We won't have it known, dear, that we own a telephone, dear

[austin_dern]

I want to talk seriously about my job a moment, but before that I really should talk frivolously about it because I had something silly turn around it and it'd be a shame to let that go to waste. I've been coming to realize that I don't really think like anybody else in the company does, and that's making even little interactions weird in ways I don't think they should be even for me.

In this particular case, there's the lunchroom which unexceptionally has several coffee pots brewing caffeinated and decaffeinated, as well as bags of tea in both caffeinated and non- forms, and the various accessories. A couple months back when in the supermarket I bought a box of green tea, and opened it and left in the lunchroom by the other boxes of tea. I'd figured I'd certainly like drinking a different flavor now and then and other people might too, and supposed it wouldn't hurt to do something to contribute to the office community such as it is.

While I would have a bag of green tea about once or twice a day and go back to black for the other tea breaks, I did notice that the regular tea boxes were used much more quickly. I overheard two people (outside the lunchroom) discussing the strange new tea and wondering who'd brought it in, although it would've been awkward for me to explain things then. The next week one of them asked me if I'd brought it in, and yes, and I tried to explain that it wasn't just for me, it was for anyone who wanted it. If I wanted to keep it for myself I'd have left the box in my office. I'd have thought that ended the matter but she asked again two weeks ago, and I gave the same answer, and it seemed to surprise her.

Last week the box got down to its final tea bags and I was able to track: at least for this interval, I was the only person touching the green tea. Other people had talked about it but, if I'm not grossly misremembering when I got it and how much I've drank of it, I've been basically the only person to use it, even with people who say they like green tea and would like to drink more. And somehow leaving the box in the lunch room open and unclaimed and saying several times that it's free to any who want it doesn't suffice to share it with the world. I don't see where I went awry.

Trivia: The first record in the British East India Company's books of buying tea was in 1664, and that of only two pounds and two ounces of ``good thea'' to present to King Charles II so that he would not feel ``wholly neglected by the Company''. Source: The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug, Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K Bealer.

Currently Reading: Salt: Grain Of Life, Pierre Laszlo. Once again a new area of my ignorance is revealed: I had never considered where the phrase ``red herring'' originated and probably wouldn't have thought to look for a plausible explanation in a book about salt.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

When I want to be really sure others will take something I leave at the office, I write "PLEASE TAKE SOME" or the like on it.

[spaceroo.livejournal.com]

I brought a bag of tangerines from a family member's garden into work a few months ago. (We had tonnes of the things and had to get rid of them.) To entice people into eating the things I stacked them artistically on a paper plate in the break room, and to ensure that they weren't confused with the "For pay" fruit that's brought in daily and left in the main kitchen I wrote "Free!" on a large Post-It along with an arrow pointing up and placed that in front of the plate.

They did go pretty fast, although I did notice that about an hour after I'd left them there some wag had taken a single tangerine, placed it about a foot away, and moved the Post-It to indicate that this was the "Free!" one. (unlike the others, still in paper-plate bondage.) I was suitably amused.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Ah, now, that's getting along with my way of thinking.

Back in grad school one of the other teaching-assistant offices put out piles for their students to pick up homework assignments. One of them, for Introduction to Discrete Mathematics, was labelled (inevitably) ``DISCRETE''. I put a sign up for the pile next to it, ``FLAMBOYANT'' and got one person who appreciated the joke and others who had no idea what I was going on about.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I thought about putting a ``PLEASE TAKE SOME'' sign, but the precedents of people who brought in boxes of doughnuts, or bagels, or Not Quite Perfect Mallo Cups or the like suggested to me that all you really had to do was leave them in the lunch room, possibly with taking one yourself to show the evidence of consuming them. That there'd be more to it never occurred to me.

[moxie_man]

Your office is definitely not like mine. Anything left out in the open in the break room (here, it's more of a closet) is considered fair game.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I suppose I should appreciate that there's so much respect for the foods other people bring in --- it suggests a security for things left in the fridge even when they're inadequately labelled --- although why people would put up with the box taking up space in the coffee closet (the counter space there isn't generous for some reason) leaves me confused all over again.