Chips with everything

I manoeuvred my car slowly down into the quarry following the muddy track the trucks used to enter and leave the site. By the time I reached the site office car park my company car was covered in a grey sticky film of mud. I got out of the car and, walking on tiptoe in a vain effort to keep the mud off my shoes and suit, headed for the Portacabin where the person I was due to meet worked. Two mangy Alsatians, held back only by their long leashes barked loudly at me eyeing me up as if I had been scheduled to be their meal today. As they jumped and strained to reach me they showered me in more mud. I entered the Portacabin, shook hands with the site manager - he offered me a cup of tea before we started the meeting. I thanked him and said 'yes please'. And then I saw the mugs.

The mugs were weapons of mass destruction. They were stained in ways I couldn't believe it was possible to stain a mug without using ancient banned magic. The deep brown stains of a millennia of never once seeing warm water and washing up liquid. Not a millimetre of white left on them. Striated like some monstrous geological fault with deep cracks running around the outside and inside. The rim of the mug was deeply chipped around the whole circumference. There were the stains of dribbles of tea from the last user running down the side. The site manager plonked the mug down in front of me, and drank deeply from his own mug - it had what remained of a cartoon on the outside 'The world's greatest...'. Indecipherable - poisoner, mass murderer? 'I'm going to die so young' I thought 'Of some horrible virus that has mutated for years on this mug and for which there is no cure. That's why the Alsatians were eyeing me up - they knew this was my last walk.'

Well I did die - oh no, I couldn't of of course. Staff facilities - they are mostly gross, rarely clean and generally have torn and crooked notices hanging from one drawing pin exhorting staff to leave the facilities as they would find in their own homes. On the basis of many years observation I would have to say that with most people's homes therefore you would be wiping your shoes as you leave they must be so disgusting.

As a student in self catering halls of residence our particular kitchen was singled out for praise by the long suffering cleaners on the basis that:

1. We actually appeared to wash the tea towels more than once a term
2. When we washed them we used warm(ish) water and soap powder
3. We wiped down surfaces in the kitchen and actually used disinfectant to clean surfaces
4. The contents of the freezer did not pre-date the last ice age.

Staff facilities have that rare ability to deteriorate within seconds of cleaning, if they are ever cleaned at all. Tea towels that are so stiff with dirt and stains that you could attach four wheels to them and use them as skateboards. Dish cloths that have a smell so peculiar that they could be used instead of tear gas during a riot. Washing up bowls that look like they have had an oil change performed in them, the sinks themselves that are scratched and scored like an ancient glacial valley. Mugs and cups that are never actually washed, just rinsed and put upside down to dry before the next, random user. Tea spoons that are left to dry so that a brown rim forms in the bowl of the spoon which can never be cleaned.

My current favourite that I use, favourite in that I have to don a full nuclear/bacteriological hazard suit before I enter actually has, get this, a dish washer that is never used. Dirty mugs, plates that are deeply encrusted with late night curry detritus and tea spoons. We'll quickly pass over the state if the tea towels again, last washed in 1968. And just what happens to tea spoons? No matter how many are provided they all disappear within a few days. Must be a thriving international trade in contraband tea spoons. And,yes, there is the inevitable notice pinned to the wall that says 'Please leave these facilities clean or they will be withdrawn.' The notice has been there as long as the tea towel to my knowledge.

In one place where I worked I couldn't stand the state of the coffee making facilities any more so I bought my own bottle of washing up liquid to work and started, daily, washing the team's mugs before we used them and at the end of the day. At first I was regarded as a two headed monster and then, one day accidentally leaving the washing liquid behind, returned to find a queue of people waiting to wash up their mugs with my lovely soapy suds. At least we had a sink - don't you just hate people who wash their mugs in the staff toilets? The sinks I mean not the loos.

However I knew I reached my nadir in one country in Africa. I was there on business. I'd been offered refreshments at the office I was visiting. They kindly offered me sweet coffee, which I accepted (mustn't offend the host) and, of course, the drink came in the inevitable chipped cups. 'Would I like some food to go with the coffee' they asked. Now on full hygiene alert I havered, what to do? I finally said yes and so they proudly brought out some disreputable looking plates and emptied some white spherical objects from the fridge onto the plate - there were as many flies in the fridge as in the room as the temperature difference was only about 2C between the inside of the fridge and the room. 'Eat up' they said indicating the plate. It was only then I recognised what they were on the plate. Sheeps eyes. 'I'm going to die so young I thought (again) of some horrible virus.' For the Queen and Country I drank the coffee and swallowed the Sheeps eyes.

So that is why, when offered a coffee from anywhere other than a machine, I look very, very carefully at the staff facilities before I make a decision - it's going to get me one day.