update: colleague doesn’t wash his hands after he goes to the bathroom, and people are making it my problem

by Alison Green on December 16, 2024

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer whose coworker didn’t wash his hands after he using the bathroom and was pawing through the communal snacks (#3 at the link)? Here’s the update.

First of all, I’d like to apologise to the racoon population for comparing my colleague to that noble animal. Calling him a bin chicken might have revealed too much about my location.

Second, I found a solution which has pleased everyone — since the colleague in question had a strong preference for chocolate biscuits, I started adding individually wrapped mini-chocolate bars to our regular grocery order. It turns out that he likes these even more than chocolate biscuits, but now there’s enough sweet treats for everyone, and the biscuits are unsullied and safe to eat.

I wish I could say that someone in charge told the bin chicken to stop being disgusting and wash his hands, and he was so ashamed he became a model of hygiene. Alas, the world isn’t that perfect. On the other hand, thanks to the suggestions at AAM, a change in my own attitude, and a small upgrade to the kitchen facilities, the culture in my office is much improved, and one man is no longer ruining it for everyone. All we need now is for our fruit supplier to stop loading up our weekly fruit box with pears, and maybe throw in a citrus now and then, and then we’ll have achieved office kitchen perfection.

You may also like:
{ 146 comments }

{ 146 comments… read them below }

    1. Goldenrod*

      Thank you for inspiring me to go down the “cromulent” rabbit hole and learn about this intriguing word!

    2. epicdemiologist*

      First time I’ve seen “cromulent” since the late, lamented Making Light shut down. *moment of silence*

      1. Lenora Rose*

        *Bows head*.

        In 2022, PNH seemed to be making an earnest effort to bring it back or at least repair and rescue, but either nobody stepped up to the call or (much more likely, knowing the commentariat) the tech savvy folks went “nope, this can’t be done.”

  2. Bananas*

    A world where pears are the less desirable fruit… unfathomable!

    (Truly, I assumed bananas held that title worldwide.)

    1. KateM*

      I guess the problem is in “weekly”. Pears are often off before the week is over, so that weekly fruit box necessarily can’t be stretched over all week.

        3. Six Feldspar*

          That’s my problem with them! A pear at peak ripeness is delicious but the window to eat it is about half a day at best… And they squash much more easily than apples

    2. Bun Bun Babbin*

      The correct answer is melon (honeydew or cantalope)…but I may be biased in my melon-hate hahaha.

      1. Zona the Great*

        Man do I hate a melon! I’m a weirdo who doesn’t even really like watermelon too! I also agree with pears. Terrible fruit not even my horses will eat.

        3. ArchivesPony*

          I like the smell of Melon, and watermelon in particular is a absolute favorite scent of mine, but I really really dislike the taste. And I’ll only eat watermelon if it’s perfectly crisp but it rarely is so I don’t care for it.

        5. Hot Flash Gordon*

          Melons are the gross. I got food poisoning from cantaloupe when I was young and cannot stand anything melon.

        6. April*

          How do you feel about fresh cucumbers?

          So, I loathe cucumbers. (Unless they’re pickled. Then I can eat a whole jar.) And what’s funny is that people who like cucumbers will claim they don’t taste like anything. They do to me. I have gagged from the smell alone before. And they’re watery –so they get their juice all over salads and any food cut on the same cutting board!

          All melons have the exact same nasty, bitter taste as cucumbers. Watermelons, cantaloupe, honeydew–all of them.

          What’s funny is that I can taste why people like all of those fruits! But that bitter cucumber taste ruins it for me.

          Having talked to enough other people who feel the same way I do, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s one of those genetic oddities–that we can smell/taste some naturally-occurring thing in that whole category of fruits/veggie, that most people can’t.

          And that whatever it is, is destroyed by pickling.

          1. Lenora Rose*

            I don’t know who thinks cucumbers don’t taste like anything. I love cucumbers BECAUSE they taste like cucumbers. My favourites are lemon cucumbers (so called because they look a lot like lemons, being round and yellow, not long and green, not because they taste even slightly lemony); scrub the bumps off the skin and I can eat one as is, no cutting or salting or mixing into salad.

