wasteroo vs coffee monitor

look, i'm no environmentalist or anything. but wasteful is wasteful no matter who you are or what you stand for.

so there's a character in my office. we'll call him rex. don't let the awesome pseudonym fool you. he's not tough and rugged by any stretch of the imagination. he's actually dull and whines a lot.

but at any rate....

rex comes in roughly 30 minutes after i do each day. i used to make coffee every morning, but have not really done that for about 5 or so months. i think it took him a few days to realize i wasn't making his coffee anymore and he was, in fact, drinking the coffee from yesterday... but once he did he conceeded to make his own.

this is where the wasting starts.

there was one time he popped his head in my cube and asked that i order more coffee. 'more?' i thought. 'i just ordered some...'

one time i really needed a pick up and since i hadn't gotten over my mental block of drinking dr. pepper before 8 am yet, i drank some of his coffee. it was sludge. thick motor oil. gag.

this is made by the man who i have watched put up to five little tubs of creamer in one cup and a full pack of sweet n low.

so, for one, he is wasting an extra pack of coffee a day. he uses two packs when they are precicely measured so that you can get a good pot out of one. so we're running out of coffee exactly twice as fast as we should.

secondly, he is wasting creamers. i strongly feel that if you didn't make the coffee so dark, you wouldn't have to compensate with excessive cream.

third of all, he uses a new coffee cup every time he gets a new cup of joe. and they aren't the cheap paper-type either. these are the premium grade velvet touch heavy stock cups.

so inevidably we ran out of those AGAIN. for there only being five people in this office we can tear through some sleeves of disposable coffee cups.

so i decided i wasn't going to buy any more for a while. not that i am individually funding the break room, but i thought, maybe we can use these mugs that are just stacked on the counter. we have dish soap and sponges and a sink right here. it wouldn't be impossible to reuse them. also it may save a dime or two. so i wash up all the mugs by the sink so they are sparkling and ready to go for this morning. when i walk in today, rex says,'did you do dishes?'

'yeah, we're out of the paper coffee cups for a while'

'oh you just have to double up on these,' he says as he pulls a new sleeve of plastic cups from the cabinet.

what? my efforts to inspire him to limit his wastefulness has only spurred him on to new heights of waste.

'my, that's very conservative of you,' i mutter as i get a soda (i have no qualms with the a.m. soda anymore. especially if it's the alternative to his goopy black coffee)

'yeah i guess i could start bringing a mug from home;' he says. and i think, 'what the heck do you think i stood here and washed ALL of these mugs for?'

i can think of another thing he wastes, while we're at it. aftershave. he uses plenty of that. i think it might be a conscious effort to cover up his smoker's coffee breath, but it ain't workin. i can smell both in full force on top of his kickin' cologne. i can always tell if he was the last person that was in the elevator that i get on.

whew

gag

cough

pow pow

swift punches to my nostrils

uh hem.

anyways.

rex,

quit being so over the top on everything but personality.

thanks.