What happens when one of the office coffee machines jumps into the backseat of your car and goes home with you (and on a regular basis, coffee refills)...would that be one of the "perks" of referring this service to your office?

Would it not be cheaper to purchase (bossman, that is) the machine outright and just get regular delivery of the coffee, creamer, etc.? I wouldn't even consider working anywhere that drinks (sodas, water, coffee, juice) weren't a perk. I had that perk at the last three decent corporations by whom I was employed. Most good corporations do these things to keep the employees happy and at their desks. I even have it now at my current part-time job, but it IS at my sister's house (I'm her Realtor's Assistant).

Some offices had delivery through a beverage servce and at one of the smaller companies we took turns doing a Sam's Club (or Costco, Price Club) run and picked up cases of drinks, snacks, etc. This place even had lunch catered 4 days a week and ordered out for everyone on Fridays. That was a really classy joint. Of course the boss just didn't want anyone to leave if at all possible, but it was nice anyway. THIS is the type of place you need to seek employment.

If you are going to do all that hard work it should pay off for you. Have you looked into the financial industry? The company with the lunches, etc. was a money management firm. Very high end. I've also worked for
Smith Barney-Shearson/Shearson-Lehman-Hutton/Shearson-American Express (we had a lot of names in the 80's & early 90's). My last "real" job was as a Corporate Manager with an international brokerage company whose parent company also owned banks in Latin America and the Carribean. This is where someone with your skills and qualifications can be appreciated and compensated. I'd have hired you in a second. In fact you remind me of the Assistant I had when I left, albeit, 30 years younger and not Honduran. Her salary was close to that of mine and other managers, because she was amazing. You don't really need a lot of financial experience, either if you get in as an Executive Asst. or Office Manager. I just think you should be working somewhere that is classier than sharing a bathroom with several men that can't seem to pee straight. You need to be surrounded by marble and mahogony - you're a class act.

Bossman got turned off of the whole coffee situation when a certain coworker submitted to him an expense report for creamer and a canister of sugar. That didn't go over well.

From then on, he decreed that all of us coffee drinkers needed to work out some system where we'd take turns buying the stuff.

Well, some people never brought in things when they're supposed to so it ended up being me and the other chick ALWAYS buying food supplies. I got pissed at this on Monday because each morning they'd bring in a $3 Starbucks cappuchino but never a damned container of coffee grounds. If they did, they'd bring in the smallest size available.

Now I've warned them. If they want to keep the system, I'm docking their pay. They've consented, so we'll see what happens come May 31.

Then again, Bossman's coffee pisstivity occured during a time of great (great great great) distress for the business. Being a start-up, we weren't making money at the time, so he wasn't about to pay for everyone else's caffeine...but yesterday he seemed interested enough in the machine that he suggested that he would pay for the machine rental.

Not to defend Bossman's cluelessness, but I think he'd be perfectly willing to pay for it all if certain employees weren't so abusive of the perks we do have.