The office refrigerator!

[sasvermont]

The Office Refrigerator
________________________________________

This is a public service announcement to everyone who uses the refrigerator at the office. I have noticed the following and would like to propose an amicable solution so that we can all go back to pretending to get along with each other.

1. The office refrigerator is not your personal space to store your 20 frozen meals because you're too lazy to bring one from home every day. There's 50 people sharing one fridge, and many of us bring lunch to work and would like a place to put it. Please bring your “Smart Ones” (an oxymoron for you if I have ever heard one), one at a time like the rest of us.

2. There's a machine just down the hall with lots of cold beverages. Please get your bottles of water and pop out of the fridge. If you are wondering why some of them disappear occasionally, now you know. I was thirsty. That goes for you too oversized Brita pitcher lady.

3. Putting your name on things. I'm guessing this came from your college days where your deadbeat roommate would eat anything in the fridge and not pay you for half of it. I don't care how many times you put your name on that sandwich in the fridge. If it's there for more than a week, it's going in the trash. If you are a repeat offender, I might trash it after a day just for the fun of listening to you complain to everyone in the office about how someone keeps stealing your lunch.

4. Speaking of things left for more than a week, there are science experiments going on with certain things in the fridge. A fun experiment would be forcing you to eat whatever is in there. Alas, if you are looking for the person who threw away your prized tupperware, it was me. There's no chance I am cleaning it for you - get your stuff out of the fridge.

5. I know you had a wonderful time in Rome/Greece/Spain/London/Whereveristan, and I know it made you smile sending us that postcard from there while we were stuck here at office, but we don’t need reminder of your wonderful trip on the front of the refrigerator for months after you’re back. I hear they like to say arse over there – that’s where your postcard can go.

6. The front of the fridge is also not a place to post your little funny anecdotes, NY Times articles, Dilbert cartoons and Digg printouts. All it does is clog up the front of the fridge while some schmo is reading when I’m trying to get my lunch out. Send it by email if you have to share, just not to me.

7. I love potlucks as much as the next guy, and for the most part the food is good, except for you people who bring &*&^^&* pasta salads. There’s like 5 of them every potluck – how much pasta do you people eat? Newsflash, you have an obesity problem – switch to greens. But anyway, after every potluck the fridge is packed with everyone’s leftovers, and they stay there for weeks. Take your stuff home, especially that hummus, it stinks.

8. We are very fortunate to have a refrigerator with an ice maker here at the office. It would be nice if you didn’t fill up your gargantuan sports flask with ice every morning so the rest of us can have some ice before the afternoon. Also, the ice basket has a scoop right next to it, and it’s there for a reason. Use it.

9. No, the dry creamer for the coffee in the department is not good enough for you. You have to bring in your own milk or that foofy flavored creamer. That smell? It’s your dairy products spoiling. Go to Starbucks downstairs.

10. I know the fridge is packed full of stuff and lunches are everywhere, but if you have to move other people’s lunches in order to get to yours, can you please put it back on the shelf where it was originally? Otherwise, you end up looking endlessly for your lunch like an idiot.

On second thought, I’m going out to eat. Right after I throw away everything in the fridge.

[DrKym]

How true it is...now to print this and post it on the fridge......................................

[Pam]

Good one! One day my boss accidentally ate my yogurt. Apparently he can't see well enough to read and he is an ophthalmologist. He told me it tasted terrible and he realized it as soon as he had the first spoonful as it had real sugar in it and he only eats nutrasweet yogurt. The next day he came into work with a replacement for me though.

[critter crazy]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! O hhow true!! Geee....I miss the days, of refridgerator wars!! NOT!!!

[slick]

OMD...you've been to my workplace haven't you??? The thing that bugs me the most is that one person brings in one weeks worth of lunches.....two huge shopping bags of lettuce, cucumber, celery, oranges, bananas....a whole grocery store. Sure she eats well, but sheesh, make your lunch at home and bring it in like the rest of us do.

I'm the culprit that throws out stuff if it's been there for weeks. I work late so I clean up the fridge on Fridays around 6:30pm when everyone is gone the janitor is just about to empty the bin.

[Daisy and Delilah]

That is so good The office frig. is one of my biggest pet peeves. We all eat Weight Watchers yogurt at my job so you'd better remember what flavor you brought today and try to keep it identified. Otherwise, you might get one that's not only someone elses but possibly not as fresh as the one you brought.

