Juice drinkers are people, too

Regular readers will recall the recent pro-coffee rant from the managing editor (“Raise your mugs in praise,” Canadian HR Reporter, Aug. 12, 2002 or click related articles link below). In his column, John Hobel took aim at workplaces that don’t provide coffee, neglecting, as nearly all offices do, the most delicious of all beverages: orange juice.

Sometime in late July, the coffee machine on the floor housing the offices of CHRR broke down for a couple of days, leading to mayhem, in some ranks, and might have been responsible for a hastily-penned editorial on the subject. A lesson was definitely learned in this case, though. When the machine was recently replaced, a note was put up a few days prior warning everyone that coffee would be unavailable for 30 minutes while the new machine was installed.

As inconceivable as it may be to the hordes who start the day with Juan Valdez’ elixir coursing through their veins, there are a significant number of Canadians who abhor the thought of a cup of steaming black water, chock full of cream and sugar, filling the office with an intoxicating, noxious scent to kick off the day.

Many prefer to start with a clean, crisp, cold glass of orange juice. Yet workers haven’t seen Tropicana machines popping up next to the coffee pots, despite the obvious benefits for organizations concerned with wellness.

This is not to say coffee drinkers don’t have a legitimate need for their morning, mid-morning, pre-break, after-break, before lunch, lunchtime, post-lunch, mid-afternoon, catch-one-before-I-hit-the-road beverages. You don’t have to look far in society to see the dominance the evil little bean has over the citrus fruit. There is no orange-juice competitor of Starbucks. On most streets in the country, you can see a Tim Horton’s in every direction, with drive-through lanes overflowing with the masses, with nary a juice bar in sight.

A quick Google search, one of the best barometers of popularity around, shows how strongly caffeine is rooted — more than 10.1 million Web pages mention the word coffee, compared to just 3.4 million for juice. Even in the pages of this publication, Florida’s best is lagging far behind. A search of Canadian HR Reporter’s online archives shows 25 stories mentioning coffee, and just four with a reference to juice. CNN recently conducted an online poll, asking if viewers preferred to start the day “caffeinated” or “uncaffeinated.” Caffeine lovers won with more than a 75 per cent majority.

Our managing editor contends workplaces providing coffee benefit from increased productivity, because staff won’t stream out to the nearest café, donut shop, specialty store or greasy spoon in search of caffeine in a cup. Plenty of organizations have offered free coffee to staff for years. Yet a stroll around any of these offices will show a plethora of Starbucks containers and Tim Horton’s cups, because the hard-core coffee drinkers insist the quality of the free liquid isn’t as good as the stuff down the road.

If HR truly wants to be innovative, and recruit and retain workers who aren’t constantly treading a path to the coffee machine and beyond, then orange juice should be put on the agenda, and given an exalted, well-deserved place beside the coffee pot.

This is not to suggest the elimination of the workplace coffee machine: merely contemplating that fact and communicating it to the workforce would undoubtedly skew workplace violence statistics.

But it doesn’t mean coffee fiends and orange juice fanatics can’t get along. Halfbakery.com, a database of original, fictitious inventions, might have come up with the perfect solution: caffeinated orange juice.

Todd Humber is Canadian HR Reporter’s Web editor.

To read the full story, login below.

Not a subscriber?

Start your subscription today!