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Cubicle conundrum

On the job, it’s difficult to know where my right to eat and yours to enjoy fresh air converge.

By LENNIE BENNETT
Published April 18, 2006

So, I’m in my work pod early one recent morning, munching on leftover pasta with pesto. A nearby colleague says, with gently accusatory emphasis, “Wow, I smell garlic!”

If he had said, tactfully, “Wow, you have a bunch of green stuff in your teeth!” I would have known immediately what to do. (Desk drawer dental floss is our friend.)

At that moment, though, I was at a loss to respond.

We have negotiated other socially intrusive habits in the workplace, such as smoking and strong perfume. We have learned how to pretend we aren’t hearing the telephone conversation a podmate is having about great sex the night before.

Onions and fish seem to be the next frontier in office protocol.

Pod people, at least in my small corner of the world, frequently eat at their desks. Some corporate policies are more liberal than others, allowing us to pop a frozen dinner in the department microwave instead of munching on a cold ham and cheese sandwich. There are days, between about noon and 2 p.m., when an international bazaar of spices perfumes our air. (Is “fumes” a verb?)

If someone’s lunch smells good, is it okay to compliment it? If it smells revolting, should we complain? With praise or criticism, do we offer a sample or whisk the offending cuisine from our desks, furtively stuffing it in a trash can near someone else’s pod? Or do we ignore the whole scenario, just as we do the phone chats?

It’s a gray area because the olfactory issues of food are aesthetic rather than health-related. There are no known incidents of illness among people who inhaled a particularly strong whiff of cooked cabbage — temporary nausea doesn’t count — as opposed to the asthma attack that an overdose of Chanel No. 5 can induce.

You may witness a podmate tragically choking to death on a chunk of stinky cheese, and you may let her choke after you have been transported to a sensory place no proboscis should ever have to go, but its aroma won’t send you across the River Styx too.

The ethical question arises for all of us Dilberts:

Does my right to anchovies on a Caesar salad end at your nostrils?

Am I my brother’s nose guard?

[Last modified April 18, 2006, 19:59:16]