Office Coffee Maker

Office Coffee Maker

In a lot of offices, everyone gathers around the water cooler. In every office that I have ever worked, everyone gathered around the office coffee maker. In fact the office coffee maker was the source of much controversy in one place that I worked.

Lots of issues were discussed around the office coffee maker, and while the “around the office coffee maker gossip” caused its share of problems, that was not the biggest controversy I experienced. The worst problems caused by the office coffee maker were about the coffee itself.

There was the decaf group. They firmly believed that the only grounds allowed to touch the office coffee maker should be decaffeinated. They were a slow moving group, so even though they held to their beliefs, they didn’t really work very hard to push their arguments and therefore they were overcome by the caffeinated crew. This group believed that the whole office would be much more productive if the office coffee maker gushed coffee laced with caffeine. They were a jittery group. Sometimes it hurt your neck to watch them give a presentation. Of course, with their energy, they won the first round of the office coffee maker wars.

The second round of the coffee maker wars began when one faction of the office decided that we needed to spice up our day with flavored coffee. I tend to be a coffee purist, but I could see that a little jolt of amaretto in the office coffee maker might make for a nice change of pace. The other coffee purists did not agree and phase two of the office coffee maker war was off and running. This time things got ugly. Someone brought in fresh ground beans, only to find them thrown away. Another person was continually dumping fresh Irish cream flavored pots of coffee down the sink and replacing them with plain old coffee. The suggestion box was riddled with lists of places where we could put the flavored coffee. Finally a compromise was reached. We would serve plain coffee four days a week and then spice things up on casual Friday.

The controversies that the office coffee maker caused didn’t just revolve around its liquid output. People broke up into cliques based on how they took their coffee. There was the cream only group, the two sugars and a cream gang, and even the straight black crew. You could see them in huddles around the office coffee maker whispering amongst themselves as they stirred their drinks.

I wonder if the office water cooler stirs up this much controversy.