How shitty is your breakroom?



  • A place to argue about who has the shittiest breakroom.



  • Here is entry 1 from @rc4:

    @rc4 said:

    Shit, we don't even have a breakroom. There is one breakroom 6 floors up, and a fairly spacious cafeteria on the main floor. We just have a coffee pot, fridge, Keurig, and cooler in one corner. Thankfully, we don't have drop ceilings/moldy ceilings. Our cleaning crews seem to be decent at cleaning. Unfortunately, they like to steal things off of/out of desks. A lot.


  • FoxDev

    it's not a breakroom issue perse (we have various kitchenette nooks) but apparently we've been getting a lot of complaints about our restrooms on several floors (for both genders too!) smelling of rotten chestnuts lately.



  • I thought this forum was full of software engineers--we have amazing (foosball, air hockey, ping pong filled) break rooms that we never get to use. They are just there as eye-candy for the college recruits.



  • Our breakroom looks nice on the surface. There's a side-by-side fridge & freezer, a 1200 W microwave, a toaster over, water cooler, dishwasher, garbage disposal, Kuerig, and even a vending machine with snack on top and sodas on bottom. They even provide disposable dishes! But the problem is that you never know what's been in the forks, spoons and knives.

    See, we are right next to a paper recycling facility and across the street from a building supply wholesaler. On it's own, that wouldn't be a problem. But the exterior doors to the office area where I work have a 3/4 inch gap at the threshold. plenty of room for mice to get in. And they regularly do. So it's quite common to find mouse droppings on your desk or in the breakroom. Even on the provided eating utensils.

    I think I'll eat out.



  • Since my company moved, we have basically a full industrial kitchen. (Well, lacks an oven.) Tons of space, and twice the snack-racks as before. The break room is actually really, really nice.

    We also have a huge empty room which I keep campaigning to put a ping-pong table in, but so far I haven't managed to convince anybody to spend our company's budget on a table. :(

    One thing the break room lacks is a TV, but one of our TV-equipped conference rooms has a Nintendo 64 (yes really) in a drawer with a few dozen games and four controllers. It also has one of those Google streaming hockey-puck things, but no cable TV sadly.

    I'd post a photo but it's too easy to triangulate my company from the view out the window.



  • @abarker said:

    Our breakroom looks nice on the surface. There's a side-by-side fridge & freezer, a 1200 W microwave, a toaster over, water cooler, dishwasher, garbage disposal, Kuerig, and even a vending machine with snack on top and sodas on bottom.

    This minus the toaster. But ours is fairly clean. We have little nooks like this on every floor, two of them. Up a floor, we have a real break room with some seating and a soda fountain. It's decent.


  • Garbage Person

    So shitty it started the whole discussion (over in the lounge).
    http://i.imgur.com/n7r18BV.jpg

    Summary: No functional lights, moldy ceiling, grudgingly provided bottom end appliances, water sources but no sink or even a drain.



  • Augh! Not that room again! Take it away! Take it away! I promise I'll be good!!!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    My office suite has a small room with a full-size fridge, a cold-water-only sink, a Keurig, and a full-size microwave. There's a table, but it's not in that room.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I'd post a photo but it's too easy to triangulate my company from the view out the window.

    You could erase the view out the window, but I wouldn't blame you for not doing it.



  • Too many dickholes on this forum.


  • FoxDev

    @accalia said:

    smelling of rotten chestnuts

    What the fuck goes on in your- actually, I don't want to know…


  • FoxDev

    @RaceProUK said:

    What the fuck goes on in your- actually, I don't want to know…

    I don't want to know either.... but I do look forward to the communication (if any) that HR puts out about the matter.



  • @accalia said:

    @RaceProUK said:
    What the fuck goes on in your- actually, I don't want to know…

    I don't want to know either.... but I do look forward to the communication (if any) that HR puts out about the matter.

    I work in the sub-sub-sub-basement of a big office building. The kind where you expect your coworkers to be wearing blue jump suits with the number '13' stencilled on the back. When I first arrived I found a six page document from the building owners stapled to various pillars around the area explaining exactly how they had conducted a thorough air-quality study and that the complaints people had about mold were all entirely baseless.

    Somehow I wasn't nearly as reassured as I think I was supposed to be.


  • FoxDev

    @DCRoss said:

    The kind where you expect your coworkers to be wearing blue jump suits with the number '13

    given i live in the northeast i'd expect 111 to be the number, but carry on.

