Blog Number 329

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I had a great idea the other day at work.  After thinking about it, it is a really selfish idea as it mostly benefits me (and those like me which, as you may have guessed, that is a small number).  First a little background.

We have a very nice cafeteria at work.  It is probably 3,000 square feet and contains tons of different things to eat.  It is more like a food court at a mall really as there is a place to get Italian, Mexican, burgers, deli sandwiches, soup, baked potatoes, etc.  Anyway, over by the soft drinks and energy drinks there are 2 microwave ovens.  Inevitably there is a line to use them.  Outside of the cafeteria is a small room with vending machines and in that cramped room are 3 more microwaves.  There is typically a line for those as well but since the room is so small, it is not a traditional line.  It is more like a bunch of people hanging around holding imaginary "take a number" numbers in their minds.  The cramped room microwaves are used less than the 2 in the vast openness of the cafeteria.

OK, now that you have a complete understanding of how my lunchtime starts off (either in a traditional line or holding an imaginary number) let me explain my idea.  There are 2 types of people that are in these lines.  The first type of person brings with them a frozen meal.  These typically take 5 minutes to heat up.  The second type of person (the group that I fall in) brings leftovers that were refrigerated and we simply need to reheat the food.  These typically take 2 minutes or less (in my case only a minute) to heat up.  I think it is incredibly unfair that those of us in the 2nd group should have to wait on those other folks in the 1st group so I am suggesting a microwave designated as "reheat" and one designated as "I don't care that I have to make you wait.  I am a very important person and that is just how it is.  I might even turn on my food and leave so that those that come after me look around at the others in trying to figure out who is using the microwave especially when the timer goes off and I am not there to retrieve my food knowing that no one will take my food out and set it aside and when I decide to return and free the microwave up I will more than likely check the food and decide that it needs 2 more minutes."  I might have to make the 2nd microwave type name a little shorter as it might not fit on the sign.

This is no different than the "10 items or less" lines at the grocery store.  I think that anyone using the reheat microwave for a frozen meal should suffer the same hateful stares that someone with a cartful of groceries tries to convince the rest of us that they are counting impaired (63 items, really, coulda swore there were only 9).

I shared this idea with a fellow re-heater person on Thursday and he was in agreement.  Once he left, a lady (also a re-heater) applauded my idea and even expanded on how we might sell this to management (increased productivity since less time was wasted in line, encouraging folks to eat leftovers and not expensive frozen meals thereby allowing less raises, etc.).  Since I only needed 55 seconds (including a pause, stir, reheat cycle), I did not have much time to discuss the further merits of this idea.  I guess that is one drawback of being a re-heater, you do not have time to socialize in front of the microwave.  Well, I take that back as I do have plenty of time since I am always waiting on some Lean Cuisine type person and their food but those folks do not care to hear about my ideas.  Oh well.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon