I just started a new job last week and I’m already doing what I did at my last place: throwing the fuck out shit that has been festering in the fridge for months, possibly longer.
Yesterday I casually looked at, and tossed, a couple of yogurts, one from September 2016, and another that expired last month.
Just now I threw out a couple more expired yogurt/fruit cup thingies, a moldy meat pie of some sort, a sandwich wrap that was crunchy, and a container that had leaked through its plastic bag and was stuck to the damned shelf. Then I cleaned the shelf.
I thought it was my last place of employment, but apparently not. Is everyone this bloody incompetent when it comes to keeping track of food they’ve brought to work? I can’t imagine bringing in a container of food and just forgetting about it forever. Sure, maybe other plans for lunch came up today, but what about tomorrow? The next day? The day after? You completely forget that the container staring at you every day is one that you brought in at some point?
I don’t get it. There’s only like 25 people on this floor sharing one fridge.
Where I work they clean the fridges out once a month. There are signs posted on each refrigerator as a reminder. If you do not take care of your own stuff before cleaning day, it will get tossed, container and all.
I dunno. I just found out that the reason a security lock has been installed on the cleaning supplies cupboard is that someone kept pissing in the mop bucket. My faith in human nature wasn’t exactly at a peak before that, but seriously.
We don’t have a work fridge, per se, but I’m in and out of a lot of offices through out the day. I’ve always thought the ‘everything in the fridge, including containers, is thrown out on Fridays/last day of the month/by the night cleaning staff’. I’m sure that saves a lot of trouble. I expect someone only has to lose one or two pieces of tupperware before they stop leaving thing in the fridge for week after week because “I have to remember to grab that tonight”.
Here, we have a huge walk in cooler and a ‘break area’. Every few weeks, we’ll throw out any moldy food, any food that has just been sitting around for a while, and gather up all the containers, random clothes that have been laying around (as in someone takes off a sweatshirt and tossed it in the break area…two months ago) and then we ask everyone about each thing. If it belongs to them, we make them go run it out to their car, right now, not go put it on the break table to take home tonight, anything not claimed is thrown out. I always find it a bit amusing how a week after something is thrown out after being left here for months and being asked about it, NOW they’re looking for it.
I know it sounds childish, but I’ve always suggested that if you’re going to take off your sweatshirt at work, put your name on it. It’s the best way to make sure if we see it, we’ll get it back to you (or just get rid of it if you don’t work here anymore) instead of wondering who it belongs to for weeks. And with that, I always suggest that people ‘just go run it out to your car’ rather than put things down. That never works. I’m constantly, like multiple times a week, finding paychecks, money, wallets, keys, purses, phones, you name it. Even from the first day someone works here, I hand them all their new employee stuff, and they’ll set it down and I’ll tell them that if they drove here, they should go put it in their car so they don’t leave it here overnight. A good 75% of the people that set it down, don’t take it home.
My theory on stuff in the fridge is that it’s from people who don’t normally use the fridge. If you bring your lunch in everyday, you’re not likely to forget you have a lunch in the fridge. But if you usually go out to lunch but then one time bring back leftovers, that’s easy to forget.
I’m the person who cleans out the fridge and I’ve found my own stuff I’ve forgotten. It was leftovers from my dinner at home I planned to eat for lunch, but then a friend invited me to go out to lunch. Since I normally don’t keep a lunch in the fridge, I forgot all about it.
The reality is that stuff is going to be left behind in the fridge. There just needs to be a policy for regularly cleaning it out.
One problem with empty-on-Friday is that the cleaning crew often is still there during work hours. Stuff may be for people who are still at work and planning to take it when they leave later that day.
One strategy that I think works is to mark everything in the fridge on Friday with a sticker or postit. Then each subsequent Friday, anything which still has a sticker gets thrown out and everything remaining gets a sticker. This way all the abandoned stuff gets thrown out on a regular basis. You can see what has been untouched for a week. If someone wants to keep something in the fridge, all they have to do is remove the sticker before the next Friday.
