Just when you thought you had seen it all in the Qantas lounge...

[MARTINE]

I don't care what people wear. I dress down when I travel but that involves an un-ironed (and perhaps not clean) collared shirt, cargo trousers, socks and scruffy walking shoes. It ticks the boxes for a dress code, but I don't think it's quite what the dress-code snobs had in mind.

I don't care about use of tongs. I take the view that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I touch the same surfaces as others, I seldom wash my hands and I assume others do the same.

Oh dear.. after using a toilet?
how about the surgeon who operates?
There are reasons to avoid contamination

My Australian family all have this Australian obsession with washing, double dipping, covering skin, cleanliness, etc. and they are the ones who are always going sick. Gosh I'm glad I'm not them.

Guilty as charged

 

[Port Power]

My PJ's are very simple. Some shorts (ideally a little loose fitting) and a plain t-shirt. Often will have collared shirt with pocket over the t-shirt entirely respectable in a lounge, and great for carrying passport (admittedly a very guy thing), which I remove when I'm ready to sleep or get comfortable - added advantage of not needing to go to toilets to change. Perfect for arrivals into my home port of SIN but will change into jeans or pants prior to landing if travelling into circa or sub zero conditions, but even landing in MEL in the middle of winter, a jumper is enough to get me into a taxi or uber.

Sans Footwear as well I see

They are not socks, but some sort of sports shoes.

 

[Vic]

Seriously food etiquette is to have clean hands and to not contact other people's food. It really doesn't matter how you achieve those two fundamentals.

I have seen a couple dashing to a gate all Pj'd up - quite bizarre.

There was a guy disembarking QF36 this week in the full Martin Grant Sartorial splendourView attachment 316494....

I was on that flight. what seat were you in?

We all can, but that's not why the tongs are there.

In a buffet context, the tongs are a distancing tool. They keep your hands, shirt cuffs, dropped skin cells etc further away from the container of communal food items

Like a sneeze guard, but for the hands.

Yeah, not really at all.
I reckon dajop has covered my comment. People touch the tongs!

A tongue-in-cheek thought for those picking up bread rolls using tongs. Do you wash/sanitise your hands after using the tongs, but before picking up the bread roll with your hands? What about all the people who've had their dirty hands on the tongs, potentially transferred to your hands when you touched the tongs.

Exactly

Seatbelt sign went on after changing into PJs and then never went off….?

quite possibly !!

Nope. I managed to change out of my PJs. My recollection is this guy just slept too long.

I cannot see how anyone would see that it's acceptable to use fingers/hands to grab food at the buffet. Unless of course that person is totally uncultured at which point they should not be allowed out and about.

Ah, now here is the obsession with tongs I talked about!
Please tell me, if there is a plate of muffins, those muffins that are wrapped in the baking paper. How is it NOT acceptable if I pick up the muffin by the corner of the paper and don't touch any other thing on the serving plate, take it away and eat it? HOW is that uncultured? Enquiring minds want to know.

BTW I've got a photo of the butter chicken in the lounge at BOM just for you... It's not just Qantas that do butter chicken.

She would taste test nearly every dish, directly off the serving ladle, and then put the ladle back into the stew or whatever in the bains-marie. If one of us caught her she would feign ignorance and say she didn't speak english.

Reminds me of the Chinese stand up who does a routine for traffic violations in the USA.
"i don't speak english"
Sir it's a speed limit - they're numbers... lol

 

[JohnK]

Ah, now here is the obsession with tongs I talked about!
Please tell me, if there is a plate of muffins, those muffins that are wrapped in the baking paper. How is it NOT acceptable if I pick up the muffin by the corner of the paper and don't touch any other thing on the serving plate, take it away and eat it? HOW is that uncultured? Enquiring minds want to know.

BTW I've got a photo of the butter chicken in the lounge at BOM just for you... It's not just Qantas that do butter chicken.

In that situation that would be acceptable.

I've seen people grabbing bread rolls with their hands from the basket. Not just grabbing one from the top but digging hands in to the pile of bread rolls? Acceptable? If you can't use a tong, use a fork or call staff to assist.

I've seen people grab a piece of slice bread with their fingers from the middle of the pile laying sideways. Not the last slice of bread but one from the middle where it's impossible not to touch others. Acceptable?

How about sliced cheese, ham or tomato for the sandwich? Utensils or fingers?

And yes @dajop lots of people grab tongs. This is where gloves at the buffet come in handy but some clowns put on 1 glove and then use the ungloved hand to touch everything is sight.

