Office Coffee Machine Rage

How to avoid office coffee machine rage
“The survival guide to coping with a broken coffee machine”

It’s Monday Morning 8AM. You’ve got a meeting with the office manager to discuss this month’s corporate newsletter. For you its priority number 549 for your boss its priority number one and she wants to know what headline grabbing articles you’ve chosen to write about from the world of photocopiers.

You’ve had a long weekend, didn’t sleep too good and you wonder whatever happened to the duvet day but help is at hand to get you bright eyed and bushy tailed. The office coffee machine beckons, a double espresso should offer DIY resuscitation. You position your mug and press the button. An impressive whirring noise ensues and you wait impatiently. The machine coughs and splutters managing a couple of tablespoons of coffee. AARRRGGG!!! You call the office coffee machine repair line and after negotiating an agonising automated call centre maze you finally make it through to a human and the first question they ask is “Does the machine have ingredients in it?”

You don’t know! there’s no way of telling and anyway you’ve ran out of time your meeting is on in five minutes, you resort to sipping down the splutter of cold coffee it managed in its last dying breath. You slam the phone down impatiently and hope the call centre didn’t clock your number.

OK, dramatic preamble out of the way ;-) As an industry insider here’s what the technician is likely to ask when you call in a coffee machine fault:

What’s the model of the machine? Yes this deceptively simple question can infuriate. A lot of office coffee machines go so heavy on branding they don’t write the name and model in a place you can find. Your best bet is to talk to that bloke or woman that fixes everything in the office and knows the difference between 3 phase power supply and 13 amp.

Is it a Vending Machine or regular machine? Again this can confuse. But here is an approximate way of telling. If it’s a small table top office coffee machine with no need to stick money in it then it’s most likely not to be a vending machine.

Is there product in it? Again this can be a tough one as there are stacks of office coffee machines that make its inner workings totally invisible. If your lucky your machine might tell you in its LCD display or if you’ve got a fresh bean to cup machine there may be a transparent bean hopper where you can see if it needs refilling.

Is it switched on? Yep it’s at this point you feel the help desk really wants to make you feel dumb but you really do need to know if it’s got power or not.

And lastly take your ego out of the situation. You probably think dealing with the broken coffee machine is beneath you but you know just how much you rely on it to get through the day.

I hope my answers will avoid office coffee machine rage but they have there limits, they definitely wont help you write your corporate newsletter, your on your own with that one ;-)

www.pauserefreshment.co.uk – preventing office coffee machine rage since 2006.

Got a thirst for more coffee machine shenanigans? Check out what happens when office coffee machine site surveys get it wrong ;-)