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When I'm at work the cost of a beverage is not just one dollar. It is the cost of lost productivity and time in going out to fetch a coffee, which may be so hig

When I'm at work the cost of a beverage is not just one dollar. It is the cost of lost productivity and time in going out to fetch a coffee, which may be so high that I'll have to make do with what's on hand. Given that I spend a larger fraction of my waking hours at the office that means the refreshments available determine my quality of life to a non-trivial extent, and a fall in their quality may make me leave from this direct effect alone. Specially if I'm good enough to get other offers which are comparable professionally.

a012 8y ago
How many times you fetch coffee or drinks a day that "cost of lost productivity" to you? It sounds like a bad work quality as well as personal health.
- chrismeller 8y ago
  Even if I get up to go to the bathroom, refill my water, and get another cup of coffee 4 times a day, the point is still valid. If there is no coffee provided by the company that means I either 1) go without, or 2) have to venture out of the office to find it. In many areas leaving the office for just about anything means taking the elevator downstairs, walking through a sprawling parking lot, making a 10 minute drive to the nearest Starbucks, spending 5 minutes in the drive thru, and then reversing the whole process. I could probably justify that once a day, but upwards of 30 minutes per trip is going to be a really hard sell any more than that. Even as a freelancer who has no one looking over my shoulder and who works from home I'm simply not going to do that - I bought a coffee maker. Take that to the far opposite extreme and consider the call center employees who have hard stats for their productivity every day and have scheduled breaks... there's simply no way they _could_ do it, even if they wanted to. So yeah, maybe it's an indicator for _some jobs_ of a poor work quality, but that was the entire point - it's a cheap and easy way to improve that work quality.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - steve_gh 8y ago
    Where I work we have a simple policy: Any trip to a coffee shop for multiple staff members is a business expense. The reason is to get people talking to each other across projects. The drop in productivity from going out for a coffee is more than offset by the benefits of cross-fertilization.
paganel 8y ago
For what it’s worth lots of good work-related ideas have come to me while I was being outside the office, apparently being unproductive (taking a walk, waiting in queue at the food-store outside the office to buy some yogurt and fruits etc). From what I’ve read on this website I’m not the only one experiencing this.
- Steve44 8y ago
  I think this is fairly normal for anything creative. During this downtime your brain plays around and that is often when the ideas come out. I frequently get these sparks when you're in the shower or on the toilet, your brain is free to explore. It's different if you're just processing though, there is no creativity required to check a pile of 500 invoices; you just need to get on and plough though.
  - KineticLensman 8y ago
    Agree about having good ideas in downtime! But ‘just processing’ jobs also need breaks, especially if accuracy is required, even more especially if the job is safety critical. If you are doing something boring AND dangerous then you have an accident waiting to happen

a012 8y ago

How many times you fetch coffee or drinks a day that "cost of lost productivity" to you? It sounds like a bad work quality as well as personal health.

chrismeller 8y ago
Even if I get up to go to the bathroom, refill my water, and get another cup of coffee 4 times a day, the point is still valid. If there is no coffee provided by the company that means I either 1) go without, or 2) have to venture out of the office to find it. In many areas leaving the office for just about anything means taking the elevator downstairs, walking through a sprawling parking lot, making a 10 minute drive to the nearest Starbucks, spending 5 minutes in the drive thru, and then reversing the whole process. I could probably justify that once a day, but upwards of 30 minutes per trip is going to be a really hard sell any more than that. Even as a freelancer who has no one looking over my shoulder and who works from home I'm simply not going to do that - I bought a coffee maker. Take that to the far opposite extreme and consider the call center employees who have hard stats for their productivity every day and have scheduled breaks... there's simply no way they _could_ do it, even if they wanted to. So yeah, maybe it's an indicator for _some jobs_ of a poor work quality, but that was the entire point - it's a cheap and easy way to improve that work quality.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- steve_gh 8y ago
  Where I work we have a simple policy: Any trip to a coffee shop for multiple staff members is a business expense. The reason is to get people talking to each other across projects. The drop in productivity from going out for a coffee is more than offset by the benefits of cross-fertilization.

paganel 8y ago

For what it’s worth lots of good work-related ideas have come to me while I was being outside the office, apparently being unproductive (taking a walk, waiting in queue at the food-store outside the office to buy some yogurt and fruits etc). From what I’ve read on this website I’m not the only one experiencing this.

Steve44 8y ago
I think this is fairly normal for anything creative. During this downtime your brain plays around and that is often when the ideas come out. I frequently get these sparks when you're in the shower or on the toilet, your brain is free to explore. It's different if you're just processing though, there is no creativity required to check a pile of 500 invoices; you just need to get on and plough though.
- KineticLensman 8y ago
  Agree about having good ideas in downtime! But ‘just processing’ jobs also need breaks, especially if accuracy is required, even more especially if the job is safety critical. If you are doing something boring AND dangerous then you have an accident waiting to happen