My work provides free coffee in the employee break rooms. The unspoken convention is that anyone finishing a pot brews a replacement. Simple enough. Yet I will hit the occasional streak where, time and again, I have to brew a pot that was emptied by some unknown coffee drinker – the coffee free rider.
Sure, it’s just a minor gripe, but it is irksome at times. This is especially true considering that it only takes 30 seconds to start a new pot. My real issue is this: When I am rushing to my first meeting in the morning, I never know if an empty pot of coffee awaits me. So my morning hangs in the balance, dependent on a pot that may have been mysteriously emptied by a free rider.
Amazingly, in three years, I have never encountered a free rider. Not once. They are an elusive bunch, leaving no clues.
One would surmise from the free rider literature that, over time, more folks would join the free riders and I would face more empty pots per week. However, that has not been the case.
While it is true that free riders cause me some annoyance, the alternative – coerced action – would be much worse. Either I live with free riders or I surrender my freedom. You see, to bring free riders into line is to bring me into line. In the end, the same rules that snare free riders will snare me. And who wants to live with chains?
So I’ll ignore the free riders. The price of freedom is never free.
{ 13 comments }
Well, technically speaking, that coffee is the property of someone, and that someone has the right to take that coffee away altogether. Besides that… (-;
the share-house syndrome…redouble your vigilance to locate the louse/lice.
It’s better to forgoe the communal pot and secure a more reliable, preferably espresso-based source of caffeine. The risk of tragedy is far too great.
It’s better to forgoe the communal pot and secure a more reliable, preferably espresso-based source of caffeine. The risk of tragedy is far too great.
I agree, you can always tell them work places that have chosen the snare of law over freedoms. I can also tell you which ones I like to hang around.
The annoyance was in their power to dictate their wants. Then they assign the job to someone(charging) or take it completely away.
Their previous generosity that many adored, went to oblivion, all because of one.
Do not let your act of love, get overpowered by your authority of emotional disgust.
The reason you have never caught the free rider is that the no one will take the last cup and not make a new pot when they know they are being observed. It is the same principle as washing your hands after using the toilet: some people do it always as a matter of principle, but other people only do it if someone is watching. They are more concerned with other peoples’ perceptions of them than with the necessity or desirability of the task. Incidentally, we once solved this problem in a maintenance shop I worked in, by aiming a security camera at the pot. Pots were made because no one wanted to get caught taking the last cup which is ironic because the camera wasn’t turned on.
Whaa! You’re already a free rider on whoever is supplying the coffee and the pot for free. Bring your own and you won’t have to worry or whine.
@AnneMarie: that is an interesting solution
“Incidentally, we once solved this problem in a maintenance shop I worked in, by aiming a security camera at the pot. Pots were made because no one wanted to get caught taking the last cup which is ironic because the camera wasn’t turned on.”
Awesome. See, free rider “problems,” aren’t problems at all. They are economic inefficiencies awaiting entrepreneurial solutions.
Don’t be upset. It’s not like it is real coffee you’re missing out on, just that watered-down faux-coffee sludge you Americans inhale by the gallon.
@MatthewM
Couldn’t agree more. Not to mention Fedako, if it was any bit reasonably good coffee, then you would always get the freshest, and best cup of coffee. Everyone else is stuck with old, bitter, burnt, and stale coffee (assuming that it’s not already old, bitter, burnt and stale)
thats just life happenen, someone always gets a free ride with hook or crook. the oppressive use of a camera is just too big brother. smiling at the little annoyances in life makes ones own experience healthier.
johhnycanuck,
My point exactly. I do not want cameras or other devices recording breakroom activities just to make certain coffee is aways available. Nor do I want rules enforced that may snare me if, by chance, I have to rush out before starting a new pot. Live and let live, as much as possible.
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