Perpetually Peeved

Whether you love your job or hate your job, work in a big office or small, white-collar or blue-collar, there seems to be a single unifying work pet peeve.  The kitchen.  Home of the unclaimed Tupperware, fridge o’ science experiments and passive-aggressive notes. 

As seen hanging over the office sink this morning. I just love #2. It cracks me up. Read it in the voice of Julia Child, you'll see what I mean.

Let’s do a review of some of the top work kitchen pet-peeves according to Peeved, shall we? 

#1 This isn’t fecking Neverland.  No self-respecting adult is going to admit that they believe in cleaning fairies, but you would be surprised how many secretly think they exist.  That is the only explanation I have for people who leave dirty dishes in the sink at work. Do you really think to yourself, “Oh, I’ll just stick these here, the elves will get them by tomorrow”?  Guess what, pal?  You don’t pay me enough to wear a tutu and wings.  

#2 Smell going in > Smell coming out.  If your food smells worse than my cat’s diarrhea and you haven’t even put it in your mouth yet, you may not want to eat it.  I know I certainly don’t want to smell it wafting down the hall and feel it clinging to every porous surface surrounding me.  How many times do you have to say “NO FISH AT WORK?” 

#3 Can I claim you as a dependent?  Unless you are listed with a number 1 next to your name on my tax return, don’t eat my food.  This is not a community refrigerator.  And, I don’t write notes, I just spit in things. 

#4 Nuke it is not a term to be taken literally.  My four-year old can cook using a microwave.  If you nuke it, cover it.  If you explode it, clean it. 

Actual FB status from a friend of mine this morning. Hope they don't mind that I used it - it was too apropos.

#5 Hmm… just enough to pour on your lap.  If you use the last of something (like, say, COFFEE), do not leave just enough so that you don’t have to clean up the mess. 

#6  What are you doing in there?  If you set the timer on the communal microwave at noon for 2 minutes, 25 seconds, don’t walk off/go to the loo/run around the block/get caught up in conversation while your Hot Pocket sits in there and the rest of us are waiting. 

#7 Oh no you didn’t.  Alternatively, if I am standing in the kitchen waiting for my timer to go off, don’t take my food out and shove yours in before I’ve had a chance to make sure my mashed potatoes aren’t frozen in the middle. 

#8  No eye-fecking my food.  I know my food is better than yours.  I wouldn’t be eating it if it sucked.  Now, quit staring at it and eat your own damn food.  Don’t ask me what it is either.  I don’t have the recipe.  Call Outback.  They can tell you. 

#9  You’re lying to yourself.  Quit taking to-go bags home from lunch, sticking them in the office fridge and then forgetting about them.  No one wants to eat the same food they had for lunch for dinner.  Are you really going to bring it home and say, “Here, honeybuns, have this half-eaten salad I ate all the steak off of but couldn’t finish at lunch?”  Are you going to eat it for lunch tomorrow?  No.  Then quit it.  No more styrofoam and bags that sit in the fridge waiting for some mooch-hole (see #3) to come along and get e coli from it. 

#10 What are you opening an eBay store?  Are you stealing the “gently used” Tupperware and selling it for a little side profit?  Trying to make ends meet?  Don’t have a coupon for those disposable zip-loc containers?  If I heat my food, rinse my Tupperware and hang it in the drying rack or leave it in the dishwasher, what is happening to it between the time it is dry and the time I go to pick it up?  Do the cleaning fairies take it as their fair payment?  Seriously, I can’t even make a joke about it.  That’s like wearing someone else’s shoes.  Without socks.  Or, “borrowing” underwear.  Blech. 

Which reminds me of another universal workplace peeve-heaven:  the bathroom.  We’ll have to discuss the business of “doing business” at work another time.  Until then, these poop-minded posts should keep you busy:  

http://livingdilbert.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/how-to-go-poo-while-at-work/  

http://shoutsfromtheabyss.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/employees-must-pretend-to-wash-hands/