            OTOH, you can get a wild range of differences in the skins of different cuke varieties alone – from almost no flavour, more texture than anything, all the way to intensely bitter. The first batch I grew in the garden were the bitter-skinned kind, and if that’s what April tastes with all cukes, I wouldn’t blame her at all for the dislike.

            1. April*

              The time the smell of cucumbers made me gag, it was a friend of mine eating a lemon cucumber straight from the garden. I had headphones on while using the computer, and didn’t hear/see him walk into the room, and out of nowhere I just smelled something awful and gagged.

              I turned around and was like WHY would you eat that right behind me?

        7. Christine*

          Pears are best in smoothies. And my horses won’t eat them, either! Watermelon, otoh, is better than carrots in their opinion.

        8. allathian*

          Watermelons taste like water. At least they do here, because they’ve been picked too early to tolerate being shipped. When my husband was a toddler, his family lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA. He got decent watermelon there apparently, because since then he’s never been able to tolerate the taste.

          I don’t like peaches very much for similar reasons. I loved going to the local greengrocer in Spain where I could get a peach that was as large as a small grapefruit and so juicy that you could bite a small hole in the skin and suck the juices out, and throw away the skin and the stone. In that state, they bruise very easily, though.

      4. ZSD*

        I also dislike melon, and I strongly resent how often “seasonal fruit cup” means “cantaloupe, honeydew, and one purple grape.”

        (See also: “seasonal” vegetable medleys somehow always containing broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.)

        2. In Florida, Strawberries Are a Winter Crop*

          I love melon and agree that “seasonal fruit cup” should not include those things when they’re not actually in season. Same for those steamed veggies; at least they freeze well, but the melons have to be trucked/shipped in from a hemisphere away much of the year.

        3. Nobby Nobbs*

          And zucchini and squash! Seasonal vegetables always seem to be mushy zucchini and squash, maybe with a sad, lonely slice of carrot thrown in for color.

        5. Hot Flash Gordon*

          Ugh, as a midwesterner, the search for a good seasonal fruit medley is real. Melons make me gag (past experience with food poisoning) and if there’s pineapple in it, it’s the woodiest and most flavorless piece of fruit you’d ever have the displeasure of eating. When we’ve gone to Florida in the past during winter, I practically make myself sick eating all the fruit there.

      5. Resentful Oreos*

        I like watermelon, but that’s it. No honeydew and absolutely no cantaloupe. I hate the smell of cantaloupe, let alone the taste! And melon is *everywhere* in fruit platters. Sometimes I think fruit platters are just a way to get rid of unwanted melon.

        1. Goldfeesh*

          I hate how cantaloupe and watermelon will be mixed together, thereby ruining the watermelon. Ick! At least honeydew tastes like nothing and doesn’t inflict its flavor on innocent watermelon.

      6. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        I hate all melons. Every few years, I try them again, just to be certain (tastes do change, after all) and the last time I tried them again, I got a fruit cup with an assortment of melons. The look on my face when I ate a piece caused our waitress to run over to the table and demand I tell her what sort of fruit I’d prefer. I told her it was on me- this was the day I was testing my melon hatred and had nothing to do with the establishment. I ended up with a bowl of orange slices and was very happy.

        I also dislike pears- it must be the texture, though I enjoy apples. Bananas are lovely (banana flavoring not so much).

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Pears have to be perfectly ripe or they are a waste of time, and they’re only perfectly ripe for about thirty seconds.

      7. Clisby*

        Oh, I doubt it. I love watermelon, but canteloupe is foul. Honeydew is meh, but not as bad as canteloupe, which, once cut, smells like a rotting corpse and unless relentlessly plastic-wrapped, imparts that odor to anything else in the refrigerator.

