Sunday, February 14, 2021

Office Pantry politics

Office pantry is quite a unique spot. 

Its a meeting spot. Some people gather & conduct an impromptu meeting, with complete specific details. Some gather to gossip about their office nemesis or boss or process. Then there are loners who glide in & out of pantry doing only what they came to do.

Layout wise it generally has a Scotsman water filter/cooler/dispenser. Vending machine for snacks or carbonated drinks. Refrigerator for office folks to store their lunches & other food, sometimes all week or month long. Few microwaves for office folks to heat their lunch or coffee or popcorn. Some pretty much do the cooking. Those ready-to-eat packages need 5-10 minutes of microwaving.

Sink is a major boiling point. Dirty cups or food crumbs left in sink are major trigger points. From time to time, some put up passive-aggressive notes.

Some deal with it in a funny way.

One time when 2 microwaves broke down, then the default solution is to walk up or down to the next floor & use theirs. A poster came up polling for "Guess When the New Microwave will come & win a Microwavable meal." Way to keep it interesting.

All that I am describing applies to North American offices. None of this would make it to a show like Office or any movies showing corporate offices. But this drama is too entertaining to be lost in space.

In the current remote working world, especially for those who have got out of college and started working, the absence of this spot is going to leave a vacuum in their work experience.









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