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TL;DR: I want to work in a company with a strict no-eating-in-office policy. How can I ask about it during an interview?

Background: Western Europe, software engineering, ~2 years experience.

I have a problem with other people eating near me when I try to focus on my work. I am not talking about extreme cases of coarse behavior, I am talking about otherwise well-behaving people who eat while working at their desk. The problem is - however hard you try, eating things like potato chips, nuts, or apples emits sound and is distracting to other people sitting around you. Noise-cancelling headphones won't help and even if they did, the problem of smell would still remain.

Most people seem to subscribe to an opinion that while eating lunch and leaving stinking garbage in a shared office is indeed problematic, eating small smaller snacks is acceptable. My problem is that I disagree with that and in principle find eating in a shared office distracting and disrespectful. I try to be considerate towards others and I have never done that - when I want to eat something, I always leave my office. I would be grateful if my colleagues did the same.

I have seen numerous questions about eating. I am already at the point where I tried to solve that at my current company but this failed. The norm in my company is that people do eat at their desks and as far I know, I am the only person having problem with that. Hence, when I brought up the problem with my colleagues, the response was that asking them to eat outside is not a reasonable request.

Having had my bad experiences, I am interested in preventing this from happening in the future. I am now in the process of applying to different jobs (not only because of the problem I am describing here, but it's definitely one of the reasons why I want to leave). Unfortunately, given my situation I am not valuable enough to be offered a private office, where I won't waste time on problems like that. I will probably work in a shared office with another 1-3 people.

How can I find out what is a specific company policy on eating? Isn't it a strange question to ask during an interview? How much of the story should I share? Should I mention my bad experience at previous workplace and that this is one of the reasons to leave? I do not want to appear as a person who 'causes problems' and has 'special needs' even before getting on offer and 'day 1'. On the other side, I don't want to get into the same situation again.

I don't think I am inflexible and intolerant in general, but when I hear slurping behind my back while I try to be productive, this really drives me to the point of writing this question here.

I think rather than trying to find out what the eating policy is, you need to find a way to work around this. I don't believe I have ever worked in an office where eating at your desk is prohibited (with the exception of certain foods due to allergies).

There are plenty of ways to block sounds such as ear plugs or headphones. Hearing people chew or crunch potato chips isn't really that different from hearing someone typing beside you, or hearing light conversation from time to time. In an open office setting, these are just the things you need to learn to live with. If there is concern about food smells, you could probably approach the individual and tell them you are sensitive to the smell, but that's about it. This is really an opportunity for you to grow IMO. There are somethings that are worth fighting for and worth leaving a job over. I don't really see this as one of them. There will almost always be noises in an office setting that someone will not like and most of the time, it is your job to figure out how to mitigate the effect this will have on you. Some people in the comments suggested remote working, depending on your field, this may or may not be a viable option.

I would highly recommend that you do not bring this up in an interview. If I was the one interviewing you, I would think that you are very high maintenance and move on. My exact thought would be "If that bugs them, what other problems will I have after hiring"

This might be a good reason to consider remote work - that way you won't have to deal with other people working beside you.

You say you don't want to appear to be the person who "causes problems", but that's exactly what you are. Really, you should work on your ability to tolerate other people living around you in a workspace.

There is no way to bring this up on an interview without throwing a red flag large enough to be seen from space.

The best thing to do is to target companies you want to apply to, find current employees, network with them and ask them about various policies, what it's like to work there, if there is a cafeteria or break room where people eat, et cetera. You should be doing this anyway to make sure you match the culture.

Do not EVER ask about this on an interview because it says that you are a potential problem employee.

So the first question is whether or not this is a drop-dead requirement. Are you willing to simply discard any job that does not offer this out of hand? How will you handle it if there are no potential openings that offer a sufficiently strict no-eating policy?

