I have never given "eating at ones desk" a second thought. It's natural. I always eat at my desk, I prefer it. Crumbs in the keyboard? I am not near the keyboard when I am eating.

I just think that too many people believe their own eating at their desk/cubicle is innocuous.

There are smells that may offend; noises that you, the eater, may not notice. Not that you are guilty of that, but I just think in general, people don't consider that.

My cubicle neighbor slurps soup, bites her fork and eats stinky food almost every day of the week with no regard for others. I sometimes have to leave my desk while she eats.

I think if you are going to eat at your seat, you should ask others if they are bothered by it. And be open to them saying yes.

BTW - merely announcing that you are about to eat stinky food in no way makes it any better for the rest of us who have to smell it.

I eat lunch at my desk all the time, but I don't eat over the keyboard. I like eating at my desk so I can get off earlier, I save money, and I catch up on this blog.
I use paper towels as a placemat too.

Also, I eat my lunch when no one else is in the office; I always ate it when they went out to lunch. Its not a problem at all now, the others in my office have all been laid off and its just me there.

I agree that lunchtime smells and noises can be offensive, our former receptionist used to snack fairly constantly all morning long. Smacking lips are rather annoying.

If I tipped over over my keyboard, I could feed a family of four.

I eat at my desk. It is a minimum of a 10 min. walk to the staff break room. Wasting half of my lunch period walking to and from the break room isn't my idea of efficiency, and there simply isn't enough time on 15 min. breaks to do it.

It does attract mice. The smells usually aren't too bad, except when the mice die in the cubical walls. But when I can go out and eat soup in less time than it takes to get to and from the staff break room, you bet I'm eating at my desk or (occasionally) going out.

I eat at my desk too. We don't have a separate lunch room and the cafeteria seats about 200 at lunch time and sounds like a Raven's game. I enjoy the relative peace and serenity of eating at my desk and reading my e-mails and surfing the net.

Besides, there much worse odor offenses that cube mates can do besides food. And, that's all I have to say about that!

I never ever eat at my desk at work. But do I eat my breakfast while checking the blog at 6 a.m.? You betcha.

I have my own office, so I can eat there without bothering anyone; however, I find that I get lonely and want to get out. I normally go to the American Legion, where I can eat for about the same price I can pack a lunch for. Once I get there I normally just bury my head in a newspaper, which I probably could have done in my office.

Joyce W wrote: "Besides, there much worse odor offenses that cube mates can do besides food. And, that's all I have to say about that!"

There is a lady at my office who lights a match when she farts in her cube, to cover the smell. And then everyone who walks by for the next half hour is like "what is that smell? what is burning? should we call maintenance?" And then she has to admit that she farted. And lit a match to cover it up. And then everyone stands around making fart jokes and/or fart sounds and giggling.

Mary, get that woman some air freshener! Or potpourri. Or something ...

Unless I decide to go out to lunch, which requires me to make up the time I take beyond the 30 minutes I'm allotted, I don't have any choice but to eat at my desk. We don't have any sort of break room or cafateria. heck, our vending machines don't even work most of the time!

I've always eaten at my desk until my current job because we didn't have a lunch room. Now you can't eat at your desk partially due to a rodent issue, but more so that our work doesn't get messed up with food drips, spills, etc.

Mary, our "offender" doesn't even acknowlege that anything happened! Even when in someone elses cube! An "excuse me" goes a long way!

I'm considering the thing that you plug in the wall that lets out little puffs of fragrence on a regular basis!

I actually kind of enjoy eating at my desk. I usually bring my own, and like others have said, it saves time, lets me get out of here a tad earlier, and gives me an opportunity to see what is going on at D@L! IF I am feeling truly inspired (rarely), I can catch up on any work related nuisances. As Eve once said, I hate when the job gets in the way of this blog.

In my building, we all have individual, walled off offices and all eat at our desks. In our building (with 200 employees), there is only one small room with 2 tables and 3 vending machines -- no legitimate lunch room. The microwaves are all over the place, so you get whiffs of your co-workers' weird food all the time. I've heard some people have rodent issues, but we have no other option and I guess need to watch our crumb output!

Watch out for the fragrance puffers! Someone 'dared' to put one in our bathroom and we got an office-wide email that it's not allowed (along with the scented hand lotion someone deposited by the sinks) because people are allergic.

Arghhh. Mary and Joyce W. Do you work at the zoo?

Hi KitKat!
Welcome back. Your post made me laugh out loud, glad I'm here by myself today.

still chuckling.

Thankfully technology allows you to remote in to someone's PC so you don't have to physically be there. If I had a nickle for every greasy, crusty keyboard and/or mouse I have seen in the workplace...

We have a lunch room and I choose to eat in my office...I like to read at lunch and can't concentrate with all the chatter and people on cell phones in there. It's not that I am anti-social...I just have 2 kids under 5 at home and time to read is limited...

Hey PCB Rob -- Your office sounds kind of sad and lonely. Good luck with your job search. Maybe Dunkin Donuts has an opening. Kind of hard to check the blog though, when you're up to your wrists in honeydip glaze.

Probably a bit late on this one, but a friend of mine actually had maintenance called on account of his smell... without lighting any matches. He never owned up to it, of course.