'HR banned me from bringing favourite sandwich to work – it caused a stink'

An office worker has been banned from bringing his favourite sandwich into work because of the horrifying stench it made.

Very few jumped to the anonymous poster's defence as many found themselves recalling grim encounters with pungent food items in the break room at work. A post to /X from Fesshole, the anonymous confessions page where embarrassing and often intimate details are posted without a name, caused a stir as people mocked the admission.

The post read: "HR have made me agree not to eat sardine and kimchi baguettes in the break room at work anymore." There was very little sympathy for the poster as many pointed out the basic rules of "work etiquette".

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One user wrote: "Everyone knows there’s such a thing as work etiquette which basically means no eating of fish." Another added: "They’re always so proactive about this but when an actual human being STINKS to high heaven, everybody pretends otherwise."

A third user revealed a former colleague of theirs would stink the office out so badly his workmates asked for him to be transferred to a different part of the company. They wrote: "Former colleague of mine used to microwave sardines for lunch every day. It would stink the office out, so the rest of us asked for him to be transferred to another branch office."

Others have seen the error of their ways in reheating or warming strong-smelling foods, with colleagues not letting them forget their actions. "I once microwaved a chowder one work lunchtime," one worker revealed. "Never been allowed to forget it and rightly so. Don't know what I was thinking."

But there were a few who rallied to the poster's defence, recalling similar scenarios where they had been issued a warning over their choice of lunch. One wrote: "Yep, was told not to eat pilchards in the office. Mainly because a tin was left in a bin over a weekend and the office was honking on the following Monday."

Another said: "May be the only one here, but I don't find this unreasonable at all." While a third said: "It's no one else's business what you eat. This makes me cross."