Humor: The Office Fridge

The office fridge can be a battleground.  Approach at your own risk.  It’s certainly been a source of angst for many office workers over the years.  While most people have a name tag on their office door or cube, you’ll never find their office fridge name displayed anywhere.  Here’s a listing and definitions of those office fridge names to help you out.

1.   Hibernation mode-  This person puts a month’s worth of food or drink in the fridge at one time.  Hey there grizzly bear, how about leaving some room for the rest of us?  You’d think this person wasn’t leaving the office for months.  Maybe they get their home mail forwarded to the office too.  This person is just flat out inconsiderate, so explaining why they shouldn’t do this will fall on deaf ears.  If your office has a freezer, hibernation mode will stock it full of frozen dinners.

2.   Salad god-  Hibernation mode’s cousin is salad god.  Even if salad god may only bring in the food necessary to prepare one lunch (not likely), those many ingredients will still take up plenty of space.  Lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, beans, cheeses, sunflower seeds, croutons, bacon bits, and on and on!  And don’t forget the salad dressings.  Salad god likes a variety! 

3.   SUV-sized cooler case-  This person has a cooler case big enough to hold lunches for the entire floor, but only needs space for their sandwich and fruit cup.  Talk about inefficient use of resources.  Maybe the SUV-sized cooler case was originally rolled out in a government office break room fridge.

4.   Leftover leaver-  You may find this person on an episode of Hoarders.  Or they may have a predisposition for Alzheimer’s.  I could excuse leftover leaver for one day.  The minute they open the office fridge again and do not remove their leftovers, immunity is revoked.  At least with hibernation mode, their food generally doesn’t spoil.  Leftover leaver considers the office fridge their very own petri dish.  They are doggie bag d-bags.  I’ve done a good bit of hiking/camping in my day and live by the Leave No Trace motto.  Bring it in and bring it out.  Leftover leaver needs a crash course.

5.   Odor eater-  Technically, odor eater doesn’t do anything wrong except make bad choices.  Tuna sandwich with onions, Indian leftovers, and a side of brussel sprouts.  Pass the Lysol.

6.   Stack and pack-  If your office fridge has a low ratio of cubic volume/number of employees, chances are good employees play a rousing game of Tetris each morning trying to fit their food into the fridge.  The late arrivals are likely the expert stack and packers, whereby the early birds get the best spots.  Of course, the early birds are most likely to have their lunch crushed as well.  I’ve seen sandwiches turned into sandwich wafers.               

7.   Sticky notes gone wild-  With rampant thievery from the office fridge, the need to label your food is understandable.  Something like ‘Mike Smith’s lunch’ should suffice.  Sticky notes gone wild goes all passive aggressive with the added emphasis… Hands off!  Do not touch!  Don’t even think about it!  As if the lowest life form (aka Lunch thief) cares anyway.  Sticky notes gone wild extends beyond the fridge to the entire break room as well.  I had no idea my Mom didn’t work in my office and wouldn’t clean up after me until sticky notes gone wild told me.