Does anyone else have open drink containers in their frig. at work? We have an abundance of them. Invariably, one will tip over and ruin everything under it. Is there anything that compares with a Coke product spilled all over your lunch? I like to pitch these drinks into the trash whenever possible.

Also....what is it with people who simply can't remove their leftovers or neglected/abandoned lunches? Do we all wonder how these people keep their home refrigerators? By the end of the period right before the scheduled cleaning, you couldn't fit a toothpick in our work frig. This has been a problem at every job I've had. It's an epidemic in this country!!

[JenBKR]

uh oh, guilty!

[Laura's Babies]

Everyone thinks their mother follows them everywhere to clean up after them.... (That includes cleaning out the fridge....)

[Lady's Human]

I had a sign up in the Coffee area at our HQ's:

Your Momma went home on leave!

If you screw it up, CLEAN IT UP!

(Okay, the soldier talk has been edited out, but......)

The BC let me leave it up for a week or two, then made me take it down as some people were offended by the language.

At the PO, there's a sign up stating that the refrigerator will be cleaned out at 5PM on Fridays, and anything left in it will be thrown out.

The custodian was a little over zealous. About a month ago he went in and threw everything in the fridge out....................even the lunches that were in there for that day.

[gini]

Years ago I worked for a small graphic design firm - maybe 6 people max...........

the wife of the owner used to come in every day - go directly to the fridge, rummage around - open up everyone's lunch and then just eat what she liked.

People started bringing in their own coolers to store their food - to keep her out - and they would leave them in their cars so she couldn't get to them. They used those frozen ice packs to keep things fresh.

[cassiesmom]

ROFL, ROFL! Especially the part about science projects. Sasvermont, have you been spying in our kitchen?!

[Randi]

Not only do people leave their stuff in the fridge for weeks, they also think they won't be able to find it again if it's not right in the front! Oh, some of the places I've worked!!

It's common here that on fridays, we have breakfast together, and that's fine, but organising who buys what and what is needed, seem to be the big problem. It's not unusual to see 10 jars of jam and 10 packets of cheese, all opened and most of them the same kind. Plus piles of various packets of thin chocolade some put on bread.

Not to mention the people who can't be bothered to put their dirty plates etc. in the dishwasher!

[sasvermont]

I am the only person in the office who will do the refrigerator even though I seldom use it. I usually send an email to everyone, oh, once a month, to let them know that at a certain time, day etc. I will be getting rid of all the science experiments, containers and all. They wait until I begin, to claim their pathetic food, containers, and moan and groan the entire time.

After I spend my time cleaning all the spills etc. from the fridge, I usually have a beer (there is always a beer or two in there!).......

Everyone appreciates my doing this messy job, but do they think to prevent the activity that is making it necessary for me to do this? No.

It has been this way in every office I have worked in. People, in general, are lazy, inconsiderate and just slobs when it comes to public behavior.

I never see anyone push a chair back under the table in our kitchen, or pick up newspapers, bags etc. after they are finished.

I broke my ankle in early January and have not spent any time in the office kitchen, except to get a cup of coffee. The kitchen looks horrible, but it doesn't seem to bother the goofballs I work with.

Oh well, life goes on. I guess they could be doing worse things in the kitchen. Just makes you wonder what they do at home........



Oh, we finally had a dishwasher installed about a year ago and it did help with the dirty dishes in the sink. Before that, we would throw out the cups etc. that were left for a few days. People complained, but hey, they didn't really care! It was fun just tossing the cups etc. rather than washing them. It was so wasteful that I convinced the owners to spring for a dishwasher. It has helped a bit.

[Freedom]

Your Momma went home on leave!

And what about the office microwave? Stuff splatters but NO ONE cleans the micro wave. WHAT do these people do in their own homes? Call MOM??

One place I worked, the boss was so disgusted he insisted the refrigerator be completely cleaned out every Friday night. Whatever was left, disappeared for the following Monday morning, not sure, but he worked out something.

[lizbud]

Years ago I worked for a small graphic design firm - maybe 6 people max...........

the wife of the owner used to come in every day - go directly to the fridge, rummage around - open up everyone's lunch and then just eat what she liked.

For real ??? The nerve of that woman. If it were my lunch she would
hear about it, I don't care who she was married too.

I usually bought my lunch at work, but we had different people assume the role of cleaning out the fridge about once a week. people were also notified by email to either take stuff out on their own, or risk getting it tossed.

Worked about the same way with the microwave cleanups. people never
acknowledged spilling food & never wanted to clean it up, so some poor
soul wood eventually clean it up & post a sign about spills.