunch areas where employees can eat their lunches. But sometimes, when working with clients, lunch is served where the clients are...which, today, is right down the hall from my office.

Today, the hallways are filled with the aroma of deli sandwiches. I especially notice the smell of red onions (I'm guessing they're red or Bermuda onions since that's what most deli's use in their sandwiches and I am imagining them as thinly sliced with a slightly sweet taste :laugh: ).

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. But I seem to have this almost Pavlovian response to the smell of deli sandwich onions that is derailing my train of thought. My mouth starts to water and even though I've had lunch, I begin to crave a deli sandwich.

A related story:

In our former office building, our work areas were upstairs along with the employee lunchroom. Our floor had open stairways at both ends with the air flowing up one stairwell and back down the other. About once a week in the afternoon, one of our department members would pop microwave popcorn in the employee lunchroom and then, on purpose, stand at the top of the downdraft stairwell and open the hot bag. Within minutes, the downstairs employees would be marching up the stairs to buy something from the vending machines in the lunchroom. They never caught on to our "Pavlovian experiment".

On the bad side, there was the time one of the engineers reheated her lunch in the employee lunchroom microwave. Her lunch was some sort of fish that ended up stinking up both floors of our building. I swear we couldn't use that microwave again for about a year without the food coming out smelling like fish.

How are the food aromas at your office or workplace?

Do they cause you to drool and get hungry? :wub:

Or do they make you run for the nearest exit? :angry:

edited for clarity

Edited by Toliver (log)

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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Well fortunately people are not allowed to have food in their offices so we have a main kitchen/canteen and there is where we have our lunches.

I do not like people having food in open offices (mine is enclosed)

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On the bad side, there was the time one of the engineers reheated her lunch in the employee lunchroom microwave. Her lunch was some sort of fish that ended up stinking up both floors of our building. I swear we couldn't use that microwave again for about a year without the food coming out smelling like fish.

Did you and I work in the same place in 1997-98? I used to have a cubicle located right next to the kitchen where employees would heat and eat their lunches, it was pure torture. There were the Pavlovian drools when someone brought in something delicious (anything with bacon, microwave popcorn, or some nice soup).

Then there was the recurring fish smell like the one you describe above....although, in my case it was the Finance guy eating fish. He was so sweet and quiet, I didn't have the heart to tell him about the offending odor, but he ate fish every Friday, so I made sure I was out of the office. Don't get me wrong, I like fish, but not when I'm snacking on a banana in the next cubicle over. :huh:

my motto: taste, savor, share

circulation manager, imbibe magazine

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I hate eating at cafeterias, so I'm pretty tolerant of food smells at work. The one thing I can't stand is microwave popcorn. The smell makes me nauseous and it seems to linger for hours.

Maybe there should be a thread on people reactions to the smell of microwave popcorn being similar to reactions to the taste of cilantro. Half the population thinks its manna from the gods, the other half gets sick from it and can't imagine anyone liking it. The "level" of one's palate doesn't seem to enter into the equation either way.

edited to add: Why do people microwave fish anyway? Microwaved fish tastes worst than it smells (and I love fish).

Edited by jsmith (log)
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The best smelling aromas from the kitchen microwave in my workplace is nearly always food I've warmed up - lefotovers from hoem cooking.

But several years back one of my colleagues (who continues to deny it but credible sources pinpoint him as the culprit) decided to microwave a small bag of fried pork rinds. They smell like burning hair! I didn't eat lunch that day.

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A dozen years ago or so I worked in office of 20-some people. After one particularly bad fish day, a memo was sent around to everyone that they were not allowed to eat fish in the office.

I was really taken aback -- who the hell were they to tell me what I could and could not eat? A week or so later, a new employee came on board who had not seen the menu. She had heated up some left-over fish in the microwave and the office just reeked for days and days.

Okay, I relented... I can leave my fish-eating to evenings and while MY fish was always tasty and not smelly, I would not subject my co-workers to smelling my fishy left-overs.

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I hate eating at cafeterias, so I'm pretty tolerant of food smells at work.  The one thing I can't stand is microwave popcorn.  The smell makes me nauseous and it seems to linger for hours.

Maybe there should be a thread on people reactions to the smell of microwave popcorn being similar to reactions to the taste of cilantro.  Half the population thinks its manna from the gods, the other half gets sick from it and can't imagine anyone liking it.  The "level" of one's palate doesn't seem to enter into the equation either way.

So true! I hate the smell of microwave popcorn - so nice to know I'm not the only one!

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The other day, I brought an already-cooked chicken sausage from home for breakfast (which I routinely eat at my desk). I ate it cold--no microwave smell. A co-worker commented (in a really snotty voice), "Don't you think it's a little EARLY for garlic?"

I look for garlicky sausage to bring now! :raz:

Life is short. Eat the roasted cauliflower first.

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Bring durain to work.  That'll show 'em!

I'm bringing durian muffins to work next week, if things go as planned. Who knows - maybe I'll find some converts! They certainly wouldn't eat it if they knew what it was...

David aka "DCP"

Amateur protein denaturer, Maillard reaction experimenter, & gourmand-at-large

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Hmmm. My desk is on the second floor, where we have 2 breakrooms complete with fridge, huge coffee maker, sink, and vending machines, but no microwave. For that we have to go downstairs to the dining room outside the cafeteria. We always bitch not having a microwave up here, but this thread makes me think that might not be a bad thing!

"Nothing you could cook will ever be as good as the $2.99 all-you-can-eat pizza buffet." - my EX (wonder why he's an ex?)

My eGfoodblog: My corner of the Midwest

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We have both a microwave and a toaster oven in our office space. I don't mind microwave smells--in Japan you get a lot of fish-based lunches. But I do mind the smell of burnt bread. Our toaster oven runs very hot, and people repeatedly leave their baked goods in the oven for too long, resulting in the smell of burnt bread wafting through the office (and through the hallway, and the nearby classrooms). It's the same people every time, too.

What pisses me off even more is people who don't clean their splatters off the inside of the microwave or their crumbs or cheese drips off the inside of the toaster oven. That stuff gets smellier and smellier with every subsequent use of the appliance (and harder to clean, too).

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My office is close to the kitchen, too. I dislike it when someone makes microwave popcorn, but really hate it when some idiot puts a bag in, and burns the hell out of it. That smell just will not go away fast enough, worse is when they do it in the winter and open the door to air the kitchen out. Like my office isn't already cold enough.

But then there was the consultant whose Indian wife used to make the most delicious-smelling lunches...

I know what you mean about no one cleaning up thier own spills. After the way some people leave the kitchen, I'm really leary about eating the stuff they bring or the occasional pot-luck lunches. Who knows what the kitchen at home looks like?

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