"With Benefits"

[lpgreen]

In an effort to make work the most super-duper place on the planet to spend 30+% of your life my company has made beverages free, mostly. Coffee, tea, and fountain beverages are now free. Fountain juice and bottle bevererages aren't. I used to get the free hot water for breakfast (just add own tea bag at cost of $0.15) and have the free cold water with lunch because that's just better for you anyway. Now and then I'd get the fountain juice with lunch because they have cranberry and some other peach/passion fruit blend that's pretty good. So basically, this benefit will not benefit me financially at all because the free tea they now offer is from Lipton and it sucks. I used to sometimes get flavored coffee out of a machine because it's pretty cheap and tasty, but that's also not free. We have a fancy cappacino bar that has more exotic coffee concoctions, but of course that's not free. What's free is the plain old caffeinated or decaffinated coffee. I tried it the past two days (for the first time in 8 years -- because it's free) and it was bad both times. It tastes burnt. The aftertaste is like you just smoked something (editorial note: I've never smoked cigarettes). They must grind it with the dullest blades on the planet to burn it that badly.

So kids, the lesson for today: sometimes you get what you pay for when things are free. (I'm also of the opinion that the people at my facility are fat enough without giving them free soda).

Unrelated splendor: New Ladytron song available for download here.