      8. Ally McBeal*

        You may be biased but you’re certainly not alone! I find most melons gross. I tried growing a couple last year but they were stolen* right when they ripened so I have no idea if they were any good.

        *Etiquette question: In a community garden, is it stealing if you had absolutely no hand in growing or tending the plants at any point? Or is it fair game because it’s a “community” garden?

        1. Part time lab tech*

          Stealing if it’s in the allotments like beds looked after by individuals. If it’s in the communal beds it can be argued either way. Depends on the community’s philosophy but it needs to be sign posted.
          (Disclaimer, above is my personal opinion and I have heard of people growing green when ripe tomatoes to prevent theft.)

          1. Freya*

            I like growing green-when-ripe tomatoes because my experience leads me to believe that the birds tend to leave them alone more than the red ones :-D

      9. Seashell*

        You guys are making me hungry for all the melons.

        I don’t think I’ve ever met a kid who didn’t like watermelon, so I’m surprised there are so many adults who hate it.

        1. Christine*

          I enjoy a good melon, but watermelon is low on the list. I prefer cantaloupe and honeydew (but only when properly ripe).

        2. Seeking Second Childhood*

          Ever bite into the bad spot in fruit you like? If that’s the FIRST try of that fruit, it puts you off!

      12. Elizabeth West*

        I love cantaloupe and watermelon but hate honeydew. And pears are of the devil (though I will eat the round Asian ones). The flowers on the tree stink and make me sneeze my head off!

        Love me some cherries, though. I live for cherry season.

    3. Fanna-fo-fanna*

      How dare you diss bananas! My favorite fruit! Everyone in my house consumes a banana per day to stave off leg cramps.

      1. Goldenrod*

        Leg cramps??? Do tell! My household goes through a ton of bananas on the daily too…we don’t even have a pet monkey.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          Potassium helps with the cramps. That’s often while you’ll see tennis players eating a banana on a changeover. If you watch tennis.

      2. Samwise*

        Get the little bananas (not a small Cavendish, a finger banana or another variety that’s small when it’s full-sized). A better portion size and delicious.

        1. Calamity Janine*

          the small red banana varieties are amazing for this! as a diabetic who knows that the official diabetic serving for a regular banana is… half of a banana, it means a lot less awkward fumbling for saran wrap lol!

    4. Yods*

      This is hilarious to me. When our biweekly? office fruitbasket arrives everyone immediately grabs a banana while they still can, and there is always a bunch of (mostly) citrus left at the bottom.

      I wish we could make a kind of map of favourite office fruit worldwide.

    5. comice pears are my favorite*

      Most people’s least favorite fruit seems to be informed by whether it’s local or not (of it’s not local it’s going to be worse in quality, or optimized more for ship-ability than taste), and whether they have the patience to fully ripen it (why do caterers insist on serving unripe fruit??).

      1. Strive to Excel*

        Less waste that way. Easier to buy a bunch of unripe fruit and let it ripen, knowing that it’ll be on the tough side, than to buy ripe fruit and have it all spoil.

    6. RLC*

      I assumed that citrus would be a desirable addition to the basket as they have nearly impermeable, washable, inedible skin? Pears, with their thinner skin, are much harder to clean without damaging the skin, and some of us eat the skin of a pear. If there’s a chance of germ laden bin chicken touching the fruit, I will be cleaning that fruit thoroughly prior to eating it. Yes, I also have worked with a germy-mitted colleague.

        1. MtnLaurel*

          I found a lovely photo gallery of “bin chickens” that made my day! Thank you for the explanation.

        2. Resentful Oreos*

          LOL, I had to go look up what a bin chicken was! And I laughed because Australia has bin chickens, and we have trash pandas (raccoons)!

          1. Brisvegan*

            Closer in size to a goose, but less murdery.

            They have long beaks for better rubbish sorting. They are far more likely to actively get into a public rubbish bin than a pigeon. They are also less likely to steal the chips from your hand than a seagull. Due to their penchant for sorting through bins, they are perceived as dirtier than pigeons or seagulls, which perception probably underestimates the grossness of pigeons and overestimates the filth of the poor bin chicken.

