Free Coffee at [Corporate Office Name Withheld] No More!

So, this is like my third blog post this year! (Ingrid says I don't even qualify as having a blog, since I only post semi-annually.) Watch out, people, an anthology will be coming in about a decade!

I went into my so-called office-job earlier this week and went into the kitchen to make myself a Keurig cup of office coffee. To my horror, I was greeted by a computer-printed sign: "As of Wednesday (tomorrow), we will begin charging $1.00 for coffee." Later that day (not the next day), the company installed a vending machine filled with Keurig cups, and a slot to insert a dollar, like the soda machines at rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Seriously now? Someone is seriously charging MONEY for a Keurig cup in an office? This is midtown east, near Grand Central, where an actually fresh-brewed, delicious cup of coffee (dozens of options for such, in fact) are mere footsteps away. There's Joltin Joe's (not the actual name), on 45th between 2nd and 3rd, this tiny place where they brew all the coffee French-Press style, and are supersuperlowkey. Joe's the Art of Coffee in Grand Central Terminal. Financier Bakery in GCT, where they make a very respectable brewed decaf, and gorgeous madeleines. Oren's in GCT, if you want beans. I could go on, but I don't even want to mention the white-and-green cups from the obvious ubiquitous purveyor, but STILL. I just feel like it should be an understood principle that for office coffee (a substandard substitute for a fresh-brewed cup of coffee), you don't exchange money. It's a benefit of working in a corporate office. (And I know, cutbacks, recession, magazine industry in the crapper, I get it. My old employer had McKinsey come in and take stock and the next thing you know, our $10 lunch stipend was taken away. Not exactly in that order, but you get the idea.) I often drink the Keurig coffee, just because it's there, not because it's good or I really want it. Just because it's an office perk, like using the copy machine for free, or occasionally putting a letter in the mailroom without a stamp. My thought is, if the company can't afford the Keurig cups, get rid of the machine. It's insulting to have to put a dollar in to a machine that spits out a cup that you then use in the Keurig brewer.

Then, there's my coworker's brilliant idea: She goes to Costco, buys in bulk a box of 500 Keurig cups (at the bulk rate of 53 cents a cup), keeps them in her desk and sells them on the black market at 75 cents, thereby making a profit of 22 cents a cup and giving employees a 25-cent discount (and the F-you to the company is just an added bonus).

Or, I could just spring for Starbucks for the department, because they continue to keep my sorry ass employed. But then what would I have to write about?

P.S. The milk is still free!