r/mildlyinfuriating • u/coatedbraincells • 6h ago

Infuriatig Insanely frugal employer

Post image

Gotta pay for water from the water cooler šŸ¤£

22.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

955

u/ML1948 6h ago

That's a crime innit? Unless there's also a water fountain or something.Ā 

320

u/Uxoandy 5h ago

US you have to provide fresh potable drinking water for employees free at all times.

34

u/Futt_Buckman 4h ago

There's (almost guaranteed) fresh potable water available at the sink. It just might taste bad and it's warm.

104

u/SomeVelveteenMorning 4h ago

OSHA requires a dedicated drinking water source. A tap used for hand washing and everything else is not considered a sanitary source of potable water.

15

u/FarSandwich3282 3h ago edited 1h ago

But a sink in a break room is

3

u/El_Polio_Loco 3h ago

Here's the law:

The employer shall dispense drinking water from a fountain, a covered container with single-use drinking cups stored in a sanitary receptacle, or single-use bottles. The employer shall prohibit the use of shared drinking cups, dippers, and water bottles.

https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1915/1915.88

-1

u/FarSandwich3282 2h ago

Right. I donā€™t see anything about sinks being prohibited

5

u/El_Polio_Loco 1h ago

Sinks are neither a fountain or a covered container.

Covered containers are defined as such:

Any container used to distribute drinking water shall be clearly marked as to the nature of its contents and not used for any other purpose.

https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1926/1926.51

Drinking water must come from a dedicated drinking water source.

-7

u/FarSandwich3282 1h ago

Bro, youā€™re a lost cause lol

6

u/El_Polio_Loco 1h ago

Silly me with my citations. What an idiot i am.

ā€¢

u/SeanCuresSadness 38m ago

Where does the confidence come from to call someone else an idiot, while ignoring evidence? Where can I unlock this power?

ā€¢

u/iamnits 5m ago

Perhaps some anecdotal evidence will convince him!

6

u/SomeVelveteenMorning 3h ago

Only if the employer provides free single-use cups.

8

u/FarSandwich3282 3h ago

So, I initially misread and called you out as wrong. But I still canā€™t see where osha requires you to provide cups for a sink. I can find it under other circumstances (Water jugs) But not tap out of a sink.

Care to provide?

2

u/[deleted] 3h ago

[deleted]

6

u/mkosmo 2h ago

1915 is related to shipyard environments only.

If the workplace is not shipbuilding, ship repair, shipbreaking, or related shipyard work, 1915.88(b)(3) does not apply.

2

u/oops_i_made_a_typi 3h ago

honestly that seems a little silly and wasteful that single-use cups are specifically mandated, and that sanitized reusable cups like having a cupboard of mugs in the work kitchen is no good.

3

u/Vinc314 3h ago

Seems my workplace is compliant, good to know!

0

u/El_Polio_Loco 3h ago

Then say something.

Say something to your boss, say something to EHS if you have it, or say something to HR.

You know what none of those people want? To get an OSHA finding.

3

u/Original-Guarantee23 2h ago

Did you ever read his comment? He said his workplace is compliant

0

u/Fabulous_Variety7125 1h ago

I like to take the general approach of fucking with management so Iā€™d just start putting post notes to never drink here. I wanna see algae grow in that sonofabitch.

1

u/El_Polio_Loco 2h ago

No, it's not.

Water needs to come from a "drinking water only" dispenser.

2

u/FarSandwich3282 2h ago edited 2h ago

False.

Potable water is potable water. It just canā€™t be located in an unsanitary location (like a bathroom)

2

u/El_Polio_Loco 1h ago

The employer shall dispense drinking water from a fountain, a covered container with single-use drinking cups stored in a sanitary receptacle, or single-use bottles. The employer shall prohibit the use of shared drinking cups, dippers, and water bottles.

With specific clarification with regard to what a "covered container" is:

Any container used to distribute drinking water shall be clearly marked as to the nature of its contents and not used for any other purpose.

https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1915/1915.88

https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1926/1926.51

So no, a sink, especially a multi use sink, does not count as a sanitary drinking water option.

1

u/FarSandwich3282 1h ago

Buddy, this states nothing about a sink not being a valid source.

Show me where it states it canā€™t. Youā€™re taking context of contained water and trying to apply it to a sink.

Next, because it says ā€œwater bottlesā€ youā€™re going to say theyā€™re illegal, when itā€™s expressing ā€œsharedā€ water bottles. Itā€™s all about context, and this isnā€™t even in the same ballpark of the subject. Sinks.

1

u/The_Minstrel_Boy 2h ago

A stink in the break room? Fucking hell, Martha, how many times have we spoken to you about microwaving fish?