This is an unusual personal hangup. You can tell its an unusual personal hangup because no one else at your company has it. That means that companies with this sort of policy are going to be rare, and possibly nonexistent. You're going to have to build your expectations around that.

If you are willing to say that you simply don't wish to work at any company that lacks this feature, under any circumstances, then it simplifies. You can ask it in a clear and straightforward way at the interview. Acknowledge the hangup, recognize it as a thing that you personally require in order to function productively, express a desire to function productively, and ask if the no-food policy is sufficiently strict. This will likely cause any company without such a policy to reject you out of hand, but if you didn't want them anyway, then that's okay. Companies who have a sufficiently strict policy will likely appreciate it, for various reasons, if you can present it in a professional enough manner. (It makes you a better fit with their corporate culture, it indicates that you know what you need and are willing to be honest about it, and so forth.)

If you are not willing to let this be a drop-dead deal-killer, then your options are much more constrained. You can ask about office policies in general, but even that can get a bit awkward, if you can't provide explanation for exactly why you care. You might be better off working from the other direction. Start by looking at large corporations that might have draconian office policies by default. Attempt to figure out if any of them have sufficiently strict policies in this area just by asking around, prior to applying for any jobs at all. Then apply to the ones that look promising. You won't have to sabotage potential offers by asking during the interview because you won't even be talking with the same people (most likely).

There are a few additional options you can pursue, though, that might help. The trick is to figure out what would solve your problem without requiring this specific, draconian policy. You've established that a room of your own with a closing door would be sufficient. As such, it is not the idea that people might be eating that troubles you, but the fact that they're eating next to you. There are options here.

• There may be a company that has a skeleton shift at night. If you were willing to work such a shift, the likelihood that you'd be working next to someone who is eating at the time goes down simply because there are far fewer people. Also, willingness to work the night shift is the sort of thing that can get you some flexibility on your oddities.




• As others have noted, Work From Home is a thing in many corporations, and wanting it is normal enough that you won't be thought of oddly for asking. If you can successfully work from home, then that could be an option for you.




• Simply having flexible locations so that you can pick up and move while people are eating can be sufficient. I currently work in a business where all employee computers are laptops. We have desks, but are permitted to work wherever, as long as the room is available. Such things are not amazingly common, but they're likely easier to find than draconian food policies.

Finally, you might consider working things from the other direction, and trying to moderate the effects on you. I know at least one person who has a similar issue, and in her case it is heavily driven by stress and general annoyance. The more stressed and annoyed she is, the more she notices and is bothered by such things (which in turn adds to the stress and annoyance). Obviously, there's no way to ensure that your'e never stressed or annoyed, but understanding why these things bother you so much more than everyone else might help you get to a point where they'd bother you less, which in turn might make it more tolerable to go to work if you cannot manage to solve the problem in other ways (...or if you only manage a partial solution - there are a number of workplaces that offer work-from-home X days per week, but require that you be in teh office the other days, for example).

I think you'll find that most halfway decent companies have at least a superficial understanding of the importance of having sources of nutrition readily available for a happy and productive workforce. This often means going out of their way to make it easier for people to get food on demand rather than putting restrictions on where/when they can eat. You could probably find a job somewhere that would accommodate your desire but to be perfectly blunt, your aversion to the sounds of other people eating is well outside of the norm and you'll probably be happier in the long run if you look into possible treatments instead of looking for ways to avoid it.

As others have stated, asking about a strange food policy on an interview would be a major red flag. This policy would negatively impact far more people (people who eat at their desk) than it would help (you and maybe a couple others).

Instead, if you are unable to cope with the sounds and smells of people eating, it would be far easier to explain that you are easily distracted and would like a solo office or the ability to work from home. If you can showcase your usefulness to the employer, they may be willing to accommodate one or both of these requests.

Earplugs + over-ear noise cancellation headphones + some good beats and you're set. Or book a meeting room around lunch time.

Are you seriously letting this influence your career choices? Ask yourself if there is something else at work here.