Wibbling Widgets

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/my-boss-keeps-rotting-food-in-our-shared-office-people-leap-on-me-as-soon-as-i-walk-in-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=30768

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My boss keeps rotting food in our shared office

I just started a new job, which I was thrilled to get and have really been enjoying so far. I share an office with one person, who is my immediate supervisor and is training me. He’s been training me well and he’s a really nice guy, but there’s one big problem: when he brings lunch to work, he doesn’t take his leftovers home. As a result, there are at least five or six large Tupperware containers under his desk, containing food in various stages of decay. The smell is, as you might imagine, pretty intense.

He’s had this office to himself for the last year, so I think he’s probably been doing this for a while and doesn’t notice the smell anymore, but I can’t not notice it. I’m obviously not okay with rotting food being kept in our office, but since I’m brand new and this guy is my supervisor, I have to admit I feel a little weird about calling him out on this. Do you have any guidance or a suggested script I could use to try and get this taken care of?

Eeuuww.

You can actually be pretty straightforward about this! As in, “Those Tupperware containers are starting to smell pretty bad! Any chance of moving them out of here?”

If you feel weird because he’s your boss, you can always open with “I might have an unusually sensitive sense of smell, but…” That’s not necessary and it’ll likely go over totally fine without that, though.

– 2018

2. My performance review mentioned that I pee a lot

So I’ve been at my job for a year, I really like my job, and I just got through a glowing performance review where I got the maximum possible raise. The one piece of feedback I got was I seem to be in the restroom a lot and people have talked about it/noticed. This is a ticket-driven position and I crush all the metrics, so it’s clear I’m making up the time I’m away from my desk.

Anyway, the reason I’m in the bathroom is a minor congenital defect that makes it so it’s hard for me to fully relieve myself, so I’ll often have to use the restroom again an hour after I last went. My boss is a good guy and framed the restroom feedback as more something to be cognizant of than any kind of actual criticism. I guess at this point I don’t know if it’s worse to be the guy that goes to the bathroom a lot, or the guy that’s bad at going to the bathroom. There’s not really anything my boss could do to squelch gossip other than say, “Well he’s got a medical issue” and then obviously a private thing would be less private. I feel like it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie on this one, but am I potentially jeopardizing myself by not laying out that this is a real thing diagnosed by a doctor and that I legitimately need “needs to use the toilet a lot” as a reasonable and protected accommodation?

If you’re comfortable with it, I think there’s potentially benefit to letting your boss know that there’s a health issue in play. You don’t need to give him details, and you can specifically say that this isn’t something you want shared with others, but if this is getting mentioned in your review, I think it’s worth saying, “Just so you know, this is a medical thing. It doesn’t sound like there’s any need for me to formally request an accommodation, but I can do that if it’s the kind of thing that otherwise might come up in feedback or an evaluation in the future.” The subtext there is “because this is not something I should hear about again.”

But frankly, it’s ridiculous that this was mentioned in your review at all. If it’s not affecting your work (and clearly it’s not), it’s no one’s business how often you’re in the bathroom. Ideally your boss would be shutting that talk down when he hears it, by saying something like, “We don’t monitor people’s bathroom usage here, and Bob’s work is excellent.”

– 2018

3. Asking people to stop leaping on me as soon as I walk into the office

I have a pet peeve: I hate it when I’m walking into work in the morning (i.e., have my coffee in hand, gym bag, purse, jacket) and someone stops me in the hallway or follows me to my desk to ask a question (which is not an emergency). How do I tell them to please give me 10 minutes to decompress and put my things down without sounding rude?

“I’m just walking in. Give me 10 minutes to get settled, and then I’ll be able to help you.”

If you encounter resistance (“it’ll just take a minute!”), hold firm: “I have some things to take care of before I can help you. Come see me in 10 minutes and I’ll be able to.”

Of course, if it’s your boss or someone else quite senior, you may not have this option — you need to apply some judgment to it, of course.

– 2017

4. Working for a boss with a bad reputation

Do you have any advice for working for a boss who does not not have a good reputation? Although I have found my own way to work with my supervisor, I have heard from many around the office that he is quite difficult to work with. I have seen it play out, have even experienced it myself, and sympathize with those affected. I’m not sure how to reconcile this on my end however. I suppose I should mention here that my supervisor does like working with me, but I’m growing uneasy over the warpath he tends to leave for others. I’m concerned that I run the risk of becoming guilty by association by working with him and I’m not sure what my place is when interacting with colleagues who are on the receiving end. Is there any way that this could harm any potential networking or future opportunities once I decide to leave?

People’s default is usually to have sympathy for someone working for a difficult person, but that can change if you’re seen as close to him or if you appear to be “carrying his water” — if you’re stuck being the face of some of his actions, or if you have to deliver messages or take actions that reflect poorly on you even though they’re coming from him.

There’s also an opportunity cost: If people don’t like or respect your boss, he’s not likely to have the type of relationships where he can promote your work to others or help you make connections with people or where his recommendation of you in the future will carry the same weight as if people liked him.

That doesn’t mean it’s doomed to be a disaster. Plenty of people work for difficult bosses with difficult reputations and come out of it just fine. And sometimes the trade-offs of the job make it worth it. But it’s usually not without some sort of price. (Also, the type of job you’re in really matters. If you’re his deputy and need to manage people and projects on his behalf, it’s going to be much harder to do your job with integrity than if you’re a bit more removed.)

– 2019

The post my boss keeps rotting food in our shared office, people leap on me as soon as I walk in, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/my-boss-keeps-rotting-food-in-our-shared-office-people-leap-on-me-as-soon-as-i-walk-in-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=30768