My colleague threatened to report me to HR for allegedly making her ‘food-shamed’
An office worker told about the argument she had with her colleague over their shared microwave.
She recounted how her colleague accused her of “food shaming” and threatened to report her over the issue.
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In her Reddit afterUser Runaway_Smoke explained how she almost ended up in HR when she made an unimportant comment about someone’s lunch.
“I was sitting at my desk working when I smelled this really bad odor,” she said.
She described how the smell spread throughout the office and became increasingly difficult to tolerate.
“I tried to ignore it, but it became so overwhelming that I looked away from my headphones for a moment and quietly asked, ‘Did someone microwave fish?’” the Redditor wrote.
The office worker explained that she had not meant to speak to anyone directly and that she was simply wondering what the lingering smell was.
However, the perpetrator, who was within earshot, reacted defensively to her lunch.
“I heard my colleague mumble something and asked her to repeat it,” the poster reads.
“She said, ‘Yes, it was me. Don’t make fun of me or I’ll go to HR.'”
The Reddit user explained why she found the situation so “infuriating.”
“We have a big café downstairs where she could have heated up her food,” she said.
“Instead, she chose to heat it up in our communal kitchen, causing the entire office floor to stink.”
She added that she was further irritated by her colleague’s overreaction.
“The fact that she threatened to go to HR so easily is beyond me,” she said.
While the Redditor admitted she also likes fish, she explained that she would never eat it at work.
She also said that this was the only meeting she had with her colleague, apart from saying “good morning” and “goodbye”.
What foods should you ALWAYS keep in the refrigerator?
THE ‘King of Bread’ Paul Hollywood has said that you should never keep bread in the fridge. But what foods SHOULD you keep in it?
According to EUFICAccording to the European Food Safety Authority, these are some of the most important foods you should always keep in the fridge.
- Apples
- Berries
- Butter
- Cheese
- Eggs (boiled or uncooked)
- Fish (cooked or raw)
- Fresh herbs
- Lemons
- Meat (cooked or raw)
- Milk
- Oranges
- Pickles (if opened)
- Lettuce leaves
- Tomatoes
- Yogurt
Reddit users shared their thoughts on the situation in the comments.
“People will be surprised to learn that ‘Stinky’ is not a legally protected category of employee,” one reader joked.
“Go to HR yourself and tell them she threatened to report you just for asking what caused the smell to be so distracting,” another commenter suggested.
“Then let her go to HR, I’m 100% sure HR will agree with you and tell her to heat up the food in that cafe. That smell can prevent you from doing your job properly,” a third person commented.
“Funny, we just got a note from HR saying you can’t eat strong smelling foods in the workplace,” one Reddit user wrote.
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