    @DCRoss said:

    explaining exactly how they had conducted a thorough air-quality study and that the complaints people had about mold were all entirely baseless.
    on dear



  • @DCRoss said:

    The kind where you expect your coworkers to be wearing blue jump suits with the number '13' stencilled on the back.

    Not sure if joke is Deep 13 from MST3K, or Vault 13 from Fallout.

    <img src="/uploads/default/original/3X/5/9/59a3030e7c1409be879ef3d0c18f56149b845016.jpg"width="315">

    Either way I approve.



  • The break room where I work is actually pretty decent. It has vending machines (snacks, sodas) and chairs and tables to sit in and eat on. My main complaint is that on most days I don't want to make an extra effort to go eat my lunch with my coworkers. And I don't spend money on junk from vending machines.



  • Our break room? Oh, you mean the chair graveyard. It's not bad really, we've got all the amenities (except a coffee machine, but we've been promised a real one, with a double boiler and everything). It's just, what the fuck are we gonna do with all these chairs?


  • Garbage Person

    I should do more photo tours.



  • Our breakrooms are ok, but the automated coffee machine continually breaks and we have about a 250:1 breakroom ratio on our floor.

    Only 2 microwaves per breakroom. This is a problem.


  • BINNED

    @blakeyrat said:

    dickholes

    you win ... if there are glory holes in your brake room you win the 💩 break room award!


    We have break out area's on every floor with free but just above not shitty coffee, a dishwasher, water cooler and fridge. Some of those have a microwave too.
    There is also a central breakroom with some more decor, a big fridge, microwave, a softdrinks & snacks dispenser. It originally was planned to be a true cafeteria style breakroom that would server hot (or re-heated) lunches to our and other business in our building but that got scratched since no other company had intrest in sharing that feature.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Another from The Lounge:

    @PJH said:

    I'm currently on a 2-week break and only taking a passing interest in work-related emails. This picture just landed, in an email from the Office Manager complaining about the state of the fridge and some of the out-of-date food therein. Spoilered for the faint of heart...

    [spoiler] [/spoiler]

    Animals, some of them.



  • @PJH said:

    Animals, some of them.

    The food? Careful, PETA may be coming after you...


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dcon said:

    PETA

    People Eating Tasty Animals?



  • @JazzyJosh said:

    Only 2 microwaves per breakroom. This is a problem.

    Our work kitchen is great: proper espresso machine and grinder, large fridge/freezer, beer fridge, toaster, sandwich press, normal oven (no hot plates though) and instant hot/cold "zip" tap. As well as a barbecue on the deck. There's a stone pizza oven sitting in the corner that no one has set up yet. There is also a beer tap, with a keg that is apparently replaced every week (Friday lunch onwards is allowed).

    My only complaint at this point is the single microwave, so there can be a bit of a wait sometimes.

    (Do you guys have zip taps? I had to Google "Keurig" which looks like a poor man's Nespresso?)


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Buddy said:

    t's just, what the fuck are we gonna do with all these chairs?

    Roll 'em off to the Dumpster, duh.



  • @Zemm said:

    There is also a beer tap, with a keg that is apparently replaced every week (Friday lunch onwards is allowed).

    Our kegerator is in the bar.

    Which we have.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    Our main breakroom was recently outfitted with refrigerators selling items digitally via the honor system!
    You take an item from the fridge, scan it on the kiosk and pay for it. Fridges aren't locked or anything.
    Pics provided upon request/demand.


  • BINNED

    No coffee? :wtf: you were not kidding it is WTFCorp. A decent software engineer should simply refuse to work anywhere without espresso, Nespresso is a nice to have but strongly recommended. You are lowering the expected standards, we should start our union and protect you from that horrible working condition.



  • @PJH said:

    @dcon said:
    PETA

    People Eating Tasty Animals?

    I wouldn't eat those tasty animals if I were you.


  • BINNED

    @ben_lubar said:

    People Eating Tasty Animals

    Nope, read carefully:

    @PJH said:

    People Eating Tasty Animals

    Is really People-Eating Tasty Animals: you are the food



  • I don't have a breakroom, so here's a photo of my bedroom:


  • BINNED

    Even WTFCorp has more working light bulbs


  • Fake News

    I've heard about gothic decor but this seems a bit excessive.



  • First of all, what is a breakroom?

    I had to read the replies carefully to get a hint of what a break room is.

