22 January 2009 - Eating and drinking in the office

Dear employee assistance program....

I feel like I should be starting the blog with something like that because I was a bit confused and alarmed at what I saw in the bullpen area of our floor the other day. Champagne. Poured neatly into delicate glass flutes. To clarify, that is our floor. In the office. Of a conservative firm. During the day. Hmmm....

This is how birthdays are celebrated in Germany. I had read something in a book about how in Germany one must throw one's own birthday party in the office and alcoholic beverages may be involved, but I figured that couldn't seriously apply to our firm. Though I HAD always wondered why there were champagne flutes in the cabinets of the kitchen on our floor.... Not only does the firm allow these celebrations, but enables by providing those flutes AND gives the birthday boy or girl a bottle of champagne. Seriously. However, the celebration with colleagues is indeed up to the birthday person. S/he is expected to provide a round of champagne as well as sweets (in the example I witnessed, a variety of tasty pastries that most assuredly were not purchased at the German equivalent of Dominick's, Jewel or even Whole Foods). It was delightful. Can't wait for the next birthday! Oh. Did I mention that the office birthday list includes one's YEAR of birth?! A whole new world.... Does this mean I can stop trying to cover up the gray?

One other fun feature of the office is the morning food cart that makes a sweep through our floor around 10:06 AM. Give or take. A young woman pushes a stainless steel cart that is laden with sandwiches, pastries, yogurt with muesli and other delights and you either wish her a good morning or ask her to stop. I was running late this morning and skipped breakfast at the hotel for the first time. So when she passed by today I hailed her. Had a delightful cheese and tomato sandwich on multigrain brain. This could be sooooo dangerous. It may be even better than the "Coffee Lady" speed dial on the Cisco (Fran!!) phones in the Warsaw (Poland, not Indiana) office.

Finally, how does Starbucks survive over here? In the office we have these coffee machines that grind whole coffee beans and make a cup of either espresso or coffee. I think that it's much better than SBUX, but others in the office say the machines put out dreadful coffee and the better bet is our own little coffee place on the main floor, which is admittedly better than the coffee machines, and thus infinitely better than SBUX coffee. And that coffee pales in comparison to the cafe au lait that the hotel fixes for me each morning. So, nutshell, the most blissful coffee wherever you go, all of which puts SBUX to shame. So how do they survive? I think it can only be that they still sell their beverages at a premium, so perhaps they are positioning themselves as a luxury that people will buy simply because it is a luxury, not because the coffee's all that great. Wake up and smell your own coffee, Germany!!