Nothing makes co-workers lose their cool faster than a biohazard in the icebox.
Move over, road rage. Take a flying leap, air rage. Refrigerator rage is all the rage. Who hasn’t wanted to mow down their coworkers for leaving their moldy meals in the office fridge or, worse — stealing your strudel?
The fridge, then, can be a barometer for what’s going on in an office.
“At every one of my seminars, it’ll come up as a question, and I cover it in my presentation,” says Susan Huston of Arlington, who presents seminars around the country on business etiquette. “It is a problem in offices.”
And although she rates it at about a 4 or 5 on her scale of office no-no’s, Huston says it’s little things that “add up to really annoy people.”
Huston says most of us assume that, as grown-ups, we know better than to leave our leftovers around to the point of no return. “But,” she says, “people forget, or it’s not very important to them. And what may be important to you may not be important to Joe over here, and he’s the one with the mold growing on the sandwich.”
Heather Svokos
Fort Worth Star Telegram
April 2005