Blog Number 189

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Recently at work we got a new coffee maker in the break room.  I don't think there was really anything wrong with the old ones but come to think of it when you hit the BREW button it only make about 80% of a pot.  I would have preferred they fix the old ones.  I was used to something like this...

Now however it has been replaced with another coffee maker.  It basically makes a "pot" of coffee into one of these things (called an "air pot").  Now there is no way by looking at this pot that you can tell how much coffee is left in it.  You pretty much have to pump it and hope there is enough left for a full cup.  With the old pot (see above) you could always tell how much coffee was left but with the new (see below) it is not so easy.  You have to unclick the lid and then lift the air pump mechanism and peek inside and even then you have to make an educated guess.

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I can tell that people in my building are not good at guessing how much coffee is left since several times I have came into the coffee room to find coffee everywhere after someone thought the air pot they were brewing a new pot into was empty.  This morning was one of those times.  The previous times I have caught this error and was able to swap out a slightly empty air pot for the overflowing one and limit the mess.  This morning however I came into the room and there was coffee all over the counter.  I could tell by the temperature of the coffee on the counter that it had been there a while (it was pretty cold).  So that meant that it was likely that some people had peered into the room and ignored the mess.  When I am getting coffee, about half the time someone else is in the room getting coffee, hot water or ice (we have an ice machine too).  So I would have to say that there were people (probably several) that saw the mess occurring but left it.  I cleaned up the mess (it took about a dozen or so paper towels).

We have lots of training classes at my company.  Sometimes you are not even allowed access to a tool or website until you have taken a class.  I believe this should be the case for coffee too.  You should have to take several classes in order to earn the privilege of drinking the free coffee.  Some classes I would recommend they offer...

• How to tell when it is time to make a new pot (hint: open the freaking air pot)

• Sugar and Creamer - Empty containers and how to replace them

• Bogarting the hot water - Should I get hot water for my tea and make everyone's coffee cold or not?

• Stir sticks and the proper way to dispose of them (hint: it is NOT throwing them on the floor)

• Will a whole pot fit in this partially full container (and other advanced volume math problems)

So if you work where I do, please sign up for any class you thing you might need a refresher on.  Thanks in advance!

Jon