Coffee Break(s) At Work

In response to my friend's ode to coffee ...

I drink coffee no less than five times a day at work... Of course, being a cheap desi, I drink the free coffee from the pot in the kitchen which doesnt seem to have any flavour... I have not yet ventured into the snobbish world of coffee connoisseurs who take their 25 cent flavoured coffee from the coffee machine... This being for the simple reason (besides being a cheap desi) that I need those damn quarters to do my fri**ing laundry !! No way in hell, i'm gonna waste those quarters on some damn bitter tasteless drink... Anyone who has lived in an apartment can empathize with me on this one..

Most people I know drink their coffee black... Not me... I need that sugar... Oh yeah... At least three-four spoonfuls of it... Sometimes more... Between me and my friend (who has still not grasped the fact that you put creamer into coffee and not vice-versa) we ensure that the the person who is responsible for re-stocking up the kitchen supplies has plenty of work to do...

By now any semi-intelligent person (the intelligent ones would have stopped reading by the second or third sentence) would be wondering as to why I make so many trips to the kitchen to drink so many cups a day ? Well, the reason is manifold (is 'manifold' a word?)

Firstly... For how long can one check personal mail, read the online news, surf the web ? Max I would say is an hour at a strech... Then you need to take a break, go away from your computer and rest your eyes before another session (doing exactly the same thing)...
At my place of work, the only place away from my computer where me and my good-for-nothing cronies can safely congregate without fear of persecution is the kitchen... There are eight hours in a workday... You do the math and figure out just how many times I visit the kitchen...

Secondly... Being away from my desk has the advantage of the fact that everyone assumes that you are in important meetings all day long... Of course, I dont mind going into important meetings all day long, but then people ask you questions (which I dont mind) and then expect serious and intelligent replies from you (neither of which I am even remotely capable of)... So I prefer going to the kitchen instead...

Thridly.... Being away from my desk has the added advantage of the fact that whenever the boss comes around with some critical work which needs urgent attention, I am not there... So he promptly assigns the task to another 'bakra' (victim) in the team who is blisfully unaware of my diabolic scheme...
Of late, my boss seems to have wizened up to the fact that I am not in any meetings but goofing off in the kitchen... So once in a while, he comes around to the kitchen to find me...

Fourthly.... I cause a lot of disturbance to the hard working people around me by talking and laughing loudly... For some strange reason, people with no work to do (and also people on a break) tend to stop by cube for a "short" chat.... I really can't figure it out... There are so many cubes around me... Why do they come to mine ?
Anyway, the point being that the noise I make only disturbs the people in the cubes around me... Its just not fair to the rest of the company... Everyone deserves an equal share... So, as a proponent of equal and affirmative action (I have no clue what that means.. Just threw that in there to look intelligent), I walk to the kitchen talking and laughing loudly along the way (with my cronies), making sure we disturb everybody between my cube and the kicthen...

Fifthly..... My good cholestrol count is 28... My doctor said that I have a good chance of dying of a heart attack and that I really needed to exercise... I told her that I get plenty of exercise watching TV by twiddling my tumb non-stop over the remote control... But she insisted that I had to get up and move around... She said that I needed to walk or run at least two miles a day... So between seven-eight trips to the kitchen I guess I have that covered... Hey, I'm just following the good doc's orders....