Noisy eating by colleagues tops the list of office irritants, according to a new UK survey. Researchers found that as many as 74 per cent people find they are too busy to leave the office for the traditional hour lunch break.
It seems to be having a huge negative impact on the working environment — with food causing the majority of office frustrations, the Daily Mail reported.
The habit tops messiness, lateness and people moaning about feeling ill, researchers said. The study found 57 per cent of 2,500 Brits, said noisy eaters were the most annoying of their colleagues. A further 26 per cent said they couldn’t stand smelly food while they were trying to work.
However, the participants said they would rather suffer in silence than do something about it — 83 per cent avoid a confrontation by keeping gripes to themselves.
Men are slightly bolder when it comes to actively dealing with an issue — 20 per cent will tackle it, compared to 14 per cent of women. The most popular method of tackling the problem is face-to-face but two per cent admit they would rather do it via email, the report said.
Researchers also found lateness was a gripe for 75 per cent of British workers as well as colleagues who don’t listen or talk over others. While “noisy eating” tops the list of office gripes, “messy colleagues” stand at number two followed by ‘Not washing up’ at number three, “smelly food” (4) and “lateness” at number 5. “Not listening” stood at number six in office gripes, “colleagues talking over you” at 7, followed by “clicking pens” (8),“personal phone calls” at number nine and “complaining of illness” at number 10.