They changed around the cafeteria at work last week. Took out all the vending machines and put in shelves and reach-in coolers like you would find in a convenience store. Instead of a cashier there are three or four payment machines, sort of like ATMs. You scan what you want to buy and then pay for it with a credit or debit card. If you want to use cash instead of a card you have to set up an account. I don't think it gives change though, you just end up with credit on your account. I don't think it even takes change at all, just bills or cards.
At first I was kind of upset about the whole thing. I'm not good with change. If it's working don't fix it. I didn't see any reason to mess with the way things were, but I have to say, there are a few improvements. There's a lot more variety now. They finally have Cherry Dr. Pepper. I don't have to carry around a bunch of money on the off chance I want a soda or a snack. I put $5 in the machine the other day and whenever I want something all I have to do is go get it, scan it on the bar-code scanner, and then stick my thumb on the thumb scanner, and I'm done. If I want a receipt it can either print one right there, send me an e-mail, or send me a text message. What a smart little machine.
One of the few things I still don't like is they took out the coffee machines. There used to be two of the big soda machine-sized coffee machines. The ones that drop down a little paper cup and shoot it full of coffee. Not that I like coffee mind you. I like it about as much as I like beer, which is not at all. No, but the coffee machines did make a pretty good cup of hot tea or hot cocoa. The cups were kind of small, but unless you had a regular plastic coffee cup with a good lid that you could dump the coffee into you couldn't take it into your work area anyway, so you only needed as much coffee as you could drink in 15 minutes.
Another good thing about the old coffee machines was the price. Just 10c a cup. Now they've got some fancy counter-top coffee machines that cost 50c a cup. Granted, the cups are bigger, and the coffee is supposed to be better, but that seems like a big jump in price. I haven't tried the cocoa or hot tea yet, so I don't know about that. Also, these coffee cups have lids, so they're letting us take them in with us when our break's over. That doesn't make sense to me, because the coffee cups aren't any better than the ones you would get at a convenience store, and I don't think these lids will stay on any better if you knock the cup over. I think with either one you would end up with a keyboard full of coffee.
The one thing about this renovation that I'm 100% excited about is where the coffee machines used to be they put in two brand new ice machines. I don't know about you, but I like ice. Room temperature water just isn't as satisfying as a glass full of ice cold water. Iced tea without the ice just isn't the same.
I've wanted an ice machine ever since I started working here, but management kept saying we couldn't have ice machines. I think somebody even said they were illegal. I think because they're unsanitary, which is pretty funny since there are ice machines in just about every fast food restaurant and convenience store I can think of. If it's okay to have thousands of random people come in off the streets and use their ice machines why couldn't we have one for the employees that work here every day?
I'm still waiting for somebody to get fired for stealing something. I mean, everything's just laying around, begging to be picked up and stuffed in your pocket or under your shirt or in your bag or something. You could just grab a soda and walk away and there's nobody to holler at you or chase after you or anything like that.
Well, except for the cameras they installed all over that are watching everything everybody does to everything everywhere. And really, if you're stupid enough to risk a $15 or more an hour job over a bag of chips you deserve to get fired.
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