Work Fridges. WTF?

Then you know who see to have it taken care of. Someone has taken ownership and responsibility. Not like an unlabeled bagful of fuzzy sandwiches sitting for six weeks.

I’ve never worked at a place that didn’t have a problem with people leaving stuff in the fridge. The only places with reasonably clean fridges were the ones that had the janitors toss everything on Fridays.

The worst was the place that had people working all three shifts & weekends. Sorry, you can’t just toss everything Friday evening, because that’s someone’s supper that they just brought in 30 minutes ago.

In 2013 I started work at a new place. The fridge was full of old crap. The place had a high employee turnover and I guess some people never even came back to pick up their stuff.

After putting up a warning sign on Monday to remove stuff by Friday, I clean out that fridge and got 2 large garbage bags of stuff. Moldy Tupperware containers galore. The oldest thing with a date on it was some cheese from 2007. I left that in the fridge.

I take a proactive approach, and just randomly throw office fridge food away, old or not. Especially if I have to make room for my lunch bag in there.

I bought a work fridge. And a work coffee maker. I have everything I need to ‘shelter in place’ should the need arise.

Unfortunately I do need a source of water, which is one of two floor kitchens, but I’ll take those chances with the two gallons in my cubicle.

Tripler
Self defense? I wield a wicked red Swingline stapler like a nunchaku.

An improvement on the standard Friday-clean-out method would be to combine it with this note method, but the janitors remove the note when they clean out the fridge.

Anything without a note gets immediately thrown away.
Anything with a note stays, but the note is removed.

This way if the item is abandoned for another week, it will automatically get trashed with all the other food because there is no longer a note on it. It avoids the situation where someone writes a note and then forgets about it, so the item stays week after week until it rots and someone notifies the original owner.

It wouldn’t have to be an actual note. A blank postit would do the trick.

IF it’s expired, or moldy–I tossed it. Ruthlessly, without warning and I don’t care about anybody’s feelings. I also do that for people who leave their dishes to soak with soap and water on the bathroom counter and leave them there for days at a time. (You know who does that? Fat women that are too f*g lazy to walk the 20 feet to the actual kitchen where there’s a disposal!) We also had one guy who brought an entire week’s worth of food every week–then never take out the rotten food. He used to go on travel and leave food in the refrigerator and on his desk. When it started rotting on his desk, we finally rebelled. They finally moved him into an empty office all to himself.

I finally brought one of those half refrigerators for my personal use. The pigs who use the office refrigerator can die of food poisoning or something. I’m not being their mommy anymore.

We have the ‘fridge gets cleaned the last Friday of the month, and anything in it gets tossed’ system. It works pretty well. We’ve had this system for a decade or so now, and things seem to work pretty well; I can’t recall seeing any food in the fridges that had stuff growing on it.

I don’t use the work fridge. I have an insulated lunch bag with a large ice pack. It stays at my desk until lunchtime. I never have to see what’s growing in the fridge or worry about forgotten food.

I am so lucky. Our work fridge is only used by four people except me. I have my own mini fridge and teapot setup in my office so I don’t have to deal with the big fridge but my four employees keep it clean anyway.

Our work fridge serves a whole floor, but it never gets nasty, and people pitch in to keep the break area clean.

At my current job (10 of us, between 2 shifts) we tend to accumulate styrofoam 3-compartment meal trays with people’s leftovers. Some people forget to take them home for whatever reason. When I notice the same container in the same place for more than a couple days, I start making pen marks on it. Three of my pen marks, and it’s gone - IDGAF what’s in it or how “valuable” it was to the owner. I’ve pissed off a few people, but I HATE fridge stench (I sloshed a gallon of 90% isopropyl alcohol in this fridge a few months ago because the stench had become too bad to ignore).

JHBoom, I agree with your method. If folks were going to eat that they wouldn’t wait for five days.

Yep, that’s my strategy. Biggest problem with the fridges where I work is theft.

I don’t know if it’s a good idea to be the self-proclaimed food thrower-awayer in your second week at a new job. I would never do that. Are you the new office manager or something along those lines?

No.

I just dislike old rotten, moldy food.

Our fridge is normally a science experiment. Years ago, I also appointed myself as the fridge monitor. I always made sure there were pens, markers, medical tape and post its in the break room to mark things with. I sent emails, posted signs, threatened to call the health department and it only seemed to get worse. It almost seemed like people thought, “Oh, I don’t have to worry about it, 911 will throw it out.”
I finally gave up and bought a large soft sided cooler that I bring to work every day. It has enough room to hold a half gallon of iced tea, a couple of soda’s and enough food for 24 hours. (I like to be prepared). I haven’t looked into the fridge or touched it in several years.
People still complain and ask me if I’m going to do something about it…I point to my cooler and ask them what THEY are going to do about it. I hate to be that way, but I reached the end of my rope with the fridge a long time ago and still won’t go near it.