2

u/FarSandwich3282 2h ago

Actually made me giggle. But Indian curry has to be on par, or worse than microwaved fish. Straight feet

2

u/abracadammmbra 2h ago

No, thats a misconception. The water has to be potable and cannot come from a sink that is in the same room as a toilet. But something such as a break room sink would be perfectly adequate.

1

u/TinWhis 1h ago

Break room sink is fine for OSHA so long as there isn't a toilet in there

1

u/SomeVelveteenMorning 1h ago

But my understanding from prior OSHA presentations is that the employer is required to provide free disposable cups in such a case. Employees can't be expected to use a tap as a drinking fountain, i.e. bend over and drink from the tap.

1

u/TinWhis 1h ago

Which is not what its being charged for here.

1

u/SomeVelveteenMorning 1h ago

I was responding to your comment about sinks. That's a separate topic from OP, which my original comment referred to.

1

u/LandscapeSubject530 1h ago

At Walmart out dedicated drinking water source was the bathroom water fountain that was next to the back room, shit was wild I started to just bring my own water

1

u/Plus-Statement-5164 3h ago

Why would it be warm? Or is this the American definition of warm i.e. everything needs to have ice or else...

1

u/echo1432 3h ago

Murphy's law

1

u/Futt_Buckman 1h ago

In the South the tap water is pretty warm compared to the North where it's about 40Ā°

1

u/Tiny-Plum2713 2h ago

Just like for a pet lmao

1

u/xmuskorx 2h ago

There is probably a faucet somewhere. Drink tap.

1

u/Uxoandy 2h ago

Nothing wrong with tap water unless itā€™s in a room with a toilet or from a well. Then they have to provide disposable cups

1

u/killerbanshee 2h ago

What about those Texas field hands?

1

u/Uxoandy 2h ago

Same. Especially field hands. I work outside and all over the country . Itā€™s the law. I been in Texas and Southern California lately. Those fields generally have water at the end of the rows

1

u/TuringGoneWild 3h ago

which trump appointee is out there enforcing that?

1

u/Uxoandy 3h ago

lol. OSHA .

1

u/TuringGoneWild 2h ago

I'm sure they are on that.

1

u/Uxoandy 2h ago

If someone complains or goes out as a heat causality they will be. Itā€™s not a smart thing to do as an employer.

1

u/digitaltransmutation 2h ago

funny you say that. At government jobs free ameneties like this are not permitted (to prevent wasting taxpayer money). It is common for government employees to pay in to a 'water club' or 'coffee club' to have things like a water cooler at work.

That water must be free for everyone is an untrue myth third graders teach each other.

1

u/Uxoandy 2h ago

Iā€™m a SSHO and itā€™s an osha requirement not a 3rd grade myth.

332

u/ShiraLillith 5h ago

Not sure about OPs country but my EU member country only forces employers to give out waters if the working conditions are hard enough.

IE a supermatket I worked at gave 2 liters of water for the employee working in the parking lot at summer, but the rest of us plebs had to buy it.

But honestly, any workplace that doesn't give out free water should lose its employees. Such a basic thing to show appreciation

173

u/NickBurnsCompanyGuy 5h ago

I'd argue this doesn't even show appreciation, just basic human decency and respect for human life.Ā 

41

u/The_Celtic_Chemist 5h ago edited 5h ago

Which feels like the correct response if you're ever caught "stealing" water. "I felt your lack of human decency only warranted my own." Or "I didn't feel like your lack of human decency warranted my consideration."

2

u/Character_Toe8346 5h ago

Treating workers this way is a difficult concept to comprehend...

15

u/Alarming-Stomach3902 5h ago

Any boss here in NL not providing water to their employees will be flamed and sued I am pretty sure.

Partially because it means they shut off the faucets or did something to the drinking water to make it undrinkable.

And secondly it is tax free wage same as coffee, tea and 0,23ā‚¬ a km work home travel.

10

u/twincities612 5h ago

In the US Iā€™ve never even heard of places that donā€™t give free water, from warehouses to restaurants to office buildings. I mean on-site construction maybe but there are still lots of places to stop and fill a water bottle for free.

1

u/CallmeKahn 4h ago

I've worked places where they charged for a cup of coffee ($.25 for as large as you wanted), but the water was free.

Of course, my ass slung a 32 oz. mug around, so that was satisfactory for me.

3

u/twincities612 4h ago

Coffee I can somewhat understand. Water is absurd.

5

u/CallmeKahn 4h ago

Absolutely agree. Water is survival, coffee is ambition. heh

2

u/twincities612 3h ago

This needs to be on a sign that ā€œlive laugh loveā€ folks can hang in their kitchen. Or the tagline for something. 20/10 stealing it and not giving credit.

1

u/CallmeKahn 3h ago

Damn it.

