Tea matters (130/365)

[white_hart]

The trouble with architects is that they seem to see buildings as primarily artistic, and not functional. Which is why every time we have a meeting about our new building it ends up overrunning with lots of people asking questions such as:

Where are people supposed to make tea?

Will there be a quiet space for people to sit and eat lunch?

If the kitchen is in the open foyer area, how do we make sure that people don't take other people's food, or personal mugs, or wine that's cooling for receptions? And who is going to tidy things up when (inevitably) people don't put their cups in the dishwasher?

Yes, but really, tea is actually important, and it just feels like it's been shoved in here as an afterthought. And no, saying "but there will be a cafe in the building" doesn't help, because who wants to pay through the nose for a teabag and some indifferently hot water?

And that is why this afternoon's committee meeting overran by 45 minutes and left me incapable of spending the rest of the day doing anything other than filing my email. Which, to be fair, did need doing.

Comments

[alithea]

I could rant for ages about the Life Sciences building they built while I was in my old job. The architects were only bothered about it looking great from the outside, those of us who had to work in it day in, day out were rather more bothered about
- no opening external windows except in the PIs offices
- air conditioning so dry we regularly got electrocuted by static
- the kitchen being in a bookable meeting room
- the additional tea making stations not being allowed kettles because they were open plan to corridors
- the toilets being individual rooms off the main thoroughfare to the stairs with no ventilation except a vent in the door on to said busy corridor
- non height adjustable desks for people who worked at computers all day

And we had to fight for months to be allowed desk chairs with proper support because some idiot decided the bog standard lab chairs were fine for folks who would be sitting on them all day.

Which is a very angry and long winded way of saying, I hear you, solidarity!

[caulkhead]

"the kitchen being in a bookable meeting room"

WTF. Admittedly, our staff lunch room is bookable as a meeting room, but not between 12 and 2, and there's also room to eat in the (separate) kitchen.

[alithea]

I know! The admins had it blocked out over lunchtimes on their booking forms, then they introduced a uni wide room booking app...

[white_hart]

If it doesn't have a kettle, how can it be a tea making station?

[conuly]

My father used to make sun tea, but that's not really a. fast b. something I'd trust to an office environment.

(Note: If you're going to make sun tea, you MUST wash all equipment with soap and then boil it before and after use. Otherwise the risk level is just too high. And obviously if it looks or smells bad, weird, "off", or otherwise contaminated then you need to dump it all down the drain.)

[white_hart]

I make cold-brewed tea in the summer when it's really hot, but not in the office.

[conuly]

Indeed.

[alithea]

Quite. Just a fridge and a sink and a small section of worktop. I suspect they were supposed to have hot water dispensers but the uni were too cheap to buy more than one.