Office cafeteria – Coffee, Conversations & more

The office cafeteria is an interesting place to be. It is a melting pot of employees from different departments, different teams & different groups. Between sips of refreshing hot coffee, the discussions and the camaraderie on display tells a lot about the organization, its people & how the day’s been for them.

One of the most visible aspects of the cafeteria is how people gather around & seat themselves. Things to note here are who sits with whom. Most times people from the same team sit together. If it’s a large team they break into smaller groups. It is likely that one group is all male & the other all female. In such a scenario, there is a high possibility of one of the guys to be two timing both the male table & the female table. Then there are these ‘couple only’ tables, where a guy & a girl sit across & talk not realizing probably that ‘they’ are being talked of in the other tables.

The other aspect of the cafeteria is what people do out there. Most talk, some sulk, a few of them come to check out the other crowd there. Those who sulk keep staring into their coffee cup probably trying to count the hole like depressions into the froth of their coffee. Those who come to check out the others, position themselves in strategic locations in the cafeteria from where they could get a glimpse of anyone sitting at any table. They generally hold their mobile phone in one hand & the coffee cup in the other & act like they are busy reading or sending a message it actually seems more like by-hearting the numbers & the spellings in the names. And then the it-moment comes when they lift the coffee cup to have a sip & simultaneously scan the scene around in the cafeteria. Some do this with such style & elegance that you think you are watching a Hollywood movie.

Of course the conversations in the cafeteria take the cake when compared to all the other aspects. Conversations could be about anything. Be it news from the newspapers, be it the discussion on the day’s work, or be it plain gossip they all bring the cafeteria alive. Even if someone isn’t the kind who would initiate a conversation, he surely will get drawn into it. Some of the interesting cafeteria conversations I have been involved in were nicknaming some of the senior people or on a serious side, a discussion on what our company should do to cut down attrition. Once we debated a topic like, “Recruiters don’t have to use their mind to do their work”. Somewhere in the middle of all these conversations some one liners that registered & I could recollect is “Management sucks” & “God should not make Guys fair (appearance wise)”.

Cafeteria = Coffee, Carefree, Casual, Comic, Come-when-you-want-go-when-you-want…well almost.