Welcome cubical warriors! Let us gird our loins for daily battle! Let us pour forth the elixir that fuels our fevers, powers our bodies, and loosens our bowels.
Let us sing of Coffee!
In my mind, a carnal sin is to leave the pot empty. Those who leave the pot empty after taking the last cup shall be banished at their deaths to one of Dante’s hells.
There is a practial limit, however, after which it should be allowed to leave the pot empty. It’ll just sit undrunk and unappreciated after this hour.
For me, my rule is 3:00 pm (we’re an 8-5 office - the floor is empty at night).
What, in your most valued opinion, dear Doper, is the hour after which the fount of coffee may lie dormant until woken into action the next morning?
It really depends on who the individual coffee drinkers are. A few jobs ago, I had a boss who basically needed a caffeine IV inserted but made do with trips to the coffee maker. He drank coffee all day and often stayed until 6 or later. So an after-3 batch would have been fine. [He once yelled at me for rinsing his coffee cup, as he had been establishing a coffee patina in there. :eek: ]
In my current job we have two by-the-cup systems (different brands) so this problem has become moot.
Our office seems to be mostly morning coffee drinkers. So I’d say after 10:30 or so it’s fine to not make a new pot. If someone wants more later they can make it themselves, but that rarely happens.
With 5 coffee drinkers (and one-who-does-not-drink-coffee) there’s always a pot first thing in the morning. Another pot will be made after lunch to get us through the afternoon, but I don’t think anyone drinks it after 4.
My current office does not, in any way, provide coffee. (I know–I’m not sure why I’m still working here, either, except that I never have to wear pantyhose.)
In previous offices, I had been known to hunt down the last person I saw coming out of the kitchen before the unmistakable smell of burning, empty coffeepot reached the reception desk. That, to me, is the ultimate sin. Not only did this degenerate not make more coffee, he also didn’t turn off the burner. I once made an executive vice president clean up the shattered coffeepot because we both knew it was his fault it had happened.
Anyway, I usually put the coffee cutoff at 3:30. In former workplaces, that was about the time I had my last cup, and I was usually the hardest of the hardcore when it came to caffeine consumption.
It depends on which side of the building you are on. On my side, it’s not unusual to see the pot empty by 2:00 or so. But on the other side, we have a second shift (in Billing/Accounts Receivable) that works from 4 until 10 PM. So there is always “fresh” coffee there whenever I need any (I leave at 4:00).
I disagree, though it seems nice to makesure the pot is never empty it is a foolish action. The reason is that if the rule instead is that if you want coffee and the pot is empty then you MUST brew a new pot then the freshest brew is always made use of (by the person who came to the empty machine wanting coffee) and a whole pot is never wasted.
In that system the cardinal sin is to go to the coffee machine wanting coffe, and on finding it empty, going away without starting a new brew.
I never want to wait for the pot to brew if I find it empty.
I end up putting my cup under the spout and catching what I think of as the “first squeezings”, macho, hair-on-your-chest, butch coffee.
It’s fine for me, I just toss a scooch extra creamer in and I’m good to go. I am, however, depriving a later addict the full strength that should be in a properly brewed pot.
Oh, and pretend I wrote “cardinal” sin in my OP - much better than “carnal” sin - although, perhaps, not as fun…
Precisely, that way the pot brewer get’s the best helpings. If the person who finnishes off the dregs of the old pot, also has to make the new pot then they lose out twice. You see now why I believe the person who first finds the pot empty should brew the new one, rather than the person who finnishes off the dregs of the old pot.