        4. Kit*

          Yeah, rather like the concept of an emu parade, I’m afraid some local terms have just not made it into mainstream non-antipodean cognizance yet. Despite their being wonderful.

  5. ZSD*

    I wish I lived in a workplace where they ordered us fruit and treats every week!

    Also, I went to college with someone whose parents had taught him to only wash his hands after going #2, not after #1. So that’s what he did, and knowing that disgusted me to no end.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      I worked with someone who did that. Her logic behind it was suspect at best.

      Luckily, she always washed her hands at work, because she knew that people would talk otherwise.

      1. Foot Flusher*

        Urine is sterile. At least that’s what I repeated to myself over and over after I dropped my keys in a porta-loo and had to reach it to retrieve them. (I was the first user and had only urinated)

        But, bathrooms and all the surfaces inside can have germs on them, and thus why we wash our hands, dry, and then don’t touch surfaces on the way out. (Foot opening of door, etc)

        1. Archi-detect*

          or life is just dirty and bodily functions is a nice interval for when hands need a clean. I think bathrooms may actually cleaner because of the focus on it and making everything a hard surface that gets cleaned regularly over things like keyboards and phones

          1. ferrina*

            If nothing else, it really is a good reminder to regularly wash your hands.
            If you’ve ever seen a simulation of how germs spread in a communal space (I’ve seen a couple of germs spreading in a classroom), it’s terrifying. Washing hands regularly is important, even if your hands were magically not at all dirtied by using the toilet, just wash them to get rid of all the other things you touch (doorknobs, elevator buttons, communal pens, the printer, etc.).

            1. It’s me!*

              Exactly! Frankly there are times when I wash my hands BEFORE I use the restroom, like when I get off the subway, just finished working out in gym, etc.

            2. El Muneco*

              Mythbusters had an excellent demonstration of a dinner party where the host had a cold – one with the host taking no precautions whatsoever, the next with them actively trying to prevent passing any germs on.

              Long and short, the former looked like a Jackson Pollack painting when the crew came in after to see how far things had spread … but even in the latter case, relatively controllable doesn’t exactly mean controllable. Germs get out, will or nil.

          2. CV*

            Yes. I think the studies are that one’s kitchen sponge (and associated areas) are the truly disgusting surfaces in a home.

        2. RabbitRabbit*

          It’s not actually sterile, but at least it’s better if it’s only yours? Maybe?

          (Ideally it’s very low in germs when in your bladder but all bets are off once it comes out, and it’s a very good medium for bacteria after that point.)

        3. Riley*

          Urine is only sterile when it is in the bladder (and not always then). Since it exits the body through a non-sterile opening, it is not sterile once it’s outside the body.

        4. Lenora Rose*

          Urine is not truly sterile, and itself contains ingredients which, over time, convert to a much ickier substance. It won’t harm you to deal with it fresh (To the relief of anyone who ever had a baby), but the idea of leaving it around for any duration because “it’s sterile” fills me with horror. I dealt with that diaper pail…

      2. RVA Cat*

        Somehow it’s nastier for a man to not wash after #1 as it’s more “hands on” with body parts (and possible STIs).

    2. Criminally Competent*

      Do you work with my husband?

      Yes, we’ve been married over 20 years and I haven’t gotten him to change this disgusting habit.

    3. Wayward Sun*

      I had a friend like that. He believed that washing your hands disrupted the natural bacteria on your skin and made you more likely to get sick.

      2. Hot Flash Gordon*

        I wash my hands after using the restroom, but outside of that, I’m not a big hand washer. I don’t get sick a ton, but I think that’s just my overall exposure to communicable disease is low (I work remotely, don’t have kids, and avoid large crowds). I was a biology major in college and you either became a huge germaphobe or just decided to live in a blissful denial that everything is disgusting.