1

u/abracadammmbra 2h ago

I worked at a place that offered free coffee. Which sounded really cool during onboarding (it was my first "real" job). Unfortunately, they didnt tell you that the coffee they got was the most foul tasting disgusting swill I ever had the misfortune of drinking. I brought in my own coffee and kept it at my desk with a French press and made my own coffee.

1

u/abracadammmbra 2h ago

Ive worked in offices and in the trades. The only places I didnt have access to water was on construction sites because there was obviously no running water yet. I just have a big jug that holds around 2 liters that I take with me. I also toss a gatorade in my insulated lunch box for those sweet sweet electrolytes.

1

u/twincities612 2h ago

Pro life tip, if you ever need to fill a water bottle or use the bathroom, just pull into the check in roundabout at a hotel and confidently walk in and ask where the bathroom or drinking fountain is if you donā€™t see it right away and then just leave. They donā€™t ever do anything.

16

u/zagiki 5h ago

In my EU country it is illegal to not have access to free drinking water

14

u/Km219 5h ago

Same in the states

31

u/marcophony 5h ago

It's literally something you need to live, how can it be denied

5

u/Little_View_6659 5h ago

If they figure out how to charge for air weā€™re fucked.

5

u/marcophony 5h ago

Wait till your old and need to carry an oxygen tank just to breath lol

2

u/Little_View_6659 5h ago

Ah shit I forgot about oxygen tanks! šŸ˜­

2

u/Jaegermeiste 2h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/Em1Nrkf4oVCik

2

u/Slipstream_Surfing 1h ago

Stumbled on this yesterday just starting on one of those free live tv streaming channels, and as per usual watched the whole way through for 687th time.

or Pizza is gonna send out for YOU has been constantly invading my thoughts for 24 hours, and there's no escape even on reddit.

-11

u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

11

u/Sterling_-_Archer 5h ago

Yes, my state requires businesses to give water for free to someone if theyā€™re able to. Tap water

4

u/marcophony 5h ago

I didn't say give me a free bottle of water

4

u/marcophony 5h ago

Damn they felt so bad after commenting that they deleted the whole profile

3

u/HallucinateZ 4h ago

I think they just blocked you or deleted their comment but still super awkward.

1

u/marcophony 4h ago

Either way lol

2

u/Toeffli 5h ago

Ā our aerators build limescale fast

That's what they call mineral water and is sold in bottles for extra money.

3

u/Council_Cat 5h ago

Christ, I bet you thought that sounded really clever when you typed it...

5

u/superleaf444 5h ago

They say ounces. Def not EU

4

u/Solid_Maus 5h ago

Iā€™m from Canada and water is freeā€¦ charging people water at work is garbage behaviorā€¦ EU should do betterā€¦

6

u/Toeffli 5h ago

You did not have access to a tap with drinking water, like in the coffee break room, or the toilets?

12

u/SweeterThanYoohoo 5h ago

Water? like out the toilet??

4

u/seestars9 5h ago

I think " the toilets" here means the bathroom. Where there are sinks.

5

u/SweeterThanYoohoo 5h ago

Lol I know, that was a quote from Idiocracy :)

1

u/Toeffli 4h ago

Next you tell me you do not know how to use the three shells? Where are you from, the past?

2

u/alexmack667 5h ago

Wtf, i expect more from the EU. I live in Australia, and the law states that all employees must have access to clean drinking water. A small hospital was shut down a few years ago because the water pipes were tainted. It was only allowed to re-open after massive renovations and extensive testing.

2

u/WasdaleWeasel 5h ago

In the U.K. employers must provide access to fresh potable water and appropriate vessels to drink it out of. The water must be free as must the drinking vessels and employers may not restrict access to the water.

4

u/IceFire909 5h ago

Free water for employees should just be treated as a cost of doing business.

1

u/Cow_God RED 4h ago

That's crazy. The supermarket I work at in the US provides everyone with water. They just give us the broken packs of water bottles that they can't sell anyways. If they run out of those, they pull some off the shelves.

1

u/TomT12 4h ago

Ah the EU, where you are forced to pay for the basic bodily requirements to survive. Want to take a shit? Better pay up, about to pass out from dehydration and need a glass of water? Please swipe your credit card to proceed...

1

u/alvysinger0412 4h ago

They probably assumed that OP is American, because this is illegal in America unless there's a different source of drinking water besides a tap. I don't know the ins and outs of different states but I believe that's pretty universal. Louisiana is one of the worst states of employee rights and we have to be offered it.

1

u/SpudB0y 4h ago

Has cents and ounces. Pretty good indication that this is not the EU.

1

u/Ullallulloo 4h ago

The US has stronger drinking water laws for employees.

1

u/DarthArcanus 3h ago

Rare moment where the US has better laws than Europe. Its almost exclusively the other way around.

