Office Pantry

    The office pantry.  What a dismal place unless you work somewhere posh like Google where a happy workplace is actually implemented with a fancy drinks machine that makes espresso, cappuccino, black tea, white tea and hot chocolate, and lovely snacks, healthy and bad, are neatly displayed.  Compare that to a robotic mission statement telling you that employees are important that is posted on a cork board on a Formica wall above the microwave splattered on the inside which is next to the dingy coffee machine that is in front of a sad little dinette set which sits under a fluorescent light. 

     While these two places seem very different, they do have something in common.  They are both public spaces.  And that means that you need to do your bit to keep them neat and tidy.  Take your mess and go.  Don't leave your dirty cups and wrappers behind expecting the cleaning crew or a conscientious colleague to pick up after you.  Don't assume that trays, plates and cutlery that you carried out from the cafeteria will be picked up by food services staff.  Leave the pantry in a better condition than you found it.  Otherwise some disgruntled coworker might just take a picture of something you've left behind and put it in his blog.

Comments

[JRG]

Your picture is so sad.

Please notice the artful yet repugnant trail of stains down the front of the ice bin directly below the repulsive used and abandoned tray. Is that a drip from this tray? Yesterday's tray? Last week's tray? The archeological accumulation of hundreds of unaddressed past spills? Whatever it is, it sure makes me want to go freshen up the ice in my drink.

And please take note of the optimistic but ultimately impotent and much-ignored "Do Not Leave Food Particles In the Sink" sign: who can conceive of washing one's own dishes, removing them clean and sparkling back to one's desk, and leaving the nauseating, half-chewed and picked-over detritus of one's meal strewn about the communal sink for the rest of the day for one's colleagues to gingerly work around while trying not to look directly at?

I grow queasy and so must stop.

[Michael Lin]

Ah yes thank you confirming the bleakness of this anonymous pantry. I have heard from a reliable source that certain people used to use the ice-maker as a freezer as well. How's that for freshness?

And as you point out, that sign is about as effective as rehab is for Britney Spears.

[Spidey]

I work in an office of five people and two of them regular order large plates of stew and similar foods and then put the plates on my desk or on my files when they are finished because my desk is the closest one to the door.

The delivery restaurant usually does not come by to pick up the plates until their next order, which is the next day or even two days later.

I move the plates to a conference table in the front, but it looks dirty and unprofessional no matter what. Since one of the pigs is a boss, there is not much that I can do. The guy is a f*cking pig and also drinks beer in his office regularly and leaves the bottles under his desk.

[Bexy]

This picture makes me sad for you Michael. I thought the kitchen at my old office was bad! They actually required us to take turns cleaning the kitchen - a lovely chore. It's nice to know that in addition how crazy they would make you in other aspects of your job, you get another opportunity to get angry/disillusioned by learning what filthy pigs all of them are.

[Michael]

I can't believe that they made you clean the kitchen!! That's too much. How often was the kitchen cleaned? Was there a chore wheel?