        1. Ineffable Bastard*

          I was raised with an immunosupressed parent and in Brazil (there were HUGE hygiene campaigns on kids’ tv shows) so I became a huge hand washer and my kids follow more or less the same pattern. We also brush out teeth after every meal. No germaphobes, though, we’re pretty tranquil about things.

  6. Former Lab Rat*

    “Bin Chicken” has now been added to my vocabulary to describe anyone lacking in basic hygiene and table manners. Too bad higher ups didn’t step up and enforce basic decency.
    If I was present in the break room I’d be inclined to march over to the snack basket and leave a big note: Warning – X has pawed through these treats with unwashed hands after he came out of the loo.

    Remember the poster who wrote in about a coworker that helped himself at potlucks by just dipping his bare hands into the food? The poster was bringing in a salad one day and he reached into the bowl as she was coming in the door to grab a taste – with bare hands of course.

    Maybe the two are brothers separated at birth. I’m pretty sure they are single.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      I can’t tell if you’re saying you’ve decided to use “bin chicken” as a euphemism for people lacking in basic hygiene or if you think that’s what it means? But it’s Australian for ibis.

      1. Former Lab Rat*

        Euphemism – that’s why I said use to describe…. But I do have a hilarious mental image of ill mannered coworkers at feeding time. I

    2. NotRealAnonForThis*

      I have had a (male) coworker friend gently redirect my hand, discretely, to keep me out of a tray that the resident disgusting non-washing human being (also male) was pawing through.

    2. BethRA*

      Australian White Ibis – according to wikipedia:

      “The birds have also come to be regarded as a problem species in Victoria as a result of their scavenging activities, scattering rubbish from tips and bins in the process, and earning the widespread nickname “bin chicken”. They are even known to snatch sandwiches from picnickers.”

      (I wanted to look it up before I used it as an insult)

            1. BinChicken*

              Confirming tip = garbage dump in Australian. (A dumpster might be referred to as a “skip” but I think skips are lidless. Every job I’ve worked at that has dumpsters just referred to them as the “outside bin”!)

              1. Beany*

                Thanks! In Ireland we’d also say “skip” for the US “dumpster”, but I wasn’t sure about the Australian use.

                In particular, I couldn’t really imagine how birds would be “scattering rubbish from tips”, if the tip is an extended area like a garbage dump. Wouldn’t they just be surrounded by more of the dump when dropping the rubbish? Or are they flying an appreciable distance away before dropping the stuff?

                1. BinChicken*

                  Thank you, you are now subscribed to BinChickenFacts. There is no unsubscribe.

                  Yep they’re mostly spreading it in the general vicinity of the tip but separating pieces of rubbish from the compacted mass lets it blow/ wash away and pollute non-tip areas. They also do carry it away where it ends up in waterways etc because they like to hang out and grub at the tip but they don’t actually nest there.

          2. Lexi Vipond*

            A tip in the UK is definitely the site that the rubbish ends up in eventually (US dump?) rather than any large receptacle it might inhabit on the way. (I don’t think we have dumpsters much – skips are usually temporary for a specific occasion, like a renovation, when a lot of stuff will be thrown out at once. Otherwise a lorry comes round every so often and empties one bin per household.)

            But it might be different again in Australia!

      2. Resentful Oreos*

        Snatching sandwiches from picnickers – like seagulls in the US will try and do as well, or snatch a bag of fries out of your hand (as happened to me one year).

        1. MigraineMonth*

          My dad visited Alaska and went on a wildlife viewing bus tour through Denali National Park. Near the end of the tour, some of the Americans expressed disappointment that they hadn’t seen any Bald Eagles. So the bus tour ended by swinging through the local town dump, where they watched a dozen of our majestic national birds eat garbage.

