forbidden topics during lunch with office mates

Discussions regarding salaries are actually frowned upon by the management of most companies. There are usually policies covering that certain topic which may result in disciplinary action. Salary discussions usually result in low employee morale. Now for the personal issues, like relationship problems, it is within your own right as a human being to discuss it with anyone during your lunch break. Imposing a prohibition against this topic is not justified not unless you gossip about your co-employees affairs. People love to share their problems and frustrations with others because it eases their depression and this should not be frowned upon by upper management not unless it severely affects job performance.

This depends on where you work at. If working for healthcare then talking about patient privacy is a NO-NO. Talking about personal affairs I think it's personnal and only close mates will know. I see collegues as teammates rather than close friends but some collegues can be close friends as well it depends. The reason I said that is if sometimes problems can occur in a work environment such as not getting along with your collegues due to attitude issues and if that happens they might go around and tell your secretes selfishly. The best topic will be general stuffs like shopping flee, advises on buying a house, car since some of them might have done it before and they can give you an idea. Or how many siblings you have, where you grew up...just to get to know you a bit better. You might have a collogue that came from the same town as you....you just never know.

Hi there... Discussing salary is totally banned in our company.. Comparing salaries is the worst thing to do with the colleagues... Everyone isn't equally qualified and doesn't have equal talents... So it is not good to compare what everyone gets... That is bad manners... Yes, there are a few things which shouldn't be discussed everywhere... There are unwritten laws about what we should talk and what we should not... :) Take care

hi, actually the break time is the time where worker to speak and talk to their friends,so it cant avoid to talk about the office and other things about in the office such as the boss,the policy and even the salary will discussed too.so for me its a right time to talk about that because bosses are on break too.

I agree that not everything can be discussed with our office mate during lunch time. The same thing applies to other occasions with other people that you know. I believe the best topic to be talked about during lunch time would be something general such as your favorite past time, latest news or maybe some sales going on in supermarket etc. Definitely shouldn't touch something personal. They are bad ideas.