Juan Valdez would be very, very disappointed in you.

Q:
• "How many people does it take to make coffee?"

A:
• "If you work where I work, just one, but they have to do it over and over and over and over and over and over again."

Seriously, how hard is it? When the carafe is empty, dump out the basket, add a new filter and fresh coffee, replace the basket, and press "Start." That's it. Really. Not rocket science; not asking you to dissasemble an atomic bomb using only tweezers and a half-dead varmit. Just make coffee. Add coffee. Add water. Press start. That's all.

For many of the people where I work, this seems to be nearly impossible to grasp. Virtually every morning I stagger out to the coffee pots, only to find a drop or two in the carafe, while another empty one sits nearby on a hot burner; last night's brew smoldering into a crusty mass on the bottom. Sighing, I make a new batch and clean out the carafe (hint: use ice; it cleans out faster than scrubbing). I return to work and let my co-workers know that I started a fresh batch of coffee. Inevitably, they return to tell me it's now empty and they had to start another batch.

If I worked in a small office with five or ten employees this wouldn't be such an issue. However, I work with 300+ other people, all of whom - at least, the last time I checked - had fully functional arms and reasonably functional brains. Clearly they can grasp the concept of "pot empty. need make more."

So why don't they? Are they that inconsiderate? Or are they relying on the few to make coffee; the whole "it's not my job" thing?

After months and months of having to make coffee several times a day and clean out carafes because other's can't or are unwilling to, I've had enough. This morning, I posted the following above the coffeemakers:

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TODAY’S LESSON: COFFEEMAKING101

Hello, and welcome to COFFEEMAKING 101. Here we’ll review the basics of coffeemaking and carafe handling. Ready? Let’s begin, shall we?

• 1. Turn off the burner when there’s a half-inch of coffee left in the carafe. Otherwise, it’ll form this nasty hard muck on the bottom that takes forever to scrub out (hint: swirl ice around in the bottom. This will clean out the carafe in half the time of scrubbing.)


• 2. Remember that other people would like some coffee too. When the pot is nearly empty or empty, please make a new pot. This will greatly appease the caffeine monster in other employees.


• 3. If you spill coffee grounds, sugar, creamer, etc. on the counter, please be courteous and wipe it up. This way there’ll be less ants, and people won’t be setting cups in counter crud.


• 4. Please see #1. It bears repeating.


• 5. Please see #2. It bears repeating.

This concludes COFFEEMAKING 101. Next time, your brew cycle and you.

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Simple, direct, and with just the smallest hint of angsty sarcasm.

Trust me, this isn't the worst that's been posted, and it won't be the last. Maybe it'll be the one that actually gets people to act...
...
...Yeah, I don't think so either...