        2. Bogan Hitchcock*

          Seagulls, pigeons and bin chickens will all make aggressive incursions toward one’s chips/sandwich (Amongst people I know, to “seagull”, as a verb, is to steal chips from someone – “Can I seagull a chip off you?”), kookaburras will steal meat right off a hot barbie and cockatoos have worked out how to open heavy-lidded wheely bins (presumably to throw all the rubbish out whilst squawking gleefully – have not yet seen this in person). We live with a constant threat of a scrub-turkey takeover (they have expanded their habitat hundreds of kms in mere decades), an angry plover has ruined many a picnic, a swooping magpie many a childhood, the humans here once lost a war against the emus, and don’t even start on the cassowaries. I don’t know why people are so concerned about spiders, snakes and sharks here when the birds are all (excuse my Australian) massive see ya next Tuesdays.

          2. Akrasia*

            Beautiful summary. :D

            I refer to cockatoos as Chaos Chickens, and they are my favourites, even though they have eaten almost an entire tree in my back yard.

            2. Freya*

              OMG our local swans breed every year, right next to a heavily used park (council installed a pool noodle barrier to prevent the cygnets being swept downstream) and the adult male is ready to square up to anything that comes anywhere near his babies. Including my mastiff, who is about five times the bird’s mass and would absolutely lose if it came to a fight between mastiff and swan.

        3. Elizabeth West*

          I forgot until I moved here how huge seagulls actually are. I was looking out the window one day at Exjob and a large gull landed on the building ledge opposite. You could have ridden that thing. They walk around the parking lot near the grocery store — I give them the eye and squawk at them if they get too close.

    3. Brain sparkles*

      See, I always called them tip budgies growing up in NSW. It was only after I moved to Melbourne that I heard them called bin chickens!

  9. Zona the Great*

    I quit my last job in part because boss didn’t wash his hands after the toilet. I know many people we interact with don’t wash their hands yet we continue on living well while not knowing. But because we worked in a tiny office with one shared bathroom, I could hear every sound and knew that he didn’t even wash his hands after a….

    Then knowing he’d use the shared ice machine, eat out of the candy bowl, go out to lunch with us, I began looking in earnest.

  10. RCB*

    If I worked there and was planning to give my two week notice, the very last staff meeting (or whatever equivalent type meeting that had the most number of people in it including myself and the Bin Chicken) I was in, there would be absolutely no way I wouldn’t take the floor and address the issue right there in front of everyone and ask this guy how, despite it being brought up by several people that it is disgusting an unsanitary, how he thought it was appropriate to not only not wash his hands after going to the bathroom but how he also thought it was appropriate to touch all of the snacks with his gross, unwashed hands, and ask what his plans were to once and for all fix his disgusting behavior, and absolutely be steadfast in demanding an answer from him while I am sure everyone sat there with “OMG this is awkward but I also want to see this play out because it’s about damn time someone addressed this!” look on their faces. Let him squirm, let management squirm, let HR squirm, let everyone be uncomfortable, this grown man is disgusting and a first grader would behave better.

    1. Zona the Great*

      While I am right there with you in spirit, I do want to say I once witnessed something similar: A woman loudly called out another woman on our floor for not washing her hands before leaving the bathroom. The poor woman had to say in front of everyone that she had very severe dermatitis and that she could only use the extremely harsh soap-free chemical stuff she kept at her desk. While I don’t think this guy has a good reason like this, I wouldn’t get in the habit of calling out our peers like this.

      1. RCB*

        This is specific to this case, because the OP said that several people have talked to him about him not washing his hands and he just refuses to change his behavior, so it’s not a medical issue (unless we count moron as medical) he’s just disgusting and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Otherwise I do agree that people need to be really sure of a situation before they go nuclear on something, but in this case the situation had been addressed to many times to no avail, it’s just that nobody with any standing would actually manage this guy and everyone else had to suffer, so sometimes you gotta force managers to manage, and that’s something I’ve never had a problem doing.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        Yeah, if you’re willing to call someone out, at least have a conversation with the offending party first.

        Remember, the issue in this letter isn’t that the coworker hasn’t adjusted their behavior after being asked multiple times to wash their hands and to stop touching all the biscuits. The issue is that the coworker is being disgusting and is senior enough that no one is comfortable asking them to stop.

