Tea person at work - A thing of the past or not?

Vince

Vince

Vince

Man of Honour
Joined
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Last night I was having a chat with a friend and mentioned that our tea lady now brings around things like organic Trail Mix, Nuts, fruit and other more healthy alternatives to the classic biscuits and cake 3 times a day.

He seemed utterly bemused by the fact that there is a lady that brings me drinks and snacks 3 times a day, however in the industry I work in it appears to be a hang over from the past and fairly common. So my question to other members, do you have a tea lady and whats on the trolly?

Random but I just wonder if we are a dying breed?
 
Nope. We have to make our own tea, which I'm fine with. The amount of times I have someone offer to make me a tea, I decline and within a minute they're back with a tea already made. DISGUSTANG

Closest thing we have to that is a charity that comes over every month and drops off one of those donation boxes with various snacks and treats. We do get provided with office biscuits though but again we have to get them ourselves
 
The PR firm we contract has a Prosecco trolley on Friday afternoons. It isn't quite Mad Men, but the majority of our account meetings do tend to be on Fridays...
 
Nope, both big offices I've worked at (in a male dominated industry) have been make your own tea/coffee. We have vending machines and canteens if you want a snack.
 
That does sound very retro. I've certainly never been at a place with one, or have even heard someone else mention it. What industry are you in?
 
We used to have staff that served up hot drinks and "fry up" breakfast in our canteen, sadly long gone now for ~9 years, outsourced company hiked the prices up as number of customers dwindled. Wish the union would have done something to preserve it at an affordable cost to its members.
 
Yes up to1990. Milky coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon. They used to break up the day in the design office when people did not spend all their time staring into a screen
 
I agree this sounds very old school, but recent experience in hospital -- where the tea cart is a fundamental part of ward life and often the only chance of a distracting chat you get -- has made me think again about the 'connective tissue' of life, both in and out of the workplace.
 
Andrew_McP said:
I agree this sounds very old school, but recent experience in hospital -- where the tea cart is a fundamental part of ward life and often the only chance of a distracting chat you get -- has made me think again about the 'connective tissue' of life, both in and out of the workplace.
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I was about to say the same. I've never worked anywhere with one but after spending all of Christmas and new year in hospital, the tea trolley became a fundamental part of daily life. It was quite nice but I appreciate probably unnecessary outside of a place where most people are incapacitated.
 
NotAGolf said:
That does sound very retro. I've certainly never been at a place with one, or have even heard someone else mention it. What industry are you in?
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I work in Intellectual Property. We do Trademarks, Designs, Patents, litigation etc all related to IP. A good example would be that we facilitated the transfer of IBM's Micro Electronics portfolio over to Global Foundries. The company is approx 110 years old.

I guess one of the big reasons is that our biggest fee earners bill in 6 min blocks and you could pay anything up to £150 or more for those 6 mins.
 
Back when I was working for a County Council around 2010/11 so the start of the cuts to services, I remember having a discussion with a member of one of our smaller District Councils who was complaining that the cuts meant they were losing their tea lady, I suspect by the time I left in 2017 or so the loss of his tea lady was the least of his worries.
 
It's still very common in other countries - Cyprus and Turkey are two I've visited in the last few years where there was official 'tea ladies'.
 
Only ever seen one at a broker I did work experience at as a teenager.

Since then employers have provided other stuff but never a tea lady.

Bounce said:
Why have tea lady's?

Can't people make there own tea these days?
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Kind of missing the point - why have free food or a canteen, can’t people buy their own lunch?

Why have a gym, employees can buy their own gym membership?

Why have a pool table, it’s an office not a pub?

Its just a nice thing to have, having it doesn’t imply you couldn’t do without.
 
I make my own tea as the powdered milk in the machine doesn't agree with me very well and tastes rank. But we have a member of staff that gets everyone a drink 3 times a day out the machine.
 
I always saw tea trolleys as a cost saving, you can pay them min wage and your staff are no longer loosing 10-15minutes of downtime a morning/aft. Across a floor of high paid people its a good saving! But the books wont show it that way so they get confined to the history books!
 
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