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I’ve worked in three different office environments in my professional life, and each of them has had dramatically different snack and drink offerings. They’ve run the gamut from “hopelessly lacking” to “almost ideal,” and a recent trip to my current employer’s break room got me thinking about what the ideal snack lineup would look like. It’s important to note that what I’ve created here is the ideal. It’s not meant to be the be-all, end-all list of what every office must have, but it would sure be nice if the powers that be at companies around the nation were to give this list at least a passing glance. Here goes:
The Absolute Essentials
If your company doesn’t do the bare minimum and carry the following items, you’re under bad management that hates you and does not want you to succeed.
Coffee
Even if your office only has a decade-old one-pot Mr. Coffee that’s tarnished from holding piping hot Great Value Breakfast Blend, the coffee box is still checked. Coffee is first and foremost a tool, and even discounted big box retailer swill technically gets the job done. Still, you’d like for there to be better options. It would be dope if every break room in America could have a French press, espresso machine, and all the butter and MCT oil a person could pretend to be health-conscious with, but I think most people would settle for having a functioning Keurig and a handful of different coffee blends.
Fruit
There should at least be a bowl with apples, bananas, and tangerines in any break room. This ensures that even if you totally fuck up and forget your packed lunch on the kitchen counter at home, you’ll have something to hold you over until you can figure out where to go for lunch. If you’re having a particularly hectic day at the office and you don’t even have time to figure out which delivery app you have a five-dollar discount on, you can take solace in the fact that you’ll be able to slip into the break room for a Fuji Apple to stave off your hunger for another half hour.
Granola Bars
Granola bars aren’t going to replace any meals for you, but they serve a similar purpose to fruit in that they’ll keep you alive. You might only be left with a Berry Pomegranate Chia Clif Bar that nobody else wanted, but it’ll do the trick when you need to have solid food with your anxiety medication.
Mid-Level Options
If your company carries these items, it means that they at least kind of give a shit about staving off a potential mutiny.
Chips
This could be a conventional option like Sun Chips, Doritos, or potato chips, or it could be a superior choice like pita or Takis chips. Either way, give your hard-working people something to snack on.
Dips/Sauces
Why have chips if you’re not going to have some sort of dip for them? This could be salsa, french dip, ranch, guacamole, or any number of things. Hummus is an even better option here because it’s basically a food on its own. At the very least, there needs to be a tray of sauce packets left over from people going out to lunch. If your employees are going to raise all kinds of hell to pry an extra Chick-fil-A Sauce packet from the cold, dead hands of a cashier as they utter one final “It would be my pleasure,” they need a container to put these extra sauces in.
Mints
Unlike you, reader, mints are not a snack, but I’m going to include them here anyway. After a long morning of sipping espresso roast and furiously pounding away at my keyboard, my breath is downright offensive. Keeping the kitchen stocked with Breath Savers can make conversations between coworkers less awful than they’d otherwise be.
Finger Foods
I’m coming up on one year of being a Plant-Based cuck, but I can still appreciate a break room that’s stocked with cured meats, cheeses, and crackers. Peanut butter with celery sticks? Toss out the celery and sign me up.
Luxuries
Most people won’t be mad when their company doesn’t have these in stock, but they’re nice to have anyway.
LaCroix
This could also be Perrier, San Pellegrino, or another variety of sparkling water. This absolutely isn’t an essential item, but it breaks up the monotony of drinking plain old filtered water all the time. I try to drink 100 ounces of water every day, and it helps when at least some of it has a vague hint of tangerine flavor and a bit of a carbonated bite to it.
Espresso Machine
If your workplace has one of these, that says one of two things. Either you work for a seriously dope company, or you work at a coffee shop. I’m glad that I’ve never worked anywhere that has an espresso machine, because I know I’d be spending the majority of my working days fighting off the jitters after pounding too many shots.
Smoothie Ingredients and Blender/Juicer
My current employer actually does have this stuff on deck, and it’s great to be able to head down to the break room and juice up a healthy green batch of god-knows-what.
Alcohol
I’m not opposed to #LunchBeers whatsoever, but I feel like having them readily available in the office fridge takes some of the fun out of the whole experience. Wine or whiskey at the office? I’ve had it before, and it just gives me false weekend vibes that bring me down. Where this really comes in handy is in the unfortunate scenario of having to stay late to get time-sensitive work done.
Pub Mix
The snack of the gods. They say that no matter how secure and happy you are in your current employment situation, you should be firing off your resume to other companies to see if you can get a better value on the open market. If your workplace has Pub Mix, though, you’re not doing that. You’re staying right where you are and riding the wave for as long as possible.
I did the best I could here, but please let me know if I missed anything. .
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WJ Cope
He's just wondering how long it's acceptable to call himself a "recent graduate."
@westifer33
@wescope33
wildwildwes33
I’m the only snack in my office. PGP.
You know, I took an early lunch today…sup?
You go girl
Your office only having coffee. PGP
I went from a company that was bankrupt (twice) and quit ordering coffee to a burgeoning public accounting firm with more snacks and drinks you know what to do with. It truly was life-changing.
Same, I work in a federally funded program, so the use of tax dollars to feed employees is apparently frowned upon.
Good
Having snacks and drinks for rank and file workers doesn’t even come into the same universe as some of the ridiculous shit and massive amounts of money that high ranking officials get away with abusing.
My client charges for coffee.
Literally came here to comment the same thing. I feel your pain.
This should be included under the “benefits” portion of a position when you’re interviewing.
“So yeah you have 18 401k options, but what’s the snack sitch?”
My last job at a major US Bank didn’t even have coffee or filtered water. Just tap water. Large part of why I left.
“unlike you, reader, mints are not a snack” so smooth
I’ll take a bigger bonus over drinks/snacks, thanks
You mean you won’t forego a couple 4 figure bonuses in lieu of having the ability to consume about $10 worth of snacks for a week?!
We get it, you’re poor. So are the rest of us
Nah man, it’s just simple math. More money > free office snacks
Must have:
Adderall
We have bags of jerky all over the kitchen. As a result, I probably have enough sodium in my bloodstream to start my own salt trade.
“Granola bars aren’t going to replace any meals for you” — Not so fast, my friend.
My office, today without warning, just got rid of our espresso machine. Tomorrow we’re getting a “coffee pod machine” but it won’t do anything but cups of coffee. I have been living on espressos for months now. How can I stop cold turkey?? I came to this site to distract myself and now I’m back to boiling mad.
I recommend Rainforest Espresso K cups. You can set the machine to make the smallest cup of coffee so it’s nearly as concentrated as an espresso shot.
Timothy’s Rainforest Espresso is the King of K cups and the only reason I survived this tax season
I’ve only worked in one office since I’ve graduated, so maybe I’ve just been naive, but do most offices actually have more than just coffee and the occasional snack/meal?
We also have alcohol, but that’s only because we’re a liquor supplier.
All we have at my office is a dirty coffee pot and 2 broken vending machines