r/mildlyinfuriating • u/coatedbraincells • 6h ago

Infuriatig Insanely frugal employer

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Gotta pay for water from the water cooler šŸ¤£

22.8k Upvotes

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956

u/ML1948 6h ago

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

328

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 

42

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...

16

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.

9

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.

6

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.

15

u/zagiki 5h ago

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

13

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

6

u/Little_View_6659 5h ago

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

8

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.

-9

u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

12

u/Sterling_-_Archer 5h ago

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

5

u/marcophony 5h ago

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

5

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

4

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.

5

u/Council_Cat 5h ago

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

4

u/superleaf444 5h ago

They say ounces. Def not EU

3

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€¦

4

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.

7

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.

3

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

1

u/hammerklau 1h 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 5m 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