Does your office have a breakroom? Keep dishes?

[vanillacourage]

We have a breakroom and a rotating schedule of employees to be on "kitchen duty" to keep coffee made, counters wiped down & dishwasher emptied. I guess it's been difficult to stick to because we just got an all-staff email that as of Friday they will remove all the provided dishes/silverware and you need to bring your own from home & handwash/take back home dirty.

In related news, we have poor internal communications from HR. ^o)

[Deleted]

We have a breakroom with a dishwasher. Dishes, coffee, clean-up etc. are handled by someone whose job description includes those things.

[fbf2006]

We have a breakroom but it's not stocked with dishes. It has a fridge, microwave, a coffee maker, coffee, tea, some chairs and tables, a vending machine, plastic utensils, plastic cups, water fountain. We have cleaners that clean it daily, as well as other stuff in the office.

[ECB]

I don't know if I've ever worked anywhere that has kept a stocked kitchen. Maybe coffee mugs, but that's about it. The rest is either disposable stuff or you have to bring your own.

Probably specifically to the issue your office is having - no one wants to have to take care of it!

[Deleted]

yes.

The cleaning crew cleans it daily.

[bluelikejazz]

We have a kitchen area where coffee is kept. Coffee is made by the first person who wants coffee or whoever takes the last of the pot (this is usually forgiven if it's after 1 or 2 pm-then you just make a new pot if you want more). This area also has dishes, cups/mugs, microwave, toaster, and a dishwasher. We are all expected to put our stuff in the dishwasher and start it if it is full. Whoever finds the clean dishes usually puts them away (hopefully with the help of anyone else in the kitchen area).

The janitor keeps the sink/counter tops clean and aramark cleans the coffee pots when they bring more coffee.

[audette]

Our office has paper/plastic products for use, and some real not-disposable serving ware.

It was stocked mostly because we host a lot of meetings, but folks can use the disposable stuff for their own normal lunches.


Cleanup, well, it's a small office, and usually people clean up after themselves. Our office manager keeps an eye on it, too (the door to it is about 5 feet from her desk), and does a periodic wipe-down/tidy/etc. There is dishsoap, a drying rack, and cupboard space for folks that want to bring in their own normal plates/mugs/whatever to eat with, too.

[vanillacourage]

I should add that as a (nonprofit) organization we were going through like 1k disposable coffee cups/month. They bought each employee a logo'd travel mug and stopped providing the disposables.

[HoneySpider]

No. We have a communal fridge and microwave in the supply room. The fridge gets nasty and the microwave barely works.

I bought my own fridge and microwave for my office, works much better.

[Deleted]

We have a kitchen and also have a calendar with "kitchen duty." Which includes washing and putting away dishes at the end of the day (we have an industrial dishwasher, slide them in, take them out, takes less than two minutes to wash), wiping down counters, cleaning out the coffee pot, and taking out the trash. We also have a large restaurant fridge, ice bin, and stove that we can use whenever we want. We have all the utensils and stuff. They provide basic food stuff and sometimes they cook lunch for us. It's pretty much everything you would need to cook at home.

The downfall is that we have roaches the size of small babies.

[dexteroni]

My office has three breakrooms; each had (and probably still has, I'm just not there anymore) a microwave, coffee maker, toaster, sink, and full size fridge. Two of the rooms are fairly small; maybe four or five people could comfortably be in there at one time. The third is large and can seat the entire company. That room also has vending machines; until the late 90s it also had an oven that rarely saw use and a kegerator that was never used.

We also had a full set of china and crystal that no one was allowed to touch. lol. It was for fancy client dinners only, which during my ten plus years at that company happened zero times. As far as supplies, we only had those C-fold paper towels and coffee stirrers, and that was pretty much it. Oh and the water coolers had tiny clear plastic cups. No plates or forks.

That said, I wouldn't necessarily trust my coworkers to wash dishes properly. If there isn't dedicated housekeeping or maintenance staff, then don't have them. Heck, I would have probably half-assed it half the time myself. If I have a deadline, I'm not going to waste time washing dishes. "Sorry I missed that deadline, client, it was my day to make coffee." One thing our office did have was a wonderful maintenance man who would take everyone's coffee mugs and run them through the dishwasher every night. That was super nice.

[mbcdefg]

We have a kitchen with two microwaves and two fridges, a coffee maker, a Keurig (you have to bring your own pods though), plus a sink and a water cooler. It's kept stocked with teabags and coffee, sugar, powdered creamer, and coffee stirrers.