 

[Vic]

In that situation that would be acceptable.

I've seen people grabbing bread rolls with their hands from the basket. Not just grabbing one from the top but digging hands in to the pile of bread rolls? Acceptable? If you can't use a tong, use a fork or call staff to assist.

I've seen people grab a piece of slice bread with their fingers from the middle of the pile laying sideways. Not the last slice of bread but one from the middle where it's impossible not to touch others. Acceptable?

How about sliced cheese, ham or tomato for the sandwich? Utensils or fingers?

And yes @dajop lots of people grab tongs. This is where gloves at the buffet come in handy but some clowns put on 1 glove and then use the ungloved hand to touch everything is sight.

A reply that contradicts your previous claim that using hands is NEVER acceptable.
And that is the issue the absoluteness of the claim that it is always unacceptable to not use tongs, regardless of situation.

Based on experience I know you're not going to understand my point, so I've got nothing further to say. Not going to debate the erroneous use of language,.

 

[Danger]

It's Time To Expect More From Passengers In Airport Lounges - View from the Wing

I think you may be missing a much bigger issue/concern regarding photographs of children potentially being shared online - specially those that aren't in your family.

but that's a whole other isue not really for this forum.

Oh I wouldn't worry about that. The days of Australian Frequent Flyer being a website about, well, frequent flying, are sadly long gone.

 

[Sprucegoose]

I was on that flight. what seat were you in?

I was wedged between 1E and 1K and an absolute model passenger.

Seriously food etiquette is to have clean hands and to not contact other people's food. It really doesn't matter how you achieve those two fundamentals.

If that's the case, the Indian Continent and the Korean Peninsula have a long way to go. My lovely Indian friends eat with their hands, and at the odd Korean dinner I have attended, we all eat from the food on the table - yes, more than double dipping and I have never ended up in the Alfred or Royal North Shore.

Nope. I managed to change out of my PJs. My recollection is this guy just slept too long.

Let's cut Mr Wu some slack here; he may have been clearly disorientated and distressed and not fully appreciative that Melbourne people are the best-dressed folk in the country. The poor chap may well have thought he had lobbed into either Darwin, Perth or Sydney, where running around in QF PJs could be (it is!) seen as a form of chic. (I have left you Brisbane people, out of this, given our newfound, growingly confident friendship).

 

[Pushka]

I was wedged between 1E and 1K and an absolute model passenger.



If that's the case, the Indian Continent and the Korean Peninsula have a long way to go. My lovely Indian friends eat with their hands, and at the odd Korean dinner I have attended, we all eat from the food on the table - yes, more than double dipping and I have never ended up in the Alfred or Royal North Shore.



Let's cut Mr Wu some slack here; he may have been clearly disorientated and distressed, not clearly understanding Melbourne people are the best dressed in the country. The poor chap may well have thought he had lobbed into either Darwin, Perth or Sydney, where running around in QF PJs could be (it is!) seen as a form of chic. (I have left you Brisbane people, out of this, given our newfound, growingly confident friendship).

Indian food is best eaten with right hand. I always eat it that way at home. Out? Maybe.

 

[Hvr]

, I seldom wash my hands

I hope you're not making my pizza.

 

[offshore171]

In that situation that would be acceptable.

I've seen people grabbing bread rolls with their hands from the basket. Not just grabbing one from the top but digging hands in to the pile of bread rolls? Acceptable? If you can't use a tong, use a fork or call staff to

Ah yes, the good old bread roll "rummage". Why must they get one from the very bottom and manhandle every other roll in the basket?

I reckon dajop has covered my comment. People touch the tongs!

Right - but in my experience, they don't eat them. Unlike a bread roll for example.

 

[JohnK]

A reply that contradicts your previous claim that using hands is NEVER acceptable.
And that is the issue the absoluteness of the claim that it is always unacceptable to not use tongs, regardless of situation.

Based on experience I know you're not going to understand my point, so I've got nothing further to say. Not going to debate the erroneous use of language,.

Your point was that you struggle to use tongs.

It's impossible not to use hands at the buffet. How do you get your cutlery? How do you get your plate? How do you use utensils?

Saying you can grab a cup cake, a cup of yoghurt, a little bowl/cup of desert etc with fingers is not a contradiction. Grabbing bread, lettuce or anything else with hands/fingers should not be acceptable.

For what it's worth I try to avoid buffets where possible.

 

[drron]

And in Asia I have seen people put on a new pair of gloves each time they go to the buffet to get food. They were Japanese.

 

[RichardMEL]

sigh. this seems to be getting out of hand...

