I’m in charge of our disgusting office kitchen — Ask a Manager

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer who was in charge of a disgusting office kitchen? Here’s the update.

Thank you so much for publishing my letter! When I wrote in earlier this year I was truly at my wits end — quite possibly because of the many other (more important) tasks I was juggling. Cleaning the kitchen was the last thing I wanted to do, the least important thing on my list, and the only thing I could focus on.

Essentially the situation remains the same but the resolution comes from a major attitude adjustment. Instead of jumping up and rushing to clean dirty dishes or empty the food trap when people complain, I mostly just sigh and say, “Yeah these people man. What can ya do?” The person who was complaining usually takes this response as a sign to clean the kitchen themselves which wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Who knew apathy would be my saving grace!

Thank you to the comment thread for your suggestions as well! It seems my struggles are not unique (though I hope the person who noted they would fire an admin who tosses out dirty dishes does some reflection on their priorities…) and it was great to hear I’m not alone in this.
Some details not originally included:

– We do have a dishwasher and I will spare you all the crazy ways I have seen that thing loaded. It is still remarkable to me that people would rather leave spaghetti dishes in the sink instead of popping them into the dishwasher, but who am I to judge? I run the dishwasher at the end of the day and unload it in the morning. If I forget, I forget and the world keeps spinning.
– I do a weekly fridge purge on Fridays (which has been in place since I started but I neglected to mention in my previous letter) but have doubled down that anything unlabeled will be thrown away. We have a large portion of our staff that irregularly work over the weekends and many folks forget to label their leftovers so this is not a perfect system but those who have lost meals to the purge tend to start labeling things in the future.

I have also written up a proposal for a kitchen rotation by department that me and my boss are trying to get off the ground once the dust settles on some other policy changes that are being implemented.

All in all, I still fear for the way people treat their homes if this is how they treat the office, but I have chosen to breathe deep and rise above. Thanks again!