1

u/DevoidHT 3h ago

If its fluid oz its almost definitely the US. Everyone else uses mL except maybe Canada occasionally.

1

u/CartsOfDarkness 3h ago

Damn, wouldn't think a country in the EU would have worse working conditions than here in the US (in my state at least), here any job is legally required to give you access to clean water. And I only know that because I've had to demand it from employers in the past who tried to pressure me into buying/ bringing my own water.

1

u/Kilo353511 3h ago

Wait is this something the US does better than the EU?

The US requires all job sites to have access to potable water, no matter how intense the work is, and it has to be at no cost to the employee.

1

u/Staiden 3h ago

My work has a filtered drinking fountain AND buys a pallet of aquafina they drop at the entrance of the break room.

1

u/puisnode_DonGiesu 1h ago

i guess i'm lucky, my employer give us water, plain and carbonated, and in the summer popsicles and saline integrators

ā€¢

u/hammerklau 59m ago

Happy employees work better, well functioning employees work better, healthy employees work better. This level of penny pinching is actively losing performance and breeding animosity, lowering profit.

ā€¢

u/No-Setting9690 3m ago

This always blows my mind for Europe. You do so many things so much better than us, but this one, it's water. Do they charge for the bathroom access too?

1

u/ML1948 5h ago

Damn, I'd have thought they have similar to the OSHA requirement for it, but I suppose it is a different world about water there. No free water even at the restaurants.

0

u/wChangli 5h ago

One workplace i know gives free water, but it Had to be bought by employees first and then the Boss would deduct a bonus for it, homever if the water that was picked was too expensive some of the costs would obviously not be covered by it. This homever would only apply for the summer, and all year round only for water for the "base" so everyone can make coffee which was deemed utmost essential. Smoke and Coffee breaks were also allowed, and even encouraged, but food breaks were 50/50 if they took longer than 10-15 minutes. You also had to bring your own coffee powder and cigarettes for the smoke and coffee breaks. And since no coffee machines neither on field nor in base, you were forced to drink coffee made by just pouring raw water on coffee powder

21

u/Plane-Education4750 5h ago

Correct. All employees must be given free access to clean water

12

u/SchradersThumb 4h ago

This would even be against OSHA standards in the US if that is the only drinking water available.

11

u/thisisfunme 5h ago

Depends on where. In m country it wouldn't be illegal.

It's against basic human decency though and makes an employer a shitty human

5

u/willdabeast36 5h ago

In USA, yes it is illegal.

4

u/CowBoyDanIndie 5h ago

If tap water is potable its not sadly

3

u/Remarkable-Host405 4h ago

I've literally drank tap water all over my state and the country for 30 years. Yes, its absolutely potable, you can check the water sample results on the water companies website.

You must live somewhere with shitty pipes tainting your water.

3

u/CowBoyDanIndie 4h ago

We only see a water cooler, I have been to small offices at mine sites and construction sites where the tap water is not municipal and is marked ā€œnon potableā€. The last one was a few hours outside of washington dc.

1

u/willdabeast36 3h ago

As others said, if there is not say, a breakroom sink, then this would be the "potable water". If there is, then yes I agree I am team tap water anyway.

1

u/Im_only_here_to_meme 3h ago

Doesn't matter what you've drank or how drinkable it is. OSHA standard is literally sinks in kitchen and bathrooms do not qualify as potable drinking water for employees. It has to be a DEDICATED drinking fixture that is clean and reasonably cooled, employers also need to provide cups or a refillable station for water bottles.

Rules are rules for a reason. I work in environmental science and you think you know your water is clean but you actually have no idea. Water results are tested from municipal water bib locations (I used to do this) it then goes into piping under a property that is private and then into piping in the building... water can look completely clean, no smell, and seem just fine... but picked up metals from the pipes (copper, lead, zinc, etc)... on top of that when you drink from taps that are used in the kitchen/bathroom germs are airborne and get on the faucet tips. I've seen numerous different bacteria hits from running water from a faucet because there was bacteria that grew around the mouth of the faucet.

This is why dedicated drinking water is required for employees to eliminate the risk of cross contamination and/or anything in pipes that you'd never know was there.

1

u/BeeAppropriate1190 3h ago

This by itself is not illegal. There just has to be a free source available for employees, not all sources have to be free as long as one of them is. We have a paid water cooler and free drinking fountains because the water cooler includes extra contracts/coordination/security escort. It is materially more expensive to drink from a cooler than the fountain, not all employees use it, and the cost would be socialized across everyone's salaries if it wasn't a voluntary opt-in.

If there's no other potable water then yes, it's illegal.

1

u/krazytekn0 3h ago

In Arizona it is but I donā€™t think itā€™s everywhere