A Thai woman says a coworker kept commenting on her homemade lunches, then asked ‘do you people eat anything that doesn’t smell like this?’

A woman who moved to the U.S. from Thailand reported her coworker to management after he repeatedly commented on her homemade Thai lunches. At one point, he allegedly asked her, “Do you people eat anything that doesn’t smell like this?”

As detailed by The Daily Dot, the 29-year-old woman moved from Thailand about six years ago and often brought homemade Thai lunches to work to save money. However, a 34-year-old coworker reportedly kept complaining about her food.

She initially brushed off his remarks as jokes, but the comments kept coming. He allegedly criticized her curry, chicken and rice, and fried rice, and she said he made no similar comments about other colleagues’ fish or eggs.

The lunch comments did not stop after the first confrontation

The situation escalated after another complaint about her curry. She finally asked the coworker why he had such a problem with her food, and he reportedly called other lunches normal without explaining further.

The confrontation came when she brought pad kra pao, a popular dish made with meat, basil, and rice. That is when he allegedly made the “you people” remark. She immediately asked him what he meant by it and wanted an explanation for what he thought was so funny.

She did not accept his answer about the smell and kept pressing him to explain what made her lunch funny or abnormal. The coworker then accused her of overthinking and twisting his words. Two other colleagues were reportedly there during the exchange, and one of them stopped laughing.

She then told him to learn some manners before commenting on other people’s meals, and she left with her lunch. Afterward, she said, he told their colleagues she was difficult and had accused him of racism. She wrote that she came to work to make a living, “not have somebody comment on my lunch every single day.”

In an update, the woman recalled another remark from the coworker. When he didn’t see her food one day, he reportedly said, “At least you’re giving us a break from the weird stuff today.” He called that a compliment, but she disagreed. He later told her that his remarks were only targeting her food.

In a later update, she said she had privately reported the incidents to her manager. The manager asked for examples, dates, and any witnesses before saying she would speak to the coworker. The woman emphasized that she just wanted his comments to stop and did not want anyone fired.

She later heard that the coworker was complaining she had gone behind his back, even though she had previously asked him to stop. When she published her final update, she had not yet received an outcome from her manager. Bringing management into a dispute between coworkers can add fresh tension, as a worker called into HR over salary talk found.

In the U.S., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination based on national origin, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said employers must take seriously complaints that a worker is being harassed over cultural differences. The agency has also noted that more than half of all the charges it receives involve retaliation complaints.

The original post, shared in r/AmITheJerk, drew hundreds of upvotes and over 100 comments. It was later shared in r/BestofRedditorUpdates after the original was deleted.

One commenter urged the poster to keep a record of the incidents, writing, “Highly recommend documenting all of these interactions and notifying HR.” This commenter, who identified as Canadian-American, also praised Thai food, adding, “Even if I didn’t like it, I would never continually comment on it.”

Another commenter left the decision about escalating the matter up to the poster, writing, “The racist harassment should be reported, but that is your choice.” A third commenter suggested the coworker was risking his own job, writing, “Sounds like he is trying to get himself fired.”

Attack of the Fanboy was unable to independently verify the coworker’s side of the story, as this account comes solely from a Reddit thread. Her identity, the workplace, the coworker, and the commenters’ usernames have not been confirmed.