Water Cooler Story

One of the most important office equipment is the water cooler. Especially in our office where the AC is like a woman experiencing PMS, throwing tantrums that turn our office into the arctic one day and then desert island the next. But most of the time it’s desert island (which I hate because I can’t make porma with my jacket ). So anyways, we have a water cooler (that also has a heater btw, but I don’t use that function often enough so I’ll just call it water cooler). We actually have four, two of which are in our area, located in rooms A and B as illustrated by the blue dots below.

Figure 1. Yes, I have free time to make crude illustrations. What’s a man to do, I was just waiting for my ride to come.

If you still haven’t figured it out, the “me” there is where my desk is. You may have guessed that since I’m nearest to the water cooler in room A then that’s where I go when I’m thirsty. But you’re wrong because room A is a training room that always have people in it, I can’t really go in and out of there freely so I get my water from room B as shown by the following figure:

Figure 2. Like Figure 1 but with lines.

So for a very long time I had to stand up and get my water from room B until a few weeks ago when the water cooler there broke down and kept on leaking like a man with VD. The water cooler supplier, who’s also our water supplier, actually tried to replace the equipment a couple of times but apparently all the service units they had were also stricken with gonorrhea so the admin was forced to take the water cooler outside of room B and place it right behind me:

Figure 3. Like Figure 1 but with more dots.

So whenever I felt thirsty, all I had to do was to slide my chair backwards, refill my tumbler, and voila, my thirst was quenched instantly! Food needs pushing in my throat? Just slide backwards. Water break? Slide backwards. Worried if I have already reached my 8-glasses-a-day quota? Slide backwards and drink up anyway.

But just like every good thing, there’s an accompanying downside to it. Well, downsides, actually. With the water cooler so near, I was probably getting more than 8 glasses a day and I was taking too many trips to the bathroom (People were probably already beginning to suspect that I’m leaky, too?). Since there was already only one water cooler in our area, everyone, including the ones in room A, had to get water from the one at my back. It distracts me from my work. The greatest downside for me, however, was that whenever the cooler runs out of water, I feel somehow responsible to refill it even if I wasn’t the one who drained it of its precious contents (Actually, not once have I refilled it since it was brought to my vicinity; I just didn’t like the feeling, hehehe).

Anyways, I don’t have to worry about that anymore because last week our supplier has found a replacement to the one in room B, so admin had to take away the water cooler behind me (see Figure 1). I miss that water cooler even if it was there for only a couple of weeks. Indeed, I’m a creature of habit even if I don’t want to admit it. Every so often I still slide backwards only to be met by a vacant spot. Out of habit, I slide backwards when all I really need is to slide forward.

Holy scheisse, Of course I’m also talking figuratively here and there just might be some lessons to be learned. I think. What did you learn?