    Now, it seems like a break room is where you go and get your coffee and play foosball if you are lucky enough to work at a place that puts that in.

    Here at company N, where I am working as a hired kind-of-outsourced programmer, they have a room with 2 water coolers, 2 fridges with nothing in it, and some coffee. The end.

    Now, company S, which I actually have my contract with, has no break room at all.
    They have one water cooler and a box of instant coffee next to the water cooler in the office.
    Company S has a contract with Company N and the contract is that Company S will supply Company N with a programmer.

    Company S has one room in a building where all its employees work together. It is probably 20 to 30 square meters big.



  • Ah the ambiguity. I learned this at school in a linguistics class. My major was English.



  • @Zemm said:

    toaster, sandwich press, normal oven

    @Zemm said:

    a barbecue on the deck

    @Zemm said:

    a stone pizza oven

    @Zemm said:

    a beer tap

    Now

    @Zemm said:

    My only complaint at this point is the single microwave, so there can be a bit of a wait sometimes.

    WTF where is this. You have a restaurant at your workplace.

    I have a water cooler and instant coffee.

    @Tsaukpaetra
    Photo please.

    @Luhmann

    @Luhmann said:

    a softdrinks & snacks dispenser

    Lucky bastard you.

    @blakeyrat said:

    We also have a huge empty room which I keep campaigning to put a ping-pong table in,

    I'm not so sure if I could do that in Korea without buying the anger of the CEO.

    @blakeyrat said:

    One thing the break room lacks is a TV, but one of our TV-equipped conference rooms has a Nintendo 64 (yes really) in a drawer with a few dozen games and four controllers. It also has one of those Google streaming hockey-puck things, but no cable TV sadly.

    No cable TV sadly??? WTF you can watch TV at work??? Play Nintendo?? WTF??

    While you guys are watching TV and playing Super Mario and eating pizza and drinking beer, I'm drinking instant coffee and occasionally finding other people snoring in the toilet.

    But are those TV and a restaurant at work normal ? or are you guys very fortunate?
    I think the break room I have access to is quite normal in Korea.



  • The company that I actually have a contract to does not really have a break room, it is a lounge to hold informal meetings.

    Now, the company that I am outsourced to, has a freaking large break room with PS4 and all sorts of game consoles, bookshelves full of books, a microwave oven and a huge snack corner. And couch sofas, for me to go take a small nap when I need to.



  • @WPT said:

    And couch sofas, for me to go take a small nap when I need to.

    You do that and get caught. Be prepared for your HR evaluation results.

    Btw, how long is a small nap?

    I keep finding people snoring in the toilet.



  • Nap to me just means closing my eyes for 10 mins and let my body rest.



  • @Ascendant said:

    WTF where is this. You have a restaurant at your workplace.

    It's a normal office, producing software, over 1000m² and designed to handle ~120 workers. I described the kitchen, there is a separate room with a pool table, ping pong table and a few mame machines! One of the meeting areas also has a table with Lego.


  • FoxDev

    @Zemm said:

    a few mame machines

    Are you talking about arcade cabinets running an emulator, or is that just an @accalia?


  • BINNED

    @Ascendant said:

    Lucky you.

    meh ... The drinks selection is limited and I don't trust the snack dates. I just go to the shop of the gas station next door.



  • @RaceProUK said:

    Are you talking about arcade cabinets running an emulator,

    It's on like Donkey Kong!


  • FoxDev

    @RaceProUK said:

    Are you talking about arcade cabinets running an emulator

    hmm i need to build some more of those actually. i've got most of the parts and the raspberry pi can drive most arcade games no problem....



  • When is Discourse going to fix the bug where there are ten thousand filter elements all ID'd "blur-1"?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Where?



  • When your post loads in and the spoiler tag gets discobaked, I can see the blurred image for a split second. During this time, the SVG filter on it (url(#blur-1)) points at the same tag that the document can find ($("#blur-1")), which is the blur filter that's a part of the SVG. Then the image disappears, and while the document points at the blur filter inside the SVG, the image's filter attribute points at some other blur filter in a completely different place -- which also has the blur-1 ID.

    *shrug*


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Ascendant said:

    But are those TV and a restaurant at work normal ? or are you guys very fortunate?

    It is not abnormal. Lots of places have such amenities, but they are not the rule. Most workplaces have pretty average break rooms. Those with huge margins that want to attract and keep top talent have all the fancy stuff.


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