The breakroom or kitchen. Does your workplace have one?
Do you have any pet peeves related to it? A lunch thief? Annoying political commentary from idiot coworkers sharing what their friend just posted on Facebook? Who keeps the breakroom clean? Do you have a janitor who cleans it or do you all take turns?
Vent about it all...bonus points for making us laugh.
Posted Apr 4, 2018, 1:48 PM UTC
People who drink the last of the coffee but don’t brew more! There was a new guy who asked me how to brew coffee. I thanked him for asking and he said he did not want to be “that guy”.
He deserves Coffee
That is the fucking worst. It takes like 15 seconds to start a new brew going.
My attitude for the work kitchen is best summed up by my decision to buy a mini-fridge and coffee pot for my office. Officemate and I brewed our own daily.
My coworkers tend to use the kitchen as a version of Freecycle. People bring the most random shit from home and leave it there for someone else to take. We’ve had things like an open bag of cat food, a used tub of protein powder, expired snacks, tchotchkes, etc. I telework nowadays but my old officemate still texts me kitchen finds on the regular.
We have a stack of used phone cases for a galaxy note 4. A good phone, but, do any still exist? They wait on the counter to be adopted.
I'm guilty of bringing in personal care products I don't like, but I alert my own team before sitting out in the kitchen and it's gone in minutes. If they mind, they haven't spoken up. I don't care so much if it's not obvious junk.
And yeah, I've never donethe work coffee pot. Am coffee snob. Ceramic drip over pot (because I'm too lazy to wash a French press at work) and nice beans. No mooches allowed, but I'll brew you a cup for a piece of chocolate.
My coworkers all seem to bring in things that no one wanted at the yard sale. Absolute junk.
I <3 my Note 4.
Way to alert. Hard to be covert doing so
my mom still uses her Galaxy 4 :P
I hate the cubicle lifestyle... I used to have my own office and even a window!! But moving to the city (lost my job, found one here, don't regret it), it has changed my circumstances and I have to put up with no walls. I hear many voices talking at once. I have no privacy for my work. My boss (who I think is a great boss) sits right behind me and I don't want to get caught on my phone. Work is slow so there isn't much for me to do. I miss having an office...
Earplugs?
I sometimes put on headphones but I don’t like something in my ears too long.
My company has a policy in which each 5-10 person department owns the kitchen for a month. They empty the dishwasher, do a weekly fridge cleanout, and wipe down the counters and microwaves. Within my department (engineering) we have a Google calendar that in-office employees use to rotate out specific days in the month. The company is mostly women anyway, but this does seem to have fixed the tragedy of the commons problem that appears in every single office kitchen.
I work for a large company, but our office here is fairly small. There is another sub-division of the company located in the same building and our keycards are all interworking, so they can come into our area. Which is fine, BUT...our kitchen has the best coffee machine, and snacks. And literally everyone comes to OUR coffee machine because it's better, which again wouldn't be a huge problem except it's one of those that grinds the beans and brews each cup when you press a button, so it takes a while and it makes a good bit of noise every time. There is always a noisy line of people in/around our kitchen waiting for the stupid machine, and it spills out into our working area especially in the morning. UGH.
My building has eight kitchens on different floors. There is kitchen staff to care for all of them.
My biggest gripe is the young college grads who don’t know they can’t leave an empty glass coffee pot on the hot burner for hours. Exploding glass pots are not an uncommon thing.
Our kitchen wall has a ceiling height massive brown stain on it from exploding coffee pots.
My floor has a break room. Several of the older women take it upon themselves to clean the counter and sink almost daily. I (grumpy old guy) have purged the refrigerator several times in the 11 months I've been here since no one seems to want to touch the dangerous leftovers that started dragging themselves over to consume younger lunches.
Gah! Again... nothing from me. We have numerous break rooms, kitchenette, a big cafeteria and a food court in our building. Our work place holds at least 3,000 individuals. We have a maintenance crew that cleans the area.
No funny stories from me because ...sigh... I don't take breaks. If I do its just to grab a quick coffee at the Starbucks or Tim Hortons at the lobby and bring it back to my desk and work away.
I'm starting a thread about ex's...lol
I'm starting a thread about ex's...lol
Oh please do! I'm sure we all have funny and/or tragic stories for that one. Lol
We have a small kitchen area and for the most part everyone does a good job of cleaning up after themselves. We have a small office of about a dozen people so it's a lot easier to manage than some larger groups.
The only real thing we have to make a specific, concerted effort to bring to attention is the fridge. Every month or so, we have to throw out the inadvertent science experiments and cycle through the expired condiments and such.
Overall it's ok but these things bug me:
people who don't wipe down their table after eating and leave crumbs etc.
people who leave a dirty bowl in the sink (there's a dishwasher right next to it)
people who put something tiny (a yogurt etc) on the big top shelf. Put it on the lower shelf with less headroom so big lunch bags can go above!
Gladly we don't have food thieves, and our staff "fun stuff" committee or building manager often bring in snacks, or a local business will offer us something.
My pet peeve is that the women take it upon themselves to do all the break room cleaning, all the party planning, all the napkin restocking... The men seem to think we have an office nanny or that this shit falls from the sky.
I've asked my female staff to back off and see how long it takes for the kitchen to look like Lord of the Flies. I don't want to come across as anti-men, but it seriously doesn't cross their minds to clean up when they spill red sauce in the microwave. I also realize this isn't strictly a gender issue, but it's a pretty even split in my office.
I was feeling extra passive aggressive one day - not my finest feature, but it is a thing I do sometimes - and one of the guys spilled red sauce on the countertop and tile floor. I knew who it was because he also spilled it down his shirt. I wrote, "are you a toddler?" on scratch paper and left it next to the spill. Shame them into compliance. I hope it wasn't someone other than the perp who eventually cleaned it up.
Hmmm. Reading that, I'm probably the person who gets ranted about. 😳
I'm about the only person that cleans our kitchen.
I'm a dude.
They're lucky to have you.