the coffee machine.
Posted by anya on July 29th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedSo yesterday I broke the coffee machine at work. You can’t blame me, I was in a state of post-Pemberton delirium and sleeplessness. It was like I was physically at work but mentally still asleep. Anyways, the bin thing was full, I went to empty the bin… and then it just wouldn’t close. It was end of day Monday, so nobody really cared/noticed. Seth, Mike, and I tried to tinker with it unsuccessfully. I called the tech people, and they said “try tugging at the base as hard as you can.”
“um. that doesn’t work. it’s not doing anything. wait. here’s a coworker”
seth: “um, that doesn’t work. it’s not doing anything.”
“ok we’re gonna send someone over soon.”
but soon didn’t mean in an hour. soon didn’t mean anything. soon was my mortal enemy. and today is Tuesday morning and people were freaking out. there was no coffee. it was like the air in the office was different. people boiled water. someone took out the ancient it-looks-like-it-hasn’t-been-used-since-web-1.0 coffee cylinder machine thing. there were suggestions of walking over to Starbucks in the rain. the boss lady was heard saying in the hall: “someone broke the coffee machine?”. It was brought up at the morning marketing meeting, forcing me to blurt out and confess “okayiknowitwasmewhodiditbutsomoenescomingtofixitsoonipromise.” breathe.
then, suddenly, THE MAN showed up. I was ready to wed the Flavia repairman. He waltzed into the kitchen, took a chopstick (wtf?) and poked something and the door shut. It was almost a religious experience.
here’s what I have learned from co-op thus far: don’t fuck with the coffee machine.
(do you that that’s appropriate content for my Learning Portfolio thing?)
July 29th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Yah, definitely something for any Learning portfolios you might contribute to. This kind of hands-on knowledge needs to get out there so that interns and new hires everywhere can protect themselves from untimely dismissal for damaging ‘company property’ that results in ‘lost time due to [human] resource unavailability’ blah blah.
In being careful with the coffee machine, I neither refill it nor clean it, and if it doesn’t dispense the goods I raise a ticket with Services, IT, my manager and I have, once, told the CEO directly.
Nobody ever says you went ‘too crazy’ that coffee’s not available, except maybe the new-age hippies that don’t drink it – but in my line of work, we don’t get many of those. Or they’re all in HR or something. I always thought of spiking their water supply with caffeinated water, just for kicks.
P.S. I am amazed that the repair engineer allowed you mortals to look upon his work. From the way you put it, he sounds like a virtuoso of the nuts and bolts trade. Did he stop and look at the pot for a second or three before applying this most elegant treatment?
July 30th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Dang, wish I had known. I’ve busted that coffee machine so many times I’m pretty good at fixing the basic foul-ups now… Or maybe this guy knew something I will need to know the next time I break the coffee machine.
One other thing to keep in mind… I’ve broken the coffee machine so many times that if you say nothing people will assume I did it, and dock my paycheque for the usual amount.
Brian’s last blog post: Gone workin’…
July 31st, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Muahaha, that’s a great tip, Brian! I will keep it in mind for next time I screw something up.