Yet another trivial poll

[ladyofastolat]

At work, there is a kitchen about 20 steps from my desk, and at any time I like during the day, I can wander in and make myself a hot drink, and bring it back to my desk to drink while working. I was quite horrified to discover the other day that Pellinor has to buy any drink that he consumes from the staff canteen, and can only do so at designated break times. I'm curious to find out if his situation is normal and I'm just very lucky, of if I'm the normal one, and he's horribly deprived.



[Poll #1493344]

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... though when I worked in an office, I usually took in my own supplies. This is because office coffee tended to be foul stuff bought for the lowest common denominator.

Having to wait for a designated break sounds like something you'd do in a call centre - though I suppose when I was running courses, that would also apply AND you'd end up having to have coffee with the trainees and answer 9999 questions in between slurps.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Oops. I did think of you when writing the poll, but failed to transfer that thought into the action of including an "I work at home" option.

Having a designated break would also apply to people working directly with the public, when you need ensure that the counter/till/ticket office is staffed at all times. All our public libraries have designated break times - though the exact timing tends to drift, since you can't just up and leave the counter when there's a queue of 20 people.

When I went to the showroom of our old library supplier to do a big book buy, breaks were announced by a loud klaxon, which was followed by an enormous stampede as all the backroom staff dropped what they were doing and literally ran to the canteen. It felt very nineteenth century.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thinking on, this also tends to be the case in museums where you can't really have mugs of hot liquid inside your nice climate controlled store rooms ready to spill on your priceless artifacts (or, more likely endless sodding boxes of medieval spur parts and Victorian flatirons...)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Similar rules apply in places where there are young children. On those rare occasions when a pre-schools offers me a cup of tea, I generally have to drink it standing up in a corner of a well-barricaded, tiny kitchen, while staff members bustle around me cutting carrots into tempting little pieces, as part of their ongoing attempt to persuade children that raw vegetables are yummy, and not the manifestation of pure evil that they truly are.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmm carrots.

Re the tea, I remember a child I was at primary school with who as a toddler had pulled a kettle full of hot water over himself. He was one of twins, Gareth and David: they looked identical when clothed, but when we went swimming you could see that one of them was sort of - melted. Gareth, I think it was.

That said, I'm sure parents must drink hot drinks in their houses. Maybe that will be prohibited soon.

[firin.livejournal.com]

Basically, they should prohibit parents who don't pay attention to the proximity of children to hot liquids.

A previous partner of mine told me of an occasion where an infant daughter of his (for whom he did not have custody), pulled his cup of tea from the coffee table in front of him and burned her face and chest. He felt that his partner, who yelled at him for his inattention, was wrong...

I can see why public places would want to minimise the risks though.

[firin.livejournal.com]

(places where there are young children)...and in health care environments, where any type of food, drink or container of either is viewed as an infection control risk and thus outright banned.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

..and why flatirons, anyway? As opposed to bumpy irons? Ridge-and-furrow irons? Spiky irons? Irons embossed with a 3-D representation of Queen Victoria?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

ISTR that the flatiron was the first version of the iron, the box iron, which was taller cos it had a box that you put charcoal in, came in later. So, flat thing that you stuck into the fire to heat up, compared to tall boxy thing - "still using a flatiron Deirdre? I've got a box iron now, stays hot so much longer" etc etc?

Could be wrong. I never iron anything.