Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Office Algea

It all started when I first hired on. I got a small bonus, an office cubicle, a hand-me-down computer and my very own welcome pack! It came with things that discussed benefits, a pen, a folder, and A REALLY COOL STEEL MUG.

now I'm not much of a coffee drinker but our break room also contains hot chocolate, tea, and pop [soda if your from the south]. With the plethora of choices my new mug got a work out. It got a workout each and every day and was an excuse to take a break, cross the hall, and refill with some cancer ridden drink that was an excuse to cross the haul. [insert some witty why did the engineer cross the hall joke here]

after several years of leaving my mug on my desk over the weekend not drained it began to grow its own special form of algae. Now a little dish soap [also one of the beverages in the break room] would work wonders on this. But alas. I let it slip one too many times and I wouldn't even trust an hour of boiling water to clean this babby up, so off to the interoffice waste bin it went.

now you wonder.... How am I justified in taking the trip across the haul with no mug to fill? Easy. We also have Styrofoam cups. The smaller the item to fill, the more trips it takes. Filling these small cups is well.. A bit time consuming. I'm spending more of my day crossing the haul than I am working on retarded reports so something had to be done.

we have many optional training classes on site. When you are lucky enough to get enrolled in one of these classes you get breakfast, brunch, lunch, and a snack. During one of these times its simple to retain your bottled water bottle and that is how I got my newest water/beverage carrier.

well.. We are back to the same old problem of algae. After a few months the bottle starts to smell like a well... Less pleasant hole... So it finds it way into the inter office rubbish bin. The other day I was out of bottles, and back to the 'making too many trips across the hall' routine. Lucky for me Pepperl+Fuchs showed up with a seminar to save me. We didn't get breakfast, we didn't get lunch, and we didn't get a snack, but we DID get brunch. I now have two shiny Aquafina16.9 Floz (500ml for you chemists out there) bottles.

and.. Its just a matter of time before they start growing the dreaded algae. I better plan ahead and get signed up for another 'training' [bottle] class.

2 comments:

forkev said...

algie.
Why not invest in a peatry(sp?) dish and do some investigation. with your luck the algie will be like 30% oil and you can run your car off of it.

Unknown said...

I think your 500 mL bevarage container would do well to avoid the algea by just dumping some baking soda in with some water to soak over the weekend...
but you know that would be a chemistry solution. for engineers i might reccomend adding a couple of probes to the bottle and turning on the current!

oh ya, and the engineer crossed the hall to test the structural soundness of the girders.