62% of American workers are extremely or very satisfied with their relationship with their manager or supervisor, and 67% say the same about their relationship with their colleagues. But Reddit user Ehtio isn’t part of that group.
In a post on r/AITAH, they described the conflict that has been brewing between them and a woman from the office, “Anna,” who has been using the shared company fridge to store dozens of homemade meals, leaving little room for anyone else’s food.
The office has its own etiquette, even when it comes to the fridge
Image credits: unsplash (not the actual photo)
And if one person tries to put themselves above everyone else, it usually causes trouble
Image credits: unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: ehtio
There’s often a lack of clear guidance around the office kitchen, but that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want in it
There are a lot of ways coworkers get under each other’s nerves. One survey found that the biggest office pet peeves are:
- Stealing food from the office fridge – 97%
- Loud personal calls in a shared space – 96%
- Interrupting and talking over others – 95%
- Desk hovering – 93%
- Coming into the office while sick – 91%
- Not respecting shared restrooms – 89%
- Filming yourself for social media while at work – 88%
- Eating loudly in meetings or shared spaces – 87%
- Leaving a mess in shared spaces – 86%
- Wearing overpowering perfume or cologne to work – 86%
And while setting up your personal restaurant in the office isn’t on the list, it’s easy to imagine people hating such a venture when it’s clearly done at their expense.
Maintaining a clean and hygienic shared kitchen is also an example of what’s often referred to as a “non-promotable task”, and if the same employee is stuck doing it day in and day out, it can slow their career progression.
Libby Sander, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Bond University, Australia, explains that it can be a good indicator of overall office culture, too.
According to her, most employees don’t deliberately set out to disregard their co-workers’ feelings, but a lack of consequences for inconsiderate etiquette can lead to it becoming entrenched behavior.
“[If the same people are constantly picking up the slack, it’s] going to lead to frustration and resentment, and maybe eventually going in and yelling at somebody, which is not the outcome that you want,” Sander explains.
However, in our case, that’s precisely what the Redditor was pushed to.
One of the difficulties of maintaining a clean office kitchen is it’s an area where there are often no clear communications or workflows in place to determine who is responsible for what, but Sander says it’s ultimately up to senior leaders to know what’s happening in their organization.
So, it’s probably best for all that HR was notified.
People have had a lot to say about the coworkers’ conflict
