I accidentally became the office coffee narc.
By @wesmaybe · Work
I made a joke spreadsheet to figure out who was drinking the fancy coffee without contributing to the coffee fund. Now my boss wants me to present it at the team meeting.
The full story
Our office has a pretty standard coffee setup. There's the free, vaguely brown sludge the company provides, and then there's a separate, high-end espresso machine that a few of us pitched in for. We have a little honor-system jar next to it—if you use one of the good pods, you toss a dollar in the jar. Simple. Except, the jar has been coming up short for months. We were all complaining about it, but nobody knew who the culprit was. Last week, during a particularly boring afternoon, I decided to apply my professional skills to this very serious problem. I started a spreadsheet. I logged the times the machine was used, cross-referenced it with who was in the kitchen based on security camera time stamps (which I can access for my actual job), and even built a pivot table to track pod consumption versus dollars contributed. It was a joke! It was something to do to pass the time. I even gave it a ridiculous project name: "Project Bean Counter." I showed it to a coworker because I thought the absurdity of it was funny. He thought it was hilarious and showed it to his manager. Now, my own manager has caught wind of "Project Bean Counter." He thinks it's a brilliant example of "data-driven problem-solving" and "proactive asset management." He has asked me to prepare a 10-minute presentation on my findings for our all-hands team meeting on Friday. He wants me to walk through the methodology and reveal the identity of the 'Coffee Defaulter.' I'm in an impossible situation. I can't possibly stand up in front of thirty colleagues and expose a few of them for sneakily drinking $1 coffee pods. But I also can't tell my boss that his star example of 'initiative' was just a stupid joke I made because I was bored. He's already talking about it like it's my biggest Q3 accomplishment.
How people voted
- Totally Cooked — 23% (21 votes)
- It’s Complicated — 49% (45 votes)
- You’re Fine — 27% (25 votes)
Readers say “It’s Complicated” (49%) — 91 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@benfr — Why do you even have access to security camera footage for your 'actual job'?
@lane — My manager once framed my doodle of him as a 'caricature study' and hung it in the office. It was a drawing of a potato with glasses.
@leahsorta — You have to make the presentation as corporate as possible. Use phrases like 'synergistic bean-to-cup value stream' and 'optimizing caffeine asset allocation'.
@hankee — dude you have to present it now this is amazing
@niayy — lmaoooo
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