Mr Finn, says in today's Guardian:
"Behold the homemade sandwich; they help the environment, save you money and satisfy your craving for peanut butter and cheese."
I hope I don't cause you concern, dear reader, if I let you know that I'm not one for sandwiches for lunch at work. I like my lunch like my men; hot. And so I do regularly save a bit of last night's tea and put it in a plastic container to be heated up in the microwave at work the next day. (Just for the record, I don't do that with my man). Or, if there is lots of tea left over, I freeze quite a bit of it in plastic containers. This means that I have a bit of a menu I can choose from, rather than always having the same thing for lunch that I had for dinner the previous night. I like to shake things up a bit, you see.
This routine has advantages. Firstly, I know what I'm eating 'cause I made it. Secondly, I know it's relatively healthy, tasty and filling. Thirdly, is dirt cheap and no trouble.
But, there is a problem, and that problem is other people.
To explain - I work in a small rented office, in a smallish building occupied by other people who all work for the same place doing proper grown up jobs. We all share a kitchenette. However, they rarely use it. They sometimes make use of the kettle, but mostly they do their wining and dining over at the canteen.
Because they rarely use the kitchen facilities they seem to be of the opinion that it is wrong for anyone else to do so. Mostly, they communicate this opinion by opening windows in the kitchen and closing the kitchen door the second you've walked out of it after having left something warming in the microwave. Sometimes they have sprayed air freshener. Passive aggressive behaviour if ever it existed. They do not appreciate the aroma of my lunch, however mild and quick to dissipate, and they are so important that they must let me know this and make me feel small.
This behaviour sent me on somewhat of a learning curve. I don't find the gentle aroma of pasta in tomato sauce at all offensive, but I have had to accept that these people do, however weird that seems to me. Therefore, to save them the trouble, and keep relations cordial, I now open the window and close the kitchen door whenever I use the microwave
But then, when I thought war had been averted through diplomatic means, a new front was opened up. My colleagues also use the kitchenette and have not been as diligent as I about doing the washing-up. That's when the notes started appearing.
This put me in a difficult position, because whilst I was perfectly prepared to be responsible for the eradication of my own cooking smells, I did not want to become the kitchen bitch. I did my own washing-up, and those of others when appropriate, and that was where I drew the line. If some people did not do the washing-up, and other people did not like that, then that was their war. They could be France and Germany if they wanted, but I was Switzerland. I took my plastic box and cutlery home to be washed-up and left them to fight over the sink.
But unlike Switzerland, I have a conscious and I cared about my reputation. When the Washing-Up Versus Passive-Aggressive Notemaking battles reached terrifying heights, I realised that I was made guilty by association. The Germans didn't give a fig for my neutrality; I was either with them or against them. Walking across the office floor in the morning became embarrassing - they thought I was a dirty slob.
What seemed to be happening was that my colleagues would dump their dirty cups, plates and knives and forks into the sink at the end of the day, and being too busy to do them there and then, left them for the next day. But as we all know; tomorrow never comes. The next day, instead of making merry with the Persil, they would forget, or they wouldn't have time, or they would be off sick. And with me no longer tending to matters, the crap in the sink built up.
You can imagine how stressful this all was.
Eventually, I called for talks. Germany were not invited because they were so po-faced, but France entered into friendly dialogue. A new agreement was reached. Washing-up would be done at the moment it was placed in the washing-up bowl or it remained to fester on desks, offending nobody but ourselves.
So far, this agreement has held, apart from one embarrassing weekend event when the washing-up liquid ran out on the Friday, and I forgot to bring some in on the Monday, and then one of the Germans brought some in on the Tuesday in another grand show of passive-aggressiveness.
It would have been easier if we had done what the po-faced passive-aggressive bullies wanted us to do in the first place, and just stop using the kitchen, even though we don't have the time they do to hang around the canteen. Or maybe, if we just brought in horrible cold sandwiches in nasty supermarket packaging, that would have suited them enough. Though I doubt we would have had any thanks for it.
Instead, I chose to be peacemaker between the rightful Slobbishness and the dictatorship of Pickiness, and I did this because I like my pasta in homemade tomato sauce, I like my homemade vege shepherd's pie and my homemade vege lasagna. I like to break up my day, full of cerebral responsibility and frustration, with something hot and tasty for my senses.
But it was not at some small cost to my mental health. At work, my kitchen related behaviour is now fuelled by paranoia. I know I must get things just so or be terribly judged. This has extended to my toilet behaviour, which has of course always been impeccable, but what if I'm doing something that offends their delicate senses? What passive-aggressive behaviour will await me then? Every day, I shudder in fear at what new front they might open up. Pray for me.
