I have on a few occasions gone into the pantry at work, after someone has had a spill, to find a damp piece of paper towel on the floor. Apparently this is the office version of oildry: you see a spill, thrown down some paper towels, and voila! she is finish.
Except there’s a step 2 that someone is missing: pick up the fucking paper towel, you tool!
I encountered this again today in an even better location: the head of the stairs outside of our work cafeteria. There was a small pile of napkins **AT THE HEAD OF THE STAIRS, OBVIOUSLY MEANT TO ABSORB A STICKY SPILL AND PROVIDE TRACTION :rolleyes: **
It never ceases to amaze me how, when you have a bunch of people working at a company, all well over 18 and supposedly capable of wiping a counter or a spot on the floor, or putting garbage in a garbage can, the staff kitchen is always in the state it’s in. And I don’t think I have ever actually witnessed someone making a mess and leaving it, but somehow there is always a mess left behind. I’m just grateful that I don’t drink coffee, so I don’t care about the teaspoon of coffee that these do-nothings leave in the pot so they don’t have to make a new one.
And a fervent “amen” to that. Our breakroom sink is always full of dirty plates and cups and silverware. What is up with that, people? You leave your dirty dishes in the sink hoping the house elves will get it?
Where I come from, a planet without house elves, when you eat your lunch in the breakroom, you clean up after yourself. No discussion.
At my work, we have “kitchen duty” for a week at a time. Comes up about every 4 or 5 months. Then I have to clean up after those pigs. And there’s a sign, right there, that says you have to wash your own dishes! Ugh! Those bastards! But what’s worse is if there’s a goddamn POTLUCK during your week. Then you’re screwed.
Can we add the bathroom? Who are these coworkers of mine that treat the bathroom sinks like a birdbath? I sure do love leaning towards the sink only to have water seep onto my shirt from the edge of the counter.
Also in my office, paper hand towels near the garbage = in the garbage. And pissing at the urinal = in the urinal.
It’s gotten so bad that I go out of my way to seek out the least-used bathroom in the building.
We have a cleaning girl that comes in every afternoon at 5 and spends a few hours here, emptying garbage, swabbing toilets and the like.
About once a month, someone on my staff bitches about the job she does because she left a sticky spot on the bathroom floor, or someone found a crumb on the kitchen counter.
Now, I like this girl, she’s young, working at her first job that doesn’t involve “do you want your receipt in the bag?”, going to college, and trying pretty hard. You virtually never tell her anything twice. One day I was in late - about 7 PM when she came into my office and said she wanted to show me something. She walked me into the kitchen and showed me the open, spilled food in the fridge. Showed me where people tossed up fast food wrappers with food in them on the floor by the trash. Showed me the sticky spilled pop on the break room tables. Showed me the open box of cookies, and the donuts left on the tables, already gathering ants.
I took pictures and posted them where everyone could see them.
That worked for about a week. Now, we’re all pigs again.
They tried to pull that assigned clean up day. It didn’t last to long. I threw the dishes left in the sink into a large cardboard box. I put up a sign that said tomorrow I’d finish my choirs by dumping the box in the dumpster. Most people didn’t take their dishes, and this cleaned out the break room nicely in a couple weeks. All the unclaimed dishes that were being used were gone, and people didn’t want theirs disappearing. There were a few other’s that took that approach. Only the ones that cleaned up after them selves did this. The other’s didn’t do anything they were supposed to.
I try to stay out of these office pig threads, because you can’t be anything but negative, when talking about the shared eating space. I eat in the vehicle so long as it’s not freezing. You can close your eyes, listen to music, and relax, without the people bitching about their work the whole lunch which is stressful.
One, in my office I have confirmed that it is one single person that manages to leave the kitchen in a total mess each time he touches it. I think it’s pretty common for one or two slobs to undo the neatness that the rest of your conscientious colleagues maintain. It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, tho.
Two, I need to interject a roommate rant (because I don’t think many colleagues would even bother with this in the first place): you know when you pile all the grotty dishes in the sink, squirt in some soap and fill up the sink with water?
That doesn’t count as “doing the dishes.” That doesn’t even count as “getting started on the dishes.” It certainly doesn’t count as “doing the first half for me” and no, you aren’t entitled to sit back on your ass while I clean up the festering mess that’s been sitting in the sink since you left it there to brew.
Rinsing the dishes and stacking them beside (or even in) the sink, now THAT counts as half-cleaning. What you did counts as “making more work for me.”
Something positive in a workplace kitchen thread - this image has me smiling to myself!
I worked at a place that started throwing everything out of the fridge every Friday (I’m sure you all know why - the leftover lunches turning into science experiments). THey threw this guy’s very nice tupperware containers out that were full of mold from being left in the fridge so long. Being of a frugal nature, I took them out of the garbage, took them home, bleached the shit out of them, and started using them myself (they were fine after the bleaching - mold don’t scare me). THe guy had the nerve to ask for them back when he saw me using one. You’ll get it back when I throw it at your head, you lazy loser.
It seems quite an easy solution really, especially the plate and cup thing.
Go to one of those make your own crockery places and get a cup and plate with each persons name on it. They wouldn’t leave it about if you knew who it was. Pick up the dirty dishes left in the sink and put them on that persons desk with a standard note that says, “You are an adult kindly clean up after yourself, no excuses.” Or, I suppose you could get everyone a different coloured cup, glass, dish and achieve the same thing.
As for the general mess, install one of those fake surveillance cameras and post a sign saying, “failure to maintain cleanliness standards of adults will result in being exiled from the lunch room.” And then do it.
No, what will happen is that the slob will take a decent human being’s mug out of the clean dish rack, use it, leave it filthy, and not say anything when the human gets blamed for the mess. Then you have a self-satisfied slob, a pissed-off responsible co-worker, and much drama as the responsible co-worker claims innocence and people take sides.
