carping and grousing without a liscense

[derien]

[bitch mode]

We have this thing at work called the Kitchen Fund. It used to be called the Coffee Fund, but everyone claimed they never drank coffee so didn't need to contribute. Except somebody uses the paper plates and plastic forks, and gosh, the coffee DOES disappear, so somebody's got to pay for it.

The duty of collecting the money has revolved around for various reasons, but it has to be two people - one for AM shift, one for PM shift - and one of those has to be the primary coordinator for buying things and keeping the books. Right now it's myself for PM and the guy on AM, Needy, is doing the buying. He's gotten himself a ledger and a receipt book and is trying to do everything right. However, he's not collecting enough money. Now, granted, I suck at collecting money from people. I think people should be adult enough to pay on their own, they shouldn't have to be badgered all the time. Consequently, for the entire month of July I only collected $12. Obviously, that's not enough to pay for all the kitchen paraphenalia (which you'd think the f--ing government would pay for if they're so flush with money that they want to buy us all shoulder boards to put on our f--ing uniforms for $5 per person - what is that, like a quarter of a million dollars over the whole country?) (sorry).

*deep breath* Anyway...

He began playing games, last month, where he would make sure there was no coffee available before he left, or no cups, or no plasticware. He thought, for some reason, this would make people more aware of the things they are taking for granted and using without paying for. I thought it was a pain in the ass, because I had to spend my break time tracking down cups and plasticware, or more often just hearing the complaints; "No, you shouldn't have to do that! F-- him, I'll do without! I'm not paying if there's not going to be anything here for me to use!"

So here's how the money exchange usually works: I take the $5 from the customer, put it in an envelope labeled "August Kitchen Fund" and put it in Needy's mailbox, with the expectation that he's going to put a receipt in the customer's mailbox and put the envelope back in mine. Yesterday I find the envelope back in my mailbox with the $5 still in it and a note saying "Coffee fund is now $10. Adjust and collect more." He throws good money back at me and expects me to go back to the customer and say, "Oh, by the way, Needy has decided unilaterally that it's now $10, so you've got to put in more before you'll get a receipt."

What the f--- is he thinking? If people won't pay $5, why does he think they're more likely to pay $10?

Since he began playing those games there's been discussion among PM shift if we should just break off and buy our own stuff. Only, I think that's silly, keeping two entirely seperate bunches of plasticware, and then he has to take back in stuff at the end of his shift and I have to put stuff out at the start of my shift. Which sounds easy enough, but where the shifts can overlap by as much as an hour it's really not practical.

So my solution (thus far) was that I countered by putting a note in his mailbox saying, "Just tell me how much you want from PM shift and I'll get it to you." I'm a commie, I think "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." If people want to pay $0.05 I wouldn't turn it down, and I'll give them a receipt for that nickle if they want it. I hand-wrote receipts for all the money I collected yesterday (and I collected more yesterday than I had in the whole month of July). I'm thinking I'll just give him whatever amount he wants from my own pocket (sorry, eor, but I can't see any other way at the moment) and hope that people will make it up to me. If they don't I'll make it widely known why I'm resigning the position of kitchen fund collector, and let someone else take the grief.

Comments

[eor.livejournal.com]

Just to highlight it. How much, over and above base pay are you getting paid to do this? How long have you been doing this? Who else has done this on the PM shift and for how long?

$10/month for coffee and plastics? Tell Needy (and everyone else for that matter) to go pound sand. Someone else can take the duty.

[luvsrimmer.livejournal.com]

$10 per month for the whole shift? or $10 per employee?? Cause if it's per employee he's being ridiculous! Where I work it's $1 a week per person.

and the whole "Coffee fund is now $10. Adjust and collect more" - that's bullshit. Hello?? would it be too much of a fucking hassle to say "Due to an increase in the price of Coffee (or whatver) starting next month the cost will be such-and-such"??? Obviously he has to be an ass and try and make you sound like an idiot cause you have to go back to the person.

[derien.livejournal.com]

$10 per person who pays. IE: last month 2 people paid me $5 each and one person gave me $2 because he said he never drinks coffee. It's just stupid of him to think that the people who pay are going to give more. They know they're cover the cost of people who don't pay.

[luvsrimmer.livejournal.com]

That's just ridiculous