No utensils or dinnerware, though. I bring my own coffee mug, knife/fork/spoon, and plastic plate and I wash them after my lunch. I try to bring a cloth napkin with my lunch every day, too.

Our building has a cafeteria that has disposable utensils and the like, but I hardly ever buy food there.

[explorer2001]

Stocked break room with paper plates, bowls, plastic ware, and real bowls, stainless flatware. We also have a dishwasher.

[sjh722]

We have a breakroom with a microwave, fridge, dishwasher, and dishes/silverware. People are pretty good about picking up after themselves. The receptionist makes coffee, unloads the dishwasher, and does other general clean up things.

[jenny1223]

We have a dishes & utensils in our breakroom. No dishwasher, but everyone is good about cleaning up after themselves. We only have 7 employees in our office though, so it's easier to hold everyone accountable for their actions. Everyone is good about taking turns taking out the garbage, sweeping/vacuuming, etc.

[chessie]

We dont have any dishes/utensils. Just sink and fridge in each area. The cafeteria gets cleaned by the cleaning staff.

[definitelyO]

we have a kitchen and breakroom with a rotating schedule of who cleans. we have cupboards with mugs, glasses, plates, bowls, silverware, etc...

except someone took all the freaking spoons. seriously - we have silverware for 40 - one day - NO spoons??? WTF!

every dept does a good job of keeping up with their part - which is just running the dishwasher. if you finish the coffee you need to make the next pot.

but also - it's kind of crazy how many people in my office have a mini-fridge and coffee pot in their cube. kind of weird to me.

[dr.girlfriend]

Nope. Have a bottle of dishwashing liquid in the top hutch of my filing cabinet, and wash out my mug in the bathroom sink. :-P

[Wines Not Whines]

We have a break room with sink, fridge, and microwave, but nothing else. You have to bring your own silverware, cups, plates, etc. and clean them yourself. The janitorial staff takes care of cleaning the microwave and the common area.

At our old office, our break room didn't even have a sink, so you had to wash dishes in the bathroom. That sucked.

[momof2boys]

We have two kitchens, one small one for animal related dishes/food (I work at an animal hospital) and one for staff. The kennel attendants are responsible for cleaning the animal one, everyone is supposed to clean after themselves in the staff kitchen as far as dishes and fridge goes, and kennel cleans the floors, takes out trash/recycling etc. I say we are SUPPOSED to wash our own dishes etc b/c more often then not dirty dishes will sit in the sink, rotting food will sit in the fridge etc. until someone gets sick of it and does it. When its mentioned however EVERYONE says they do their own dishes, clean out the fridge. If everyone cleans up after themselves as they say, i'm not sure how there is still a mess, ha. I cleaned out the fridge once and threw out fruit WITH MOLD on it and then the person who "owned" the fruit got mad at me...really, you were going to eat that?!

[KaraOrNot]

We do have a breakroom w/ provided dishes. We are responsible for washing our own. This must be becoming an issue because someone just posted a (laminated!) sign saying that dishes left for longer than 10 days will be thrown away. Gross. This is why I rarely use our breakroom. Well that and I can avoid my annoying coworkers!

[Deleted]

We have a small breakroom for the floor (only 5 people total work on our floor). As far as I know everyone cleans up after themselves...Ive used 1 cup in 1.5yrs--lol. There is a dishwasher, fridge, stocked utensils, cups, coffee maker, etc. Maybe the cleaning people take care of it--I have no idea.

[FrozenSunshine]

My last job did. It was assumed others would do their daily dishes and I would do the ones on Friday after the company meeting ( I was the Marketing Coordinator.) If I went on vacation or took a day off it was guaranteed there would be an email. Apparently the temp they hired while I went on a 2 week vacation "didn't do dishes," and they finally rinsed them and added soap because they smelled bad.

[hbomdiggity]

yes and there is staff assigned to keeping things clean/tidy throughout the day (in addition to the actual cleaning crew).

[jena]

I work at a very very large company. There are 50+ floors. Each has a break room with a fridge, microwaves, industrial coffee pots, and disposable cups. And for some strange reason, a dishwasher. Dishwashing liquid is provided, but dish detergent is not stocked, and I've never seen anyone use it. There are some heavy plastic serving utensils that are probably leftovers from catering, but that's as real as our dishes get. There is staff who maintain and stock the coffee supplies. An admin has to do fridge cleanout 2x a month. Everyone makes the coffee as it runs out, even the VPS.

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[mrsjuleshs]

We have a break room and are all responsible for cleaning up after ourselves. I do fridge clean out duty once a month.