No tissues, but the labs are full of KimWipes, which will do in a pinch for a random sneeze and brief runny nose (which I am plagued with…I don’t get sick, I just sneeze a lot!) They are kind of rough for dealing with a full out cold, though, and so most people (including myself, the one time I had a cold) just seem to bing their own box from home or SNORT! their way through the day (in some people’s cases, lab coat sleeves seem to be the option to go with, since the company cleans those!)
I’ve usually worked in other people’s homes looking after children or cleaning, in which case I would just use what they had.
I’ve been at my current job for 5 years and they have always provided all office supplies plus toilet paper, paper towels, liquid soap, tissues etc. It’s only a small company with 8 regular staff plus a couple of casuals.
We have a kitchen with fridge, microwave, toaster oven, toaster, coffee maker and hot water urn. We have a supply of crockery and cutlery and some people bring a mug from home. Work also pays for tea, coffee, biscuits, sometimes cake, fruit, sauces, sugar, sometimes cup-a-soup and things like that. I’m usually the shopper so I try to watch the spending carefully and not be too indulgent. I buy cans of softdrink by the carton to stock the fridge and we pay for them ourselves. Everyone has taken a healthier turn so now it’s more fruit and less biscuits.
I would expect an employer to supply tissues, toilet paper and office supplies because they are necessary items. Most other items are a convenience and shouldn’t be taken for granted. IMHO your boss sounds like an ass, but at least if you buy your own tissues you can choose the type you want.
Semi-provided by work: it’s a medical office, and drug reps are forever dropping off boxes of tissues with ads for various drugs printed all over them. Which makes for ugly boxes but they ususally at least spring for name brand quality tissue inside, so that’s okay.
My office has always supplied tissue. Sometimes a bit too much, in fact…
We relocated our office back in the summer of 1999. Shortly after we moved in to the new building, my department put together a supply order. My boss ordered several boxes of tissue for his staff (about 6-8 people). But apparently he made a mistake and ordered “cases” instead of “boxes”.
We finally had to order more Kleenex (yes, it was Kleenex brand) just a couple months ago.
No tissues. Never heard of employers supplying those. I’m surprised no one mentioned this before but the only job I can think of where your employer would give you those for free is, well, the oldest profession.
LOL! Something similar happened at a previous job of mine, where an order for 6 dozen steno pads somehow turned into 6 GROSS steno pads.
Do you have any idea how big a volume six gross steno pads is? :eek: I was in the office the day the delivery guy showed up. “Where do you want the steno pads” he says. “Oh, just stick them on my desk and I’ll put them in the supply cabinet later,” I say.
He looks at me for a loooooong moment. We ended up lining the entire hallway with packs of steno pads.
And of course, the supply folks won’t take back 1000 or so pads, even though it should be pretty obvious that it’s a goof. I worked with someone that had a similar blunder - it apparently wasn’t real obvious that the quantities in the catalog (supplied by Corporate Supply) were cases. As it was an internal requisition list, there weren’t any prices, so there was no clue (Hmm… $45 for a box of clips seems high…) to the amounts.
Anyway - they wanted something like ten boxes and got ten CARTONS of clips. This is more than the typical office supply store has on hand. Lots more. About half a million more. Oops.
Back to tissues and the like…
Can we get a trend going here on the size of a company and the likeliness that they provide life’s little things like tissues and coffee? Likewise with their overall “niceness” in benefits?
My employer is on the really-large-to-huge size, with around 150,000 employees, and the bennies are generally regarded as good. (Half-point discount on mortgages? Thankyouverymuch!) We also rank highly on corporate giving.
We do get free (crummy) coffee and (nice) tea, as well as a seemingly randomly-distrubuted supply of paper cups, plates, forks, etc. Stuff like tissues, calendars, monitor cleaner, first-aid kits* and hand sanitizer is on the individual departments to procure. I arrange the ordering for my group, so we do have all of that. I don’t enter the actual order, but my group admin hasn’t rejected anything on me yet.
The company stocks the disaster supply cabinets, but “boo-boo” supplies are the responsibility of the individual business units.
The company I work for has about 600 employees throughout the province.
They provide us with the following freebies:
tissues
coffee
assortment of tea
hot chocolate
we used to have bottled water but now there is an inhouse filtration system
use of a corporate gym (we have one in each of our two main offices)
We also have very flexible benefit plans, and a cafeteria with homecooked food for very reasonable prices.
It’s a great place to work - too bad they’re downsizing and I’ll be out of a job next fall!
