Monday, July 12, 2010

Your social judgment is affecting me

So the coffee in our building sucks.

 

Wait, let me start over, I want to be a glass-is-half-full kind of guy. ( I usually am, but my mug is ALL full right now which means I haven’t imbibed any of it yet.)

 

So the coffee in our building is free.

Yay!

Unfortunately, the purchasers of the coffee are keen to the notion that the purpose of this coffee is to keep the employees awake and alert, not for our enjoyment. However, I saw a co-worker making a fresh batch and put her mug right under the stream of stained water in order to avoid the wait. I quickly formed a hypothesis that it might be the carafe that is making the coffee taste bad. Hey, I’ll do anything to justify whatever action I’ve already decided to take. So I clamor off to grab my mug and come to be 2nd in line for this idea. I rescue her from the need to put the pot under the basket by demanding that I go next and that I’ll take care of it. As I forcibly clink her mug to the side to minimize if not eliminate spillage, I get the sense that I’m being watched. I turn around to find the French guy on the floor staring at me with bewildered eyes of judgment. You’d think I just stuck the IV needle right into my arm to take this wonderful drug we call caffeine as efficiently as possible. He requested assurance that I wouldn’t steal the whole brew and I obliged. However, I didn’t realize that I felt so judged until I looked at just how little coffee I allowed myself to obtain. Apparently the cost of being watched weighed against the proposition of coffee not tainted by the pot tipped the scales at a measly 3 ounces or so.

 

So part of me hopes the coffee stinks. Not so that others don’t enjoy it; I just don’t want to regret leaving with too little liquid-degrumpifier™

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