(pun intended)

so.. let me add more

the thing about "everyone touches the tongs" - yes it's true. However, as aluded to a few posts above - you don't eat the tongs. Further, if one is especially concerned they can use sanitiser on their hands when they get back to their seat and before they eat, or if they use cutlery to eat the food they have taken, then the food is still, in theory, ok for them bacteria wise. Now of course 99% of people don't worry about such things and shouldn't. Even I as a compromised person would not be so obsessive, but I do use sanitiser in the lounge when I see it (seems much has been removed from QF lounges recently - but not all, as an aside).

I mean if one is going to start going to the level of "those grubby hands all over tongs leaving bacteria" type thoughts well you would probably not want to go anywhere public tbh - door handles, lift buttons, handrails, etc etc etc. A thousand touch points a day with multiple unknown people all using them.

At some point we decide what is the risk factor - for most, there's near zero. Our bodies have immune systems that deal with the usual germs 99% of us all carry around as a matter of course - even mine which is weaker than most.

I think this is different to people rummaging around in the basket of rolls or pulling, for eg, cheese or deli meat(specially a wonderful place that bacteria love) with their hands.

Sure, other cultures are different, and if I'm in one of those then I respect those. Here (oz/most of the west), there's a certain expectation of basic hygiene. People eating at home with their famlies or at a function I think is a bit different to a public place like a lounge buffet with hundreds and hundreds of people coming and going. However each to their own.

I guess the pandemic has made a lot more people aware of the risks and potential issues. I'm not talking of one particular virus in particular, but just in general.

 

[Mr H]

People eating at home with their famlies or at a function I think is a bit different to a public place like a lounge buffet with hundreds and hundreds of people coming and going.

This is the bit I don't get. It was the same with Covid - people thought everyone should isolate - but that it was OK for them to meet with friends and family because they all knew each other. If you are going to be a clean freak in public, you should be a clean freak at home too.

I am sure most of the clean-freakery is just conditioned behaviour and often serves to weaken people's immune system.

 

[mrsterryn]

Well on topic
I am looking forward to seeing all these amazing fashion choices when I get to be in the lounge again

 

[Sprucegoose]

Well on topic
I am looking forward to seeing all these amazing fashion choices when I get to be in the lounge again

I don't believe you will have long to wait.....

 

[mrsterryn]

I don't believe you will have long to wait.....

*Grumpy * my husband will be there before I get to go again

 

[RichardMEL]

This is the bit I don't get. It was the same with Covid - people thought everyone should isolate - but that it was OK for them to meet with friends and family because they all knew each other. If you are going to be a clean freak in public, you should be a clean freak at home too.

Going to guess you were not in Victoria (specially Melbourne) during the lockdowns....

not to get into a side debate about Covid which is even more triggering to some than tongs, but the whole point was to limit contacts and spread but trying to be kind of reasonable (except in certain places). And if cases did spread, because you DID know who you had spent time with, that would make tracing easier (back when that was a thing.. seems ages ago now like another lifetime).

I am sure most of the clean-freakery is just conditioned behaviour and often serves to weaken people's immune system.

Well I don't know about that - though I see the point with younger generations (some anyway) trying to protect their kids from anything and everything which probably does weaken their immune systems. I was in the generation of kids who drank out of the garden hose, went out and played on weekends and wasn't expected home til dinner time and all the rest. but we were also expected to wash our hands before eating, after using the toilet and so on.

Having said that, one doesn't have to be a "clean freak" to expect certain standards (or at least hope) from others. Again, I accept that is a cultural thing and different places have different values. In the context of the thread being about lounges in Australia, well that's (in general) our culture. And ignoring it because it doesn't fit with one's cultural norms shows a lack of respect imo. Just like if I went to another place and deliberately (as opposed to ignorantly/without intent) ignoring that culture's norms of behaviour that would also be disrespectful. It may be seen as "cultural bias" to want people to show respect to the place they are in of course.

of course it's hardly like everyone in Australia have the same values - we're a multicultural society - but I think most people get the general idea of reasonable behaviour.

 

[Mr H]

Going to guess you were not in Victoria (specially Melbourne) during the lockdowns....

It’s a good guess but it’s not right.

 

[Vic]

Ah yes, the good old bread roll "rummage". Why must they get one from the very bottom and manhandle every other roll in the basket?



Right - but in my experience, they don't eat them. Unlike a bread roll for example.

True, but the next person touches those tongs, and then eats something else using that hand. "germs" transfer on to tongs, just as well as onto food...