My husband and I work at the same place and he has a fridge in his office, so I pretty much do, too. Each week I bring enough stuff for us to eat on. Mainly right now we are on a steady diet of wrap sandwiches. It’s so easy – tortillas (which come in a variety of flavors: rosemary, cheddar and jalapeno, whole wheat, sun-dried tomato) and a few packages of lunch meat, pimento cheese, that sort of thing. I also keep us stocked with yummy condiments like horseradish as well as fruits that last a week, like apples and grapes.
I have access to a water cooler where I am, but he keeps water bottles in the fridge for himself. We each have microwaves in our areas – in addition to the agency’s fully functional kitchen with a stove, fridge, microwave and dishwasher – so I often heat the wraps. (Wrap them in damp paper towel first to prevent them from drying out.)
We also go through salad phases. I get the aforementioned bags of greens, and bring in tomatoes and tuna or salmon. (They have nice boneless salmon in pouches now; you don’t even need a can opener!) I never thought of making up hard-boiled eggs. That’s a good idea!
And when you microwave popcorn, you must be ready to share!!
I stick to regular or whole wheat tortillas, and don’t buy the ones designed for wraps; they have like nine grams of fat per! I think a large burrito-size regular tortilla has 2.5. I save the fat for the ingredients: olives, feta, hummus, cucumber, chicken grilled on my George Foreman grill, etc.
I have a 2 cubic ft refrigerator. It was bought by a guy who quitted 2 years back. When he left, he told me that he would leave the fridge AND the microwave, so they are now mine.
I mainly keep some bottled water in it as well as my lunch that I bring in. They sit on top of a desk that has 2 filing cabinets in it so I converted one of the cabinets into a pantry for keeping my canned goods and other foods that won’t spoil.
If I ever leave this place, the microwave and fridge are leaving with me.
Or really anything that’s going to permeate the entire office with a smell for more than two minutes.
Popcorn is amongst it. I smell popcorn, I heave. I have to do this every morning because someone in Advertising MUST HAVE POPCORN EVERY MORNING. I’ve tried talking with the lady, no go. She doesn’t give a shit that her snack makes me physically ill. I could handle it if the popcorn smell went away fast. It doesn’t. It takes at least thirty minutes to dissapate.
In short: it’s not fair to the rest of the office to make it smell like any one given food for more than two minutes at a time.
As for the refrigerator thing: LUCKY! I wish I actually had a real cubicle. Ours aren’t real, and they aren’t cubicals. They’re lame star-shaped groups of four desks that could be cubicals except that they only have two walls and the tops are chopped off so everyone can see each other. If I had a cubical I’d totally get an office frige; the people in my office steal from the main one.
I agree. Burnt pop corn has brought the fire department to our office.
I’m a bit lucky in that way. It’s a cube but a big one. And I do need it. Three computers, two desks. A switch for my next cube neighbor.
Two UPS’s. Basic bookshelf and such. Sometimes it’s good to be IS.
