Right before Thanksgiving is a perfect time for a list about cubicle dining ettiquette. How often do you lunch in your cube rather than in the café or, gasp, outside of the building? There are obvisouly unwritten rules surrounding this practice, but as any successful corner office dweller will tell you, rules were made to be broken.
The unlucky one next to the microwave
What we do: He always calls out "wow, that smells good!"
What we should do: He isn't complimenting the cook, he's wishing that aroma was coming from his cube, and bitter that he has to sit by the microwave. He should keep quiet. Cancel the cooking mid-nuke. Sneak a couple of bites around the edge, where it's the warmest. Pop it back in for the remainder of the cooking.
Interrupting lunch.
What we do: Your coworker down the aisle walks in while you're surfing espn.com, mid bite. The coworker says "oops, I don't want to interrupt your lunch, but…." you say "no problem." Dab mouth with napkin. "What's up?"
What we should do: …Coworker says: "oops, I don’t want to interrupt.." Shove coworker out your cube door into other cube's wall. Continue lunch. Repeat as neccesary.
Cross over ettiquette.
What we do: Cube lunch is no formal dinner. Sometimes we don't even have the right utensils. Bread plate? Salad fork? No time for that! A spork covers all your needs.
What we should do: Napkin on your lap, fork on the left, water glass to your right. Seriously. What are you, a barbarian?