  11. Resentful Oreos*

    Of course I had to look up what a “bin chicken” was and laughed! Australia has ibises, we have “trash pandas” aka raccoons in the US! I guess wherever we go, there is some species who thinks that our garbage cans are their gourmet delis.

    But good solution for your disgusting coworker. This way he won’t contaminate the candy dish. In theory, a communal candy dish is a great idea, but in practice, with Bin Chicken and Trash Panda coworkers who don’t follow basic hygiene, I wonder how gross they really are. I will certainly think twice about dipping into a candy dish!

    1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      I believe there’s a minor-league sports team in the US with a raccoon mascot who held a fan competition to pick a new team name, and they settled on “Trash Pandas”.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        Yes, the Rocket City Trash Pandas! (Minor league baseball team in Madison, AL, affiliate of the LA Angles.)

      2. epicdemiologist*

        That would be the Rocket City Trash Pandas in Huntsville, AL. Their mascot is a raccoon in a rocket-powered trash can. “Rocket City” because Huntsville is home to the US Space and Rocket Center.

    2. allathian*

      Yeah. Oddly enough, while I’ve pretty much given up on most Covid precautions, I still sanitize or wash my hands religiously in public, and I’m really glad that most restaurants still offer sanitizer to their customers. Granted, Covid apparently isn’t spread by food, but many other ailments are, and I’m not taking any chances.

      So I’m not eating communal candy unless it’s individually wrapped, for example.

      And birthday cakes with candles are right out. I’m so glad my son’s outgrown candles on cakes anyway, but a young child blowing out candles and visible spittle on a cake that’s supposed to be eaten is so gross that I’m dry heaving here just for writing this.

  12. Sunflower*

    I’m not sure the setup, but I’d be grossed out with a bowl of individually wrapped treats. He may still be touching and picking through the candy and taint the wrappers that others will take.

  13. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    Dirty disgusting inconsiderate behaviour which would irritate me far more than BO.
    If a manager would talk to him about a BO problem, why not about a hygiene problem affecting coworkers?

    1. Seashell*

      I agree that it seems like a manager could do it, especially in the age of Covid. Blame it on potential spread of illness instead of all the co-workers being grossed out.

  14. Oh Boy*

    I had an office across the hall from a single use bathroom. Within a month I knew exactly who washed and who did not. I never partook in the communal lunch once this informal survey was done. Only one washed and he was a pretentious Jenny, who just ate what others provided and never cooked.

  15. Nanc*

    Send your poor, despondent unwanted pears my way so that I may turn them into a pear and Gruyere tart or poach them with wine and cinnamon or bake them with hazelnuts and drizzle them with caramel or stew them with ginger and lemon or bake them into a pie because pear pie is better than apple pie.
    Full disclosure: I live in pear country in the PNW.

  16. Literally a Cat*

    But I love bin chickens. The group of native creatures that thrived despite of humans. Such magnificence.

    Now I need to put on my Barry shirt.

    1. Justice for bin chickens*

      Hard agree! Their habitat was destroyed and they are now taking revenge by stealing sandwiches and pizza.
      Side-note: although they are a problem in many parts of my major city, in my suburb I almost never see them outside the parks which have been revegetated with native, flood-resilient wetland plants.

  18. What_the_What*

    I’m not sure that individually wrapped bars/cookies make it that much better. I still don’t want to touch the wrapper after McPissy Paws has touched them, and then unwrap and eat the candy with my hands. I’d have to basically autopsy it open with scissors, gloves, maybe a scalpel.. anything to avoid touching the wrapper he probably caressed. Once I found out my brother(!) who lives alone and is 60 years old and has clearly gone feral doesn’t wash his hands “every time” he poops (and he has colitis so he poops…. a lot), I refused to permit him to basically touch anything in my kitchen, even if he washed his hands in front of me. He’s so offended, but I’m like “I can’t unknow what I know now; I was fine until I knew.”

Comments are closed.