People Piss Me Off

This edition of PPMO comes to you from my work cafeteria.

Look. We're all busy people at work. We want to take full advantage of our lunch hour. This is why many companies install a cafeteria with discounted prices on sub-par quality food. We have been hypnotized to think this is a benefit to us, but in reality, it's to keep you in the building so you'll get back to work faster. I know because I took one Organizational Behaviour class in university, in which i scored a 61 as i recall. So therefore i am an expert.

Anyway, in my case, I usually bring a lunch, lovingly prepared by my girl Dani. And recently, I bought a giant case of 24 cans of club soda specifically so i can drink what i want at lunch, as the cafetorium (as i like to call it) doesn't sell soda in cans. This also means i don't have to wait in any annoying lineups in the cafeteria, allowing me to quickly get to the business of consuming my tasty morsels of food.

So far so good right?

However, each morning i always always forget to go to the effort of reaching into the kitchen cupboard to retrieve a club soda. As a result, I must purchase a cold beverage to wash down my kahuna burger at the cafeteria, which, in lieu of soda as stated above, is Coke zero.

Now, I like to think that i am generally a patient person. I'm not the most patient, but i'm not about to behead someone for eating up 4seconds of my time either. So, now i'm in the lineup at the cafetorium. Usually there are about 9 people in front of me, because of course, with the busy lunch rush at noon, the cafetorium manager has wisely decided to put only one person on a register, of which there are two.

So, what in particular Pisses Me Off in this instance, aside from what i've already described?

It's the people who are buying a coffee...or a stupid ass green tea.. or a pop....with a goddamn debit card.

Now, I'm gonna go way out on a limb and assume the other employees at the company i work for are not working for free. Let's pretend that they're at least getting a decent living wage. I know they must be, because unlike me, many of them wear ties. And nobody's gonna wear a tie to work if they're not getting paid for it.

So, my question is this. If you wear a tie and get a regular pay cheque, can't you string enough scratch together on a daily basis to buy a discounted can of pop for one dollar and five cents?

I'm thinking yes.

I have nothing against debit cards. I have one myself. But i only use it for purchases in certain instances where the value is a hell of a lot more than a buck-five. And, when i do use it, i usually maximize the process (and amortize the bank's service charge) by getting cash back, perhaps at the supermarket (where i buy the cases of soda i'm too lazy to retrieve for my lunches).

So to you people: Plan your day just a little better. Stop worrying about how straight your tie is in the morning and organize your daily financial expenditures. Put together a spreadsheet together every month if you have to. In the very least, reach into your sofa cushions and pull out a buck-five in pennies and nickels. Because here's the thing. You're pissing me off.

Now i know what you're thinking. You're thinking that maybe for some people it's the only option. But no. You're wrong there sir. About 16 feet away from the cash register, just outside the cafetorium, within the building that we all work in, there's a bank machine. Yes! A bank machine! And not one of those nasty independent machines you see in nightclubs and convenience stores that charge you 9 bucks to pull out 5. It's clean and it's operated by CIBC. And guess what else! Many of the employees at the company i work for are setup with accounts with CIBC, which suggests to me , that there is absolutely no service charge for them to retrieve money from there, prior to coming into the cafeteria to Piss Me Off.

Wouldn't it make more sense to pull out say 20 bucks from there, instead of holding up the line in the cafeteria and getting a service charge from that debit card machine?

Then again, if i put in an extra 7 seconds of effort every morning, and reached into the kitchen cupboard, and pulled out a can of club soda, I guess this blog entry would never have been written.