‘It’s coming from inside the office!’: That shared-food fridge at work can be a real holder of horrors
There are some scary things one can encounter at the workplace. There’s the don’t-go-in-there closet that still holds coats from workers who were laid off in 2008, the timer-run lights that leave the late-night employee in total darkness and the guy who works in the windowless office who seemingly hasn’t left his desk for years. And of course, there’s the refrigerator.
The frightening idea of sharing a contained space can be minimized if people keep their food in sealed containers, says Tara Louis, a physician’s
assistant in Fort Worth, Texas. “You should never put something you’ve started eating back into a company refrigerator if it’s uncovered. You’re not only exposing yourself to germs, curious fingers and whatever substance may fall onto your food, you’re also creating an environment of uncleanliness,” says Louis. “I’m not saying a half-eating sandwich that’s just sitting on a paper towel is going to make the rest of the refrigerator a petri dish for disease, but it’s pretty unsanitary, especially with Covid not in our rearview mirror just yet.”
The company refrigerator should have certain rules, according to Louis, and “no uncontained food” should be No. 1 on the list. “Not in a sealed bag or bowl? Throw it out,” she says.
Space hogs
Scott Ryan, 27, says he is well aware of the refrigerator rules where he works. “People are really territorial,” says Ryan, an accountant based in Dayton, Ohio. “At a previous job, I had people take my lunch and put it on the counter because
I took their spot in the fridge, like a reserved parking space or something. People are nuts.”
Ryan says his biggest pet peeve is the employee who has “home-size food” in the at-work refrigerator. “I worked with this one guy who had like a gallon of milk, a bunch of yogurts, a package of chicken fingers and a jar of pickles—and
probably more. His stuff took up half the fridge and he didn’t care,” says Ryan. “I don’t understand why people can’t pack their lunch for the day and leave the rest
of it at home.”
Smell them smells
Despite the various fridge infractions, the potential for offensive odors is usually the top complaint. Paul Talbot, a loan officer in Chicago, says leftovers from restaurant lunches are the worst. “When you’re in a city like Chicago, people go out for Thai food, Indian food, sushi, whatever,” he says. “And then you have a bunch of leftovers fighting it out for worst smell. And together? Man, it’s brutal.”
Talbot says his desk is about 50 feet from the kitchen. “And if there’s something rank in there, I smell it all day,” he says. “People open the fridge door and this smell just comes flying out.”
Talbot says his biggest frustration with employee-saved leftovers is that they never leave. “People don’t really eat leftovers. They think they will when they take it home from lunch but they don’t. And they don’t take their leftovers home. They just forget about them so they sit there and rot.”