The break room fridge at my work broke. Since it wasn’t provided by the job rather by an employee our job as no reason to replace it.
The moment it happened an employee went around asking if we should take up money and buy the fridge, since there’s 50 employees it was thought just a $10 contribution from each was both little enough to get a contribution but also large enough to get a decent new fridge.
3 years later we still don’t have a fridge. Literally nobody can agree what fridge to buy, where to buy it from, how much to collect from each person, etc. Everybody agrees to get a fridge but nobody can actually agree how to actually do it.
This isn’t the first or last time since everybody needing a consensus has basically derailled all progress at my job either. Anyone else experience this?
Sure. In the pre-COVID days, my department, HR, wanted to do some sort of team building exercise outside of work. And just to be clear, it was during work hours, we’d all still be getting paid, the company would be picking up lunch, it would be somewhere in town, and it would essentially mean just a half-day of work. A particular area of HR, we’ll call them the Benefits team, shot down every idea presented and refused to present any ideas of their own. I wouldn’t be so salty about this if the director hadn’t tasked me with looking into a team building exercise and talking to Benefits was like ramming my head into the wall.
Benefits finally got a new manager and she put a stop to that nonsense. She simply picked an activity and make it clear attendance was mandatory.
I think stuff like that only gets done if someone takes charge and just does it. Take up the collection, choose the thing, mention the choice and then just do it. If anyone complains, invite them to help plan the next one, or hand it off to them.
Many will provide an opinion if you demand it of them, but few actually care all that much.
It’s a fridge. You don’t need a formal governing body to pick one out.
Either that or you need a formal institution and binding procedures. It’s not just a business issue, this is a trap that a lot of older attempts at consensus government tripped up (often just “consensus among the nobility”, but still). If everyone has to agree, then nothing even gets done because you’ll never get everyone to agree; it’s like the old joke about how when you have ten people in a room, you have eleven opinions.
There needs to be some kind of system to ensure that a decision is made at some point, and that the people who disagree has to at least let it happen. “Bob’s in charge and he says what happens” is the simplest way of doing that, but there are others. But without something to provide direction people will just argue round and round endlessly.
The entire reason governments exist at all is to overcome the OP’s situation. “Everybody” is not a decision-making body nor an acting body and never will be.
Sadly for the OP’s specific situation, at this late date the fridge is probably gone forever. Their “society” has moved on into the post-fridge it-was-too-controversial world. Even if The Boss appointed a Fridge czar and seeded the collection effort with, say, 1/3rd of the price of an adequate fridge, enough people would choose to be miffed or cheap that the Czar would never collect enough money to actually a buy a fridge.
Worse: it’s when they try to treat it as a democracy without setting up the systems that make a democracy actually functional. Democracies don’t work by having everybody argue over everything with no rules, no direction, no deadlines and nobody to organize anything. You couldn’t run an effective government like that, either.
Yes government office. We supposedly have a “Employees Comfort Fund” which is supposed to pay for stuff and has bought microwaves in the past but apparently no money for fridges.
The thing is, 4 months ago I DID buy a new fridge for work, a mini-fridge but it’s better than nothing, and you know what people did? Complained immediately it wasn’t a full sized fridge and how “We should go around and collect $10 from everyone to buy a new fridge” like people literally haven’t been saying that for the past 3 years. Idiots at work also wanted to get a fridge “with a huge freezer so we can put ice creams in it” so we’re already seeing mission creep too.
We have a nice lunchroom, complete with a full-size fridge, microwave oven, kitchen sink, and vending machines. I don’t remember ever being asked to put up money for this stuff, so I assume it comes out of the facility’s operating budget.
Don’t know about all fed offices, just the ones I’ve worked in/managed. How long have you been there? Have appliances been replaced during your tenure? Get back to us when one of those craps out. (Well - the sink is likely provided! ;). And the vending machine company pays for them.)
It really shocked me when I left my fed job for a brief stint with a private firm. Was nice to not have to pony up for a coffee fund.
Reminds me of the Golgafrinchans in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
“And the wheel,” said the Captain, “What about this wheel thingy? It sounds a terribly interesting project.”
“Ah,” said the marketing girl, “Well, we’re having a little difficulty there.”
“Difficulty?” exclaimed Ford. "Difficulty? What do you mean, difficulty? It’s the single simplest machine in the entire Universe! "
The marketing girl soured him with a look.
“Alright, Mr. Wiseguy,” she said, "if you’re so clever, you tell us what colour it should be. "
At another workplace, though, we did a variation of that… people just took up collections for whatever they personally wanted to have in the office. One person was in charge of collecting donations for the weekly office snack subscription. I brought and maintained an espresso machine (of my own), and got the coffee beans for it every month. There was a little “cash for beans” jar next to it, as well as a Venmo QR code that people could use to chip in $10 for the month or whatever. Management just looked the other way, except when they snuck in for an americano of their own Beats paying $4 for a cup of drip from the cafeteria (and that’s with the employee discount!).
At another job, we actually had an ad-hoc recreation committee that had a monthly budget (X dollars to spend on an employee outing every quarter, and you can use a few hours a month of paid time to go plan it). Anybody could join and help decide, but only if they were willing to put in the time. Of course people would still inevitably give us off-the-cuff comments & complaints, which would be taken into consideration for the next outing… but if they were really demanding about something, the official answer was “well then, join the committee and help plan the next one”. That’d 99% get them to realize they don’t really care that much
Just because they exist doesn’t mean your employer paid for it. I worked for a city agency and a state agency and communal refrigerators/coffee machines/microwaves were either 1) bought by one of the unions or 2) paid for by employees in some way ( collecting cash, collecting soda cans for the deposit , bake sales that sort of thing ). I specify “communal” because it was very common for people to have their own dorm size refrigerator or single-cup coffee machine. Even saw a toaster oven or two.
About “consensus culture” - happens with every decision that too many people are involved in. Want to have a family reunion? Don’t have ten people choosing a date/location etc. It will never happen. Have no more than three people decide on time and place and let them notify the others. Same thing for planning an office party - have a few people make the plans and tell others. I saw someone say in the comments section of an advice column that everyone attending a retirement party should have a say in planning it - otherwise some people will be allergic to the food, it will be too expensive for some people and too far for others. I LMAO at that - if you give a couple of hundred people input into planning a party, the party will never happen.
( It was very common in my government jobs for coworkers to plan and sell tickets to retirement parties)
