At work, they’re refurbishing the office one floor at a time. I used to work on level 5. They moved me up to level 6 to refurbish level 5. Now I’ve moved back to level 5 while they do up level 6. When level 6 is finished, I’ll move back up.
The company’s done its best to minimise disruption. For each move, we pack our things into boxes, then over a weekend they move the boxes and our computers to our new desks.
However, a rumble of discontent has been growing louder. An unexpected trade-off has revealed itself. With refurbishment, we gain shiny new desks and decor — but we lose the microwave.
After a few days in our new digs, it became clear that no one would be reinstalling the absent microwave in the kitchen. People became very upset. I was upset too. I love cooking and bringing my food in. I look forward to my tasty hot lunches.
‘Why?’ we cried. ‘Why no microwave?’
Estate management emailed a company wide reply, saying that some people ‘misused’ the microwave. With further probing, we found out that two of the board directors had decided that the smell of hot food in the office was ‘unprofessional’.
Cue widespread fury. My team mate, Juhi, is spearheading the campaign. She opened up a survey and within the first day, half of the group has responded with comments like:
- ‘It’s them versus us now. Unlike board directors, some of us can’t afford to buy hot lunches.’
- ‘So, I guess they’ll be giving us lunch vouchers for shops around the office, right?”
- ‘If they don’t sort it out by winter, there will be riots.’
- ‘I don’t come from a culture that eats sandwiches and salads. If you provide prayer rooms for some people, then why don’t you give us a microwave?’
- ‘I don’t want to work for a fascist company!’
There is still a microwave on level 3, which is next to be refurbished. At lunch time, microwave refugees from level 4 and 5, as well as our office across the road (which had microwaves taken away last year) line up in front of the level 3 microwave.
‘Your microwave will be taken away too,’ I warned the level 3 natives.
They seemed bemused, not realising the seriousness of the situation. ‘Maybe we can charge a pound for people to use the microwave,’ they joke.
Now, you might be wondering what happens if people buy hot food from outside and bring it in. Wouldn’t that cause smells anyway? Well (and this is rather shocking), they’ve banned this exact practice in the new office across the road. I once bought a pie and sat in the company cafe in the new office. One of the serving staff immediately came over and told me to take the food outside.
‘No hot food in this building,’ she said.
Juhi reports that she has met with estate management, who seem genuinely surprised at the depth outrage. Supposedly, something will be ‘sorted’ by September.
In the mean time, I’m experimenting with sandwiches. This week, I’m making pumpkin and sunflower seed batch slices with hommous, caramelised onion, roast aubergine (eggplant), red pepper (capsicum) and courgette (zucchini). It’s very yummy, but I’m looking forward to going back to hot lunches.
We didn’t have a microwave when I was based in Reading. We were told the same reason. And the canteen operator instigated the management to take this drastic measure too because their banger and mash wouldn’t sell! I suspect TW’s directors must have colluded with OAP’s!;)
We are provided with two microwaves and an oven. Yet, hot meals don’t really seem that popular. Maybe because we are also provided with food (sorry, I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I’m “bragging” about my workplace!) and what we’re given is mostly suitable for sandwiches and salads.
But sometimes someone will get creative and decide to do a big tray of nachos or something.
I think it’s stupid. And they should pay you extra for making sandwiches. It takes practically no effort to cook a bit extra the night before so you can have left-overs for work the next day, but you have to make your sandwich separately!
Shouldn’t they be encouraging home cooked lunches for healthier eating?! I think the idea that ‘hot food smells’ as a reason to ban it is completely ridiculous. FIGHT THE POWER! Food Revolution!
The health argument didn’t occur to me but it’s a good one. I do eat healthier if I bring my own food because I don’t use cheese, butter but would definitely by cheesy food for lunch :”
I get sick of sandwiches pretty quickly. I wasn’t raised on bread.
Are they at least providing you with a sandwich toaster, or is that considered “hot food” as well? ’cause cold sandwiches really, really suck.
I’ve never seen a sandwich toaster at work. I think they must have been banned before I came.
In my old work, they banned toasters because they kept setting off the fire alarm.
My work now has also banned kettles (I think because of electrical safety?). The English are addicted to tea so this really upset my work mates. We have a boiling hot water tap, which I’m happy to use, so the kettle loss didn’t bother me. But when we moved to the refurbished floor, the boiling water tap wasn’t working and someone quietly brought in a kettle from home. No one has removed it yet so maybe estate management have conceded this one thing.
Hey Joan – sorry to come late to this … I am just getting my quarterly Joanupdate. So what happened? This policy is indirectly discriminatory (see http://www.antidiscrimination.tas.gov.au/complaints/direct_and_indirect_discrimination ). This doesn’t surprise me, though. My experience in the UK was that (despite the existence of human rights legislation) there was much less awareness about disciminatory policies than in Oz – perhaps because there are just so many rules in the UK. I hope you’re well, Brad
Hi Brad, it’s so nice to hear from you again!
I am learning about discrimination and human rights at the moment. The UK is combining all its anti-discrimination legislation into a single Equality Bill, where the emphasis is on promoting equality (with a new duty to address socio-economic disadvantage), rather than avoiding discrimination.
We got our microwaves in the end. There is a new canteen space with six microwaves in the basement. It’s well used but unfortunately (for the company), most people heat their food and take it back upstairs to their desks or communal hub areas. So, instead of having food smells in the offices, we now have food smells in the lifts and the offices, plus the risk of people spilling hot food on themselves as they go up the lifts or stairs.
My friend Juhi was let go as part of the last redundancy programme. She didn’t see the rewards of her campaign. I wondered (not too seriously) whether or not it was a case of microwave justice.