Dear Richard Madeley: ‘My colleagues all noisily eat smelly breakfasts at their desks’

Dear Richard

I have worked for a small company very happily for the past 10 years. Until recently I shared a small office with one other person, and met with colleagues in various offices and meeting rooms. However, we have now moved and are all now in one open-plan office.

The majority of my colleagues, including the office manager, head off around 11am to make their breakfast in the kitchen, bringing avocado on toast and cereal back, then sit and munch and crunch. I find the noise, disturbance and even smell, to say nothing of the detritus that tends to linger into the afternoon, really unpleasant. As I work part-time, I tend not to eat at the office. But I don’t feel I can say anything.

I think it might be time to look for another job. Would this be a trivial reason for leaving? Should I just try to get used to it?

–Lisa, via email

Dear Lisa

One person’s trivia is another’s tsunami. Yes, you’re definitely the odd one out here, but you can’t help the way you’re programmed to react to multiple breakfasts being devoured on all sides.

But look. The problem is that if you quit, you may simply be jumping out of one frying pan into another. Who’s to say your next employer doesn’t have the same relaxed approach to staff downing their petit dejeuner al desko?

And what if you’re asked at the interview why you’re quitting your current job? What will you say? “The noisy, smelly breakfasts”? Or will you demand to know what their policy on eating in front of the laptop is? You see the difficulty, Lisa. You could come across as a tad obsessive.

I think it would be a real shame for you to surrender your current job simply because of this morning hiatus. My advice is to stick it out for a while longer; see if repetition slowly desensitises you. If it doesn’t, then fine, cast your net elsewhere. Just take care you don’t swap annoying avocados for bacon butties. The latter are considerably whiffier.