Let’s take a break from the what’s-going-tits-up-THIS-time posts to hearken back to something random. No specific reasons for this recollection now per se; it just popped into my head, as it sometimes does. So here we go, traveling back some years now to that time I became the only person in the entire workplace forbidden from using the microwave.
I worked up front, greeting people, operating the front door, answering the phones, ordering and stocking office supplies, opening or (sometimes and) closing the building, setting up for and catering events and cleaning up during and after them, running errands, executing printing jobs, responding to emergencies (I was certified several years in a row), registering new clientele, and so on. At first this was a two-person job and lunch breaks were easier than in the last couple years, after the really toxic manager arrived, and this story takes place in those days so I had ample time at a reasonable hour for my lunch.
It was late fall in the Netherlands. A fairly bitter wind was thrashing the last vestiges of softer tissues out of clusters of leaves, using them to snatch up random trash and whip the lot around corners unexpectedly whenever the wind changed. You know, the Season of Broken Umbrellas, skittering forlornly about in search of
somewhere to snag up or plunge into and come to chilly rest. Traveling against the wind both ways, I angled my way to and from the nearby supermarket, grabbing the first decent-looking microwave meal (labeled “Lunch Selection”, so not unbelievably weird to buy for lunch – this is relevant later) that was in my meager price range. I don’t exactly remember what it was but I know it had pasta and broccoli. I know, I know, this is an inconsiderate choice in a closed building and I admit that; I don’t think it merits what happened, though.
Back at work, I put the meal on to cook in the small break room, which was separated from the publicly accessible parts of the place and the outbuilding by locked doors. The smell of the cooking could travel up the stairs though, and be detected in some of the rooms closer to the top, and I would have understood and apologized my ass off for not thinking about that beforehand if anyone from that side of things had complained. After it beeped and I retreated with my lunch to the larger break room adjoining reception, and started reading my book and eating my food, a higher-up came from the outbuilding to check out and go to her own lunch. Until the door between the main hall and the break rooms opened, this higher-up seemed chipper and sunk in thought (these were academics and often sunk in thought). I became aware of her glaring silently into the break room, though, a couple of moments later, and looked up from my book.
“Hi, Personsname,” I assayed. “Everything good?”
She drew herself up and stepped into the room. “I have,” she declaimed, “been smelling whatever that is all the way from the other building.”
“Oh goodness I’m sorry,” I said. “I just grabbed a lunch that looked good and didn’t think the broccoli through. It won’t happen again.”
She narrowed her eyes and asked me a stumper. I still mull over how someone could be comfortable asking someone else a question like this, but I’ve never really matched the general vibe, maybe most people would have
found it charming or something, what do I know? What she asked me, pointing at my microwavable “Lunch Selection”, was, “Why can’t you eat cold food for lunch like normal people?”
I admit I stammered. I wasn’t really sure how to parse answering that. I “could” eat cold food for lunch, and often did; by the same token, most of my colleagues and hers regularly had something uncold for lunch, although they were all in a higher income bracket than me and brought it in already hot from the myriad snackbars, coffee houses, and restaurants in the surrounding streets. This time I wasn’t eating a cold lunch for the simple reason that I had wanted a hot one, and I wasn’t sure how to explain that to someone who seemed not to understand this intuitively.
And then there was the “normal people” part. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not “normal people” but that seemed rather beside the point, politeness aside, given that the “normal people” surrounding me also often ate hot lunches and the one in front of me was directly marketed as such. Luckily I didn’t really have to answer that, because instead she explained to me why hot lunches, when microwaved inside a building, create smells, and not just the person making the smells can smell them, either, because they travel on the air. It was explained to me that maybe where I’m from we just microwave whatever we want whenever we want to no matter where we are, she understood that, but here in the Netherlands it’s customary to be courteous to the other people in a building.
I grew up being lectured self-righteously several times a day and I recognize someone working themselves up when I see it. This was a superior of mine at work. I strive anyway for harmonious or at least cordial relations with
people I have to see whether I like it or not, regardless of whether they have authority over me, but that same authority can cause them to have some expectations, and in this kind of situation the usual expectation is subservience. Which I have no problem putting out at need.
