Business Etiquette Update

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Avoid Lunchroom Food Fights

Lisa Latham

Between the proliferation of food allergies and the renaissance of organic, vegan, flexitarian, raw and other health-related nutrition regimes (not to even mention weight-reduction schemes), the lunch box has become a window into far more than our colleagues' hunger pangs.

With the various deprivation diets above attempting to balance out the processed-food-only menu for everyone else in America, the office fridge has become the front line in nothing less than a cultural war.

Let's call it the smug vs. the happy. The smug, on the one hand -- some of whom consider themselves tolerant -- will nevertheless insist on educating anyone who will listen about the dangers of factory farming, feedlots and artificial bovine growth hormones, or so Miss Conduct has read, between volumes on food science and food-borne diseases.

The smug find comfort in the fact that they can vote with their pocketbooks, that they can stick it to the Coca-Cola Man by filling a canteen with water and a squeeze of lemon.

They can bring organic fruits and vegetables to snack on while at work, and their virtue saves them restaurant money as well as fat-soluble-contaminant deposits around their internal organs. To them, cramming the office fridge with miso mayo and pomegranate juice is empowering.

On the other hand, the happy just want to eat something tasty and not hear about yet another issue that's amiss in the world. For them, lunch in the office kitchen is refuge, a moment of gratification in an otherwise barren landscape of sacrifice for money, family, corporation and country.

They just want a little pleasure, and whether it's a franchise burger or foie gras, they want to enjoy their slice of salami with red-pepper flakes but without negative associations.

The happy usually find comfort in abstaining from any lunch-hour debates.

However, they may be so sick of the culture wars that they want to stick it to the Granola Man by bringing their Chilean sea bass or veal cutlets to work only when they're smothered in nice, smelly onions or dripping pan juices onto the shelves below.

Even if they're not angry about the hempen harping, the happy know that by taking a little time out for themselves at midday, they can rejoin the rest of the working world with plenty of gas in their tanks. To them, that's empowering.

Both sides think they're right. Both can even feel a sense of righteous indignation, even of divine protection. And guess what? Both are right.

Kitchen Aids

To the smug, Miss Conduct points out that the opportune moment is more important than an airtight argument.

The time to make your dietary case is not after someone has taken a bite out of something you wish they hadn't. What are they supposed to do if they agree? Spit it out? So please, stop lecturing and pass the high-fructose-corn-syrup-sweetened, artificially tomato-flavored ketchup so that your happy colleagues can really enjoy their trans-fat-laden freedom fries. They've earned it.

To the happy, Miss Conduct underlines that changing the world starts within the individual, and any kind of change is difficult when so many thousands of advertising images are working against it every day.

If your smug work friends delude themselves that individual action can take the place of collective bargaining, let them pour their efforts into obsessively reading ingredient labels.

So please, stop passing your designer cupcakes beneath their noses so that their cardboard-flavored 17-grain bread doesn't look so awful by comparison. (OK, maybe just once, with a smile.) They've earned it.

The problem is that drawing any attention to yourself and your food choices can be tantamount to maligning your coworkers' lifestyle from top to bottom. It makes people uneasy, whereas etiquette is a tool to set each other at ease.

Focusing on our differences is also less fun. After all, the more truly tolerant you are of your colleagues' dietary habits and the more open you are to trying new things, the more you can order in together and save on the delivery tip.

And if you really, truly can't take it, just shift your schedule. You can have the kitchen all to yourself if you avoid the noontime rush.

That takes care of kitchen behavior. So what of the office fridge itself?

To prevent any meal misplacing (accidental or not) by unenlightened colleagues, write your name and date on your bag or container. Save the stinky, drippy stuff for home dining, and in case of any spills, do practice random acts of wiping-up kindness.

Remember, while you're in the office, you're sharing many common spaces. So be considerate of your fellow lunch diners, and you'll both break your bread in peace.