When it’s time to clean the fridge, we all get an email telling us to stick a label on our stuff (sharpie and paper are kept on the fridge) and on a certain day, anything not labeled gets tossed. Period. So the fridge stays pretty clean.
But, this is an exceptional company. There’s an honor snack cabinet and it’s not unusual to see $20 in the money box. It’s nice to work with honest folks.
I know I’ve done that. From time to time I’ll bring yogurt/applesauce/jello to work in the morning a few days in a row. Usually, I’ll eat it right away, sometimes I’ll toss it in the cooler. If it goes in there, there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll eat it in the next hour or two or forget about it for a few weeks and find it then. Luckily, most of that stuff is okay for a while.
Someone is going to get caught up in any generic plan. So either a plan is custom made around the office or the employee’s have to work around the plan.
We could probably sit here and poke holes in any plan, no matter how specific, even if it comes down to the cleaning staff shouldn’t have to sit there and read dates to decide what should or should not be tossed* OTOH, I’m sure in plenty of offices, everyone is gone at 5pm and the cleaning crew doesn’t show up until 7 so it’s works just fine.
*I’m a big believer in dummy proofing things. In this case, people shouldn’t have to figure it out by dates, sooner or later someone will read a date wrong and someone else will be mad. Handwriting will come into play, someone will write a date wrong and the person cleaning ‘should have figured it out’, then there’s the people that just HAVE to write a note instead of a date…“I know this has been in here for 8 days, please leave it until next week blah blah blah”. Seriously…write a date, if it’s more than 7 days, into the garbage, if you want it take it home.
How big is the office? Is there an office manager you can talk to about this? Or is cleaning out the fridge part of your job description?
We have HUGE signs all over our fridges that stuff will be tossed Monday morning between 6 and 7. One day I left my lunch box over the weekend and I had to retrieve it from the trash. They also threw out half a birthday cake and an unopened jug of lemonade. Fortunately, my boss has a dorm fridge that just we in the department use, so if I leave stuff over the weekend no biggie (there’s only nine of us, so it works out well.)
heh reminds me of locker cleaning days the school had … one at xmas break and one at the end of the year … the things people keep in lockers … but theyed put every thing keepable in a bag … although there was unclaimed bra and panty bag from the gym lockers …
I work in a place chock full of scientists and engineers. Can’t swing a dead lab rat without hitting a Dr. of Something or other. And yet, we have to have a sign over the sink to remind people that there is not a garbage disposal. And that coffee stirrers should not be shoved down the sink even if we had a garbage disposal. And that breakroom microwaves should only be used for food. Human food. Did you know that some people, some extremely smart, multi-degreed people have been known to put their iPhones in their lunch bags and put them in the refrigerator? Even though there’s a 17 x 11 sign in neon green on the refrigerator telling him that everything inside the fridge is going to be garbage in fifteen minutes?
I had a real looney tunes of a boss who used to wake up at 4am and do her family’s grocery shopping for a week and then come to work. She’d bring about 8 bags of groceries inside and put 2-4 of them in the break room fridge. Someone higher up finally put a stop to that.
But the best has to be a friend of mine whose boss brought in the urine sample she’d collected that morning and put it in the breakroom fridge with everyone’s lunch before her afternoon appointment. She didn’t understand why anyone would make a fuss about that. It had a lid when she put it up there on the top shelf.
I got fed up one day a few years back and annointed myself Fridge Sheriff. I posted signs with plenty of warning (and management’s blessing) that anything not labeled and dated would be tossed in the garbage. I provided labels and markers, even tied a marker to the fridge handle.
Almost everyone was grateful, but I did piss a few people off from time to time.
mmm
As mentioned in the OP, there are about 25 of us. There is no office manager and cleaning out the fridge sure ain’t in my job description. But, if I notice it’s old, I’m chucking it.
I’ve get my eye on some berries in cream that has been there for a couple of days. It’s going Monday morning if it’s still there.
I appoint myself to do this once a year with plenty of warning, labels, signs, etc. I still would only throw things out with an expired date or visible rot/mold, etc. And even then I wouldn’t throw out a permanent container.
Unless you have warned that berries in cream person, don’t do it. You just got there, why make enemies already?