It has been some time since I worked in an office, but has some one banned kettles?
Health and safety bans most things these days but surely if an adult is there to supervise its use, is a kettle really that dangerous.
My reason for asking is that everywhere I go, especially in cities and large towns, there are people in office clothes stumbling about with paper trays of StarSlops or Costaload coffees.
Obviously in a rush, so the rapidly cooling coffee is still drinkable when they get to the office, they look like demented waiters who have forgotten which table ordered the starters.
It must be quite disconcerting for office managers, or first level supervisors or whatever they are today, someone shouts out "who wants a coffee" then vanishes for 20 minutes, joins a queue at the coffee house 10 minutes away to return with 8 paper cups with plastic lids balanced precariously in folding cardboard tray holders, they fight their way backwards into the office through the super heavy sprung fire doors, shouting "coffees here" only to hear that the meeting upstairs has just finished and another 6 cups are needed.
Why has Britain, the country of "the kettles on", adopted this very American ritual for coffee.
For one thing coffee from paper mugs never tastes anything like coffee, and secondly how much does all this cost. I don't suppose you get many skinny, semi-decaf , extra foam, less fat, fair trade capuchinos with extra smile from the £2 a week coffee club I used to belong to.
I expect it has removed the arguments about who's turn it is to wash the cups, and combined with a smoke break that has to be taken standing outside the front of the office it begins to look like a real alternative to work.
But if I ever go back to working in an office I want my coffee in a proper mug, made with yesterdays milk and stirred with a dirty tea spoon, now that's more like it.
Health and safety bans most things these days but surely if an adult is there to supervise its use, is a kettle really that dangerous.
My reason for asking is that everywhere I go, especially in cities and large towns, there are people in office clothes stumbling about with paper trays of StarSlops or Costaload coffees.
Obviously in a rush, so the rapidly cooling coffee is still drinkable when they get to the office, they look like demented waiters who have forgotten which table ordered the starters.
It must be quite disconcerting for office managers, or first level supervisors or whatever they are today, someone shouts out "who wants a coffee" then vanishes for 20 minutes, joins a queue at the coffee house 10 minutes away to return with 8 paper cups with plastic lids balanced precariously in folding cardboard tray holders, they fight their way backwards into the office through the super heavy sprung fire doors, shouting "coffees here" only to hear that the meeting upstairs has just finished and another 6 cups are needed.
Why has Britain, the country of "the kettles on", adopted this very American ritual for coffee.
For one thing coffee from paper mugs never tastes anything like coffee, and secondly how much does all this cost. I don't suppose you get many skinny, semi-decaf , extra foam, less fat, fair trade capuchinos with extra smile from the £2 a week coffee club I used to belong to.
I expect it has removed the arguments about who's turn it is to wash the cups, and combined with a smoke break that has to be taken standing outside the front of the office it begins to look like a real alternative to work.
But if I ever go back to working in an office I want my coffee in a proper mug, made with yesterdays milk and stirred with a dirty tea spoon, now that's more like it.
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