I am driven mad by a co-worker who insessantly chews his gum with his mouth open. What am I to do?!?

Question

It is not evenas though he does it sometimes. It is all the time, and I can not only hear his mastication, but can smell the disgusting overpowering spearmint coming from his mouth...

Answer 1

Punch him in it!

Answer 2

I know how you feel. I also work in an open plan office, and one of our co-workers sniffles all day long. It's really annoying when you're tyring to concentrate on something. I have said it to him in a joking way, and he stops for a while but then goes back to it again. I would recommend saying something though because you might get a break from it for a while at least. Maybe you should join him and start chewing...then ask him for some gum and when he gives you packet, take all of them so he has none left! :-)

Answer 3

Get the company to ban chewing gum in the office / on the shop floor / on duty, whatever. If you are in a professional workspace, chewing gum all the time should not be an acceptable habit.

If that's not an option, just keep telling him to eat with his mouth shut - and do it every single time.

Answer 4

Buy him some gum that turns his whole mouth blue.... but put it in a spearmint package. :) Honestly, chewing gum in any place of business is rude and unsociable...but then there are always those that don't have any manners so maybe a toy camel chewing it's cud figurine put on his desk would tell him that he and the camel have a lot in common :)

Answer 5

Oh dear Lord, I sympathize with you on this one. My Mother's pastor actually had the nerve to have gum in her mouth during the memorial service! Some people should have been cows! I wanted to smack her so she would choke on it. Obviously that was not the answer especially since she was my Mother's childhood friend as well. But it is so disturbing. And to have to put up with it day in day out. Can you speak to your boss about it? After all it is very unprofessional. There has got to be others who are annoyed by it as well.

Answer 6

I think I would tell him that his habit is not attractive and it's annoying, aside from being unprofessional. Chances are he doesn't even know he's doing it. Maybe fabricate a "white lie": "that girl you like, she says you're ok, but the gum-chewing really turns her off!"

How about just straight-up! "Hey, Dude. You are not the only one in this office! Spit out the damned gum, will you?" and hold a trash can up for him. Godloveya.

Answer 7

regrettably, open. i'm a mouth breather because i continuously have sinuses and hypersensitive reactions so how do you assume me to chew for an prolonged era of time and breathe at the same time? (even with the actual shown truth that i do chew foodstuff with my mouth closed because it takes seconds to chew and swallow the position as chewing gum can take hours)

Answer 8

Every work place has these types of situations. No offense to you, but you probably do things that bother other people as well as the loud gum chewer.
The only thing I can tell you to do is ask him nicely if he could chew a little more quiet.

Answer 9

I sympathise with you - I think that chewing gum is a bad habit, if we were created to chew things incessantly, I'm sure that we would've been created as cows.
What about moving to another desk further away from him, getting a new partner or simply telling him how you feel about his habit?
Good luck!

Answer 10

I would just tell him to stop, but in a joking fashion " good god, you dont half make some noise when you chew that gum, close your mouth will you"


That should do the trick

Answer 11

Tell him he looks tacky like Britney Spears chewing his cud like that. That may work.

Just ask nicely that he close his mouth while chewing gum. It could be worse, at least you don't smell his bad breath!