“I’m so sorry,” I said again, and I spewed some of the Magic Phrases. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You’re right that it was discourteous and I apologize. I will make sure that nothing like it happens again.”
Unfortunately, although this did get me off the immediate hook, it had all now started a side-quest in her head. “OK, OK,” she said, waving off my supplications. “It’s not a huge deal, you didn’t know how we do it here in the Netherlands. But,” she became animated, “why is there even a microwave?”
“Well,” I tried, people might need to heat things up…”
“Why?”
“Ummm, well, I…”
“No, seriously.” She leaned in at me, eyes on mine. Oh no. She was Engaging Me. I wasn’t an underling being dismissed after a dressing down now, I was an Audience. I could feel my food getting cold as I set my fork down and Assumed the Attitude: attentive, hands folded in plain sight, neutrally receptive facial expression, just enough eye contact but not too much... “Why is that even here? Did Yourcolleague put it in?”
“No ma’am,” said I, “it’s been here a long time.” At least a decade at this point.
“Well it shouldn’t be.” She frowned and started pacing. “What is it even for? If people want hot food they can just go get some anywhere around here. There are lots of options. I can’t think of a single reason that machine should be in there stinking the place up and using our electricity. There’s no point!” She stared at me expectantly.
“I don’t know.” I gestured at my food. “I was using it for lunches. I know other people do use it, but I don’t know what…”
She waved me off again. “OK, well, there’s no good reason for that to even be there, but I guess maybe somebody might have a legitimate reason sometimes. But we can’t have the place reeking of weird food all the time, what would visitors think? What about the people working here who have to smell that" [gesturing at my meal] "for the entire day? It’s just unacceptable. Hmmm. Hmmm. I KNOW, put a sign on it that says that if people have to use it, they can just heat up things that have no smell. Everything else is not allowed.”
“I… ummm… OK…” I know when it would be futile to try logic.
“Agreed then. They can use it for odorless stuff, problem solved.” She was suddenly all smiles. “Thank you so much for helping me solve this! Enjoy your lunch!”
I returned my attention, for the couple of minutes I had left on break, to my now clammy food.
The sign attracted a lot of questions. Despite my prior (repeated) explanations about it all, the other person working the front answered all of them by saying, “I don’t know, Katrina put that up, go ask her”, so I would again explain the entire conversation to yet another employee.
Now, I get a reputation pretty fast anywhere I work as willing to go above and beyond, good at ad-hoc problem solving, extremely flexible. I value this about myself. But it has its limits. The thing about such a reputation is, sometimes people forget that it’s voluntary. Once in a while a reminder that above-and-beyond means outside the scope of the job, strictly speaking, has to be tossed into the ring. It was my choice to what extent I would comply with the higher-up’s demands, once the strict letter of the moment had been adhered to, and the long and short of it was, I had promised not to heat things with odors in the microwave, in accordance with this new workplace rule, and I had complied with the instruction to put up a sign saying others should not do so either. That’s it. To each person who said, “What, does she mean just water for tea or something? We have kettles for that! This is absolutely ridiculous!” I said, “I completely agree,” and shrugged mightily. When a senior researcher told me he wanted some popcorn and was taking the sign off the machine, I shrugged at that too - no skin off my nose, not my department, not my problem.
The next day the higher-up was at my desk asking me what happened to the sign. I said that I thought maybe one of the other employees had taken it off but that I had been busy at the desk all day and didn’t have time or authority to police the break room. So she asked me to talk to everyone I saw and find out who’d done it, so I got a little more blunt and said that it was not within the scope of my job to be the Microwave Police. She asked me to put up a new sign, I complied.
And so it went for the remaining year or so until she retired and I started having hot lunches (no broccoli!) again: I was the only person in the building who had been directly told not to use the machine, and I refused to tell others not to do so although I was perfectly happy to keep telling anyone who asked that the higher-up said no, so I was technically the only one officially banned from it. Only the sheer absurdity of it all kept me from being in a rage, and only a rather desperate desire to avoid serious unpleasantness kept me from protesting. We went through a lot of those signs.
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