Office/Work Kitchen

It's a shame you're not empowered to make a change :(

I've always brought about change in the organisations I've worked in (but that's what I do, innovation and business improvement). You're right it is top down in terms of being nurtured, but it's grown bottom up. However as you say you need to have the culture in place.

Sounds tough - I'd be as frustrated if not more, than you are now if those conditions existed.

I hope it gets better - as you seem to be an intelligent, interesting and nice person, and it seems a shame that you appear to be in a bit of a poor working environment, you deserve better. :)
 
Freefaller said:
It's a shame you're not empowered to make a change :(

I've always brought about change in the organisations I've worked in (but that's what I do, innovation and business improvement). You're right it is top down in terms of being nurtured, but it's grown bottom up. However as you say you need to have the culture in place.

Sounds tough - I'd be as frustrated if not more, than you are now if those conditions existed.

I hope it gets better - as you seem to be an intelligent, interesting and nice person, and it seems a shame that you appear to be in a bit of a poor working environment, you deserve better. :)
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I lost too many years to depression. Drugs and therapy helped but I can't cope with much. That's a big improvement over how I was before, but what I need to maintain it is mediocrity and stability. I have just about enough of that. It's a shame that conditions are deteriorating and will continue to do so, but I daren't risk anything.

I'm lucky to have very low living costs. I bought a house 20 years ago in an undesired area in an undesirable city, so my mortgage is buttons. I don't have a car, don't have any addictions any more and I prefer a cup of tea and a book to going out. So despite being a minimum wage flunkey and despite the deterioration in the position of low paid workers since the financial crisis, I have a bit of spare money. Enough to have accumulated a buffer of ~£2K so far and it's growing steadily. That helps my state of mind a great deal because I know I can cover minor emergencies (freezer breaking down, that sort of thing) without any trouble.

It will get better at some point - I'll either retire or die. This, too, shall pass and all that. I haven't killed myself, which I would otherwise have done. My knee hurts a lot less than it used to up until a few years ago. I have spare money and no debts other than my mortgage, which I didn't have even a few years ago. Those are big improvements in my life. It'll do for me.
 
Both places I've worked at have had free tea and coffee.

My current place of work has a small espresso machine and two pod machines with about 30 varieties of coffee etc as well as cuppa soup and soft drinks (cans of coke etc and fruit juice).

Previous place has a large coffee machine making lots of types of coffee from real beans. People would/do spend ages making their perfect espresso or latte, frothing the milk just right etc. :D They also had fruit, which I miss in this place, but I do like the soft drinks as I don't drink tea/coffee...

Both small companies/offices of around 20-30 people.
 
I work in a Carvery kitchen. Free food all day everyday as much as we can eat. Although we can't help ourselves to the meat but we can have sausages. As much veg as we want, cheesy garlic bread, you name it :) ... If there's meat that's under weight at the end of the night (certain weight we can hold it over night in oven for next day) we can have that though and take it home. My freezer had loads in the other month. Wasted most as we need space. Shame.:(
 
Just started at a small company (~20 employees and a few contractors), and we get tea/instant coffee, including milk, for free - This is from the managed offices we are in.
On top of that, the company itself provides better quality instant coffee, and once a month they order in lunch (dominos/subway etc) for everyone, and we all get together in a meeting room for lunch.

Tea/Coffee has been standard in the office based roles I have had, and 2 of them have had fairly decent sachet based coffee/hot chocolate machines.
 
the company i work for are no way going to give tea and coffee away ,they paid for the living wage by taking away a paid break and reducing overtime rates , we get hot water microwaves and fridges ,the restaurant isnt bad £1.80 for a big breakfast and about the same for a decent lunch
 
Angilion said:
I lost too many years to depression. Drugs and therapy helped but I can't cope with much. That's a big improvement over how I was before, but what I need to maintain it is mediocrity and stability. I have just about enough of that. It's a shame that conditions are deteriorating and will continue to do so, but I daren't risk anything.

I'm lucky to have very low living costs. I bought a house 20 years ago in an undesired area in an undesirable city, so my mortgage is buttons. I don't have a car, don't have any addictions any more and I prefer a cup of tea and a book to going out. So despite being a minimum wage flunkey and despite the deterioration in the position of low paid workers since the financial crisis, I have a bit of spare money. Enough to have accumulated a buffer of ~£2K so far and it's growing steadily. That helps my state of mind a great deal because I know I can cover minor emergencies (freezer breaking down, that sort of thing) without any trouble.

It will get better at some point - I'll either retire or die. This, too, shall pass and all that. I haven't killed myself, which I would otherwise have done. My knee hurts a lot less than it used to up until a few years ago. I have spare money and no debts other than my mortgage, which I didn't have even a few years ago. Those are big improvements in my life. It'll do for me.
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I'm glad to hear you are coping, but sad to hear you have gone through rough times - feel free to email me if you fancy a chat. Hope it gets better :)
 
moon man said:
the company i work for are no way going to give tea and coffee away ,they paid for the living wage by taking away a paid break and reducing overtime rates , we get hot water microwaves and fridges ,the restaurant isnt bad £1.80 for a big breakfast and about the same for a decent lunch
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Reminds me of working at Morrisons warehouse. You have to pay for awful coffee and tea, but the food was subsidised and you could have a humongous full English for 2 quid.
 
Only in a small office, 3 of us including MD and the lads in the factory have a separate kitchen downstairs.

Downstairs they have a little pot for there tea, coffee milk and bread etc. They all put a couple of quid on every week.

Up here we just kinda of all buy what we need. MD bought us a tassimo coffee machine we all evenly buy pods but it's not even daily used as the colleague and MD drink instant all day and I don't regularly drink hot drinks.

Everything else I buy myself, no one drinks tea but I occasionally enjoy one so have a small box of yorkshire breakfast blend in my draw.

I don't think tea and coffee NEEDS TO be provided tbh nothing wrong if it is but as long as the amenities to make it is available it's fine. We have a toaster, kettle and microwave.
 
Snookums said:
I don't think tea and coffee NEEDS TO be provided tbh nothing wrong if it is but as long as the amenities to make it is available it's fine. We have a toaster, kettle and microwave.
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While it doesn't 'need' to be provided I think it's such a minor move and expense for a company to make which can make a big positive impact on employees. You'd be surprised how little things like having tea/coffee/milk provided can make employees feel more valued and which to some degree increases loyalty and in turn productivity. It also saves a lot of time, the number of times there would be people popping out at my old job to go to the shop to buy milk as it had run out or teabags etc. This was an office based job with about 50 people ranging from admin, IT, managers, directors etc.

It would have cost about 20 quid tops to provide enough tea/coffee/milk for a month for 50 people (especially as a lot of the time was spent outside of the office attending meetings).
 
psd99 said:
we have to pay for our water and toilet roll
sad times lol
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Do you keep your bogroll in your desk drawer? I can see that in my office. Stand up with bogroll in hand... "Right ladies I'm just nipping to the loo, give me 10mins mind!" :p
 
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