Vendgate

by Alex J Allen

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I remember my first day of work well. There were forms, training manuals, introductory icebreaker games, marker pens and A2 sheets of sugar paper. What I remember most, however, is the drink vending machine. You might think that that's a pretty stupid thing to take from the day, especially since the day was filled with things that I needed to know about a lot more than that, but that's what stuck. Truth be told, it happens a lot. I thought this drinks machine was fantastic. Generally, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to hot drinks. There's the filling up the kettle, turning the kettle on, trying to find a teabag, trying to find milk, trying to find sugar. All these small, innocuous little jobs add up, and suddenly it's become a lot more work than you bargained for. Of course, I realise that's just my Western Europe 21st century laziness kicking in, if a pensioner were around they'd tell me that this country could do with a good war to sort us out. Still, no wars have materialised, and I am an unfit, pasty office worker with hands shaped to the contours of my Playstation controller. That's why this machine was fantastic, it's a box that makes drinks for you. There's no teabag, no milk, no sugar, it's all in the box! Suddenly I can develop a fashionable caffeine addiction, and say things when I get in to work like 'ahh, I can't get up without my coffee!' It wasn't just hot drinks either, there were some weird cold alternatives too. Radioactive orange? Nuclear Lemon? I have literally never seen anything more orange, or more lemon (?) than those two drinks. Seriously, I could have made a traffic light if they'd had an apple version. It was one of those products that you were fairly certain caused, or a least contributed towards, cancer.

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Imagine my dismay when I came to work and found that the drinks machine had been replaced. In all seriousness, this machine was definitely one of the top three reasons to come to work. To make matters worse, the new machine was awful. It was unbelievably confusing, you'd ask for tea and be bombarded with questions. Milk? How much milk, yes, no, some, a bit? How much sugar, yes, please, plentiful, less, no? On the table next to the new machine, lay a graveyard of incorrectly made teas, some had no milk, some had no sugar, some were just hot water. The only thing missing were three bears. The new drinks tasted awful, like they were made from a combination of sawdust, Tesco Value instant hot chocolate, and boiling water. The result is that I've actually started drinking water, the mother of all non drinks. I'm sure to the average reader, this will seem like a trivial predicament, that you can scarcely believe I've gotten two paragraphs out of. Perhaps, that is the best way to summarise my working day.