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After five years in a demanding PhD program, this soon-to-be grad is packing up her things—and debating whether her well-used, well-loved thrift store coffee maker should come too.
The only thing standing in the way? A difficult coworker who’s grown a little too reliant on it.
Read on for the story.
I’m getting ready to wrap up my 5-year PhD in STEM, and I’m moving on to bigger and better things in the world of medical research.
Something you need to know about STEM folks is that we tend to be caffeine addicts.
Coffee, tea, energy drinks, the works.
However, for about the first 3 years of my program, I was the only coffee drinker on my team.
Everyone else drank tea or soda.
Interesting fun fact.
I’m a coffee addict, so I own 2-3 coffee makers at any given time (I keep cheapy ones from thrift shops on standby in case my nice one gives out).
I brought one said cheapy coffee maker to my work so I’d have access to fresh coffee.
For 3 years, I was the only one to use it.
In year 4, enter a new postdoctoral associate. Let’s call her Anne.
There’s always an Anne.
Anne is…a nice person. Friendly.
The kind of person you’d take your lunch breaks with or chat with at a company outing.
But she’s difficult to work with.
I don’t know if it’s because she has her PhD and I don’t yet, or if it’s because she’s 10 years older than me, but her superiority complex got to me quickly.
She’s always right, and my input is irrelevant (even though I’m more experienced in our field).
She sees the good in everyone, which is great except that she never believes me or any of our colleagues when we say another employee has been rude or negligent in their work.
And she’s very distracting, always wanting to make small talk and refusing to listen when I say I’m too busy to chat.
Remember when you said she was nice?
She will literally insert herself into my personal space, hovering around my desk until I agree to chat with her about usually total nonsense (for example, one time she wanted to have a whole conversation about dishwashers…).
It’s gotten bad enough that I’ve primarily moved to a remote/hybrid work setting just to get things done.
Anne is also a coffee addict.
For the first time in over 4 years, my cheapy little coffee maker had a second user.
This tracks.
And I was happy to share the machine.
Now, she uses it every day, sometimes more than once