Coffee at Work Just O.K.
This last Friday I read an article posted on Reuters that reported, “One-third of U.S. workplaces provide free coffee to their employees, but just half of those workers find the coffee tolerable…according to a study released on Thursday.”
The study goes on to show, “54 percent of people considered coffee at their workplace to only be tolerable; another ten percent called it terrible. Only 30 percent of those questioned would consider their workplace coffee great.” That’s a lot of people that aren’t very satisfied with their daily coffee.
After spending five years in the military, this study seems to apply to the United States Navy just as much as it does to civilian jobs; even boot camp gave us a glimpse of what we were to expect in regards to coffee. One of the first cadences we learned was one often referred to as “They say that in the Navy.” I’m sure they have a version of this for the Army and Marines too, but I was in the Navy, and this is what it was for us. A line in this cadence claims, “They say that in the Navy, the coffee’s mighty fine. (Whispered: ‘Who said that?’) It looks like muddy water, and tastes like turpentine.” I think it tasting like turpentine was a bit of a stretch, but it’s definitely true that the majority of coffee I had in the Navy was, as the study showed, tolerable. It wasn’t good enough that I would want to get another cup because of it’s taste, but it wasn’t so bad I couldn’t stand it. Maybe if we hadn’t developed such a dependence on coffee in the Navy, it may have dropped down into that “terrible” category. In reality, a lot of people on our submarine came to rely on coffee, and that was all we had available. We didn’t have the luxury of making our own when we were out at sea; it was either boat coffee or no coffee at all.
Based on my experience, it seems some people may associate workplace coffee with being at work itself. Many people aren’t all that excited to be at work, so that doesn’t go well for the coffee to begin with. It really seems like the biggest issue has to do with coffee pot cleanliness. How often do you think that pot is getting a good scrub? I bet not often. I know on our submarine in the Navy, we had a couple commercial-size pots that would get rotated: one was being used while the other one was being re-filled. For the most part, if the pot ever did get “cleaned,” it generally consisted of quickly rinsing out whatever coffee was left in the bottom; no soap or dishcloths were used, only water. It also doesn’t help very much if you only have a few coffee drinkers in your workplace and that same pot of coffee just sits there all day.
On the other hand, I know it is possible to have good coffee at work. While on deployment we made a brief stop in the Philippines and picked up some supplies, including coffee. We had a freshly scrubbed coffee pot and this new coffee; it was very good. With coffee this good that was brewed in a commercial, large-quantity coffee maker, I can’t help but think this would have been a great coffee if made at home. If only I had thought to write down the brand name.
When it comes to workplace coffee, there’s a simple solution: brew it yourself. If you make coffee at home and take it with you to work, you’ll know your coffee will be more than just “tolerable.” This decision will also be a lot cheaper than visiting a coffee shop every day.
Sources:
- Reuters, found while searching “coffee” on Google News
- International Delight, sponsor of the study
- Braun Research, Inc., conducted the survey
