What your office sink says about you

You’ve had this experience, but I bet you’ve never thought about what it really means:

Every office has that one person who leaves their mugs in the sink “to soak.”

I don’t mean the people who leave their mug in the sink when the dishwasher is full. You can tell the difference between a fly-by “dump and rinse” and a careful soak job.

Or the kind folks who do a sweep of the conference room, pick up all the forgotten mugs, and deposit them in the sink without washing them.

Thank you for your service. We'll take it from here.

No. I mean the people who take the time to walk to the sink with a single mug, dump out the contents, fill it with just enough water to cover the striations of coffee stains, add a few squirts of dish soap, and walk away.

Why not spend the extra 15 seconds to wash it? Or put it in the dishwasher?

The dishwasher is RIGHT THERE.

What do you think is going to happen to this mug after you leave?

If you think it’s someone else’s job to wash it, why go to the effort to rinse and add soap to begin with?

Do you think you’re being courteous?

Like I said, the dishwasher is RIGHT THERE.

I was once in a coworking space where The Mug was filled with bright green liquid.

Not like a green smoothie or matcha.

A translucent emerald green like dish soap.

Or Jell-O.

What had happened here?

The dishwasher was empty, but I didn’t dump the green stuff and put the mug in the dishwasher. I've seen cartoons. Duping a mysterious green liquid never ends well.

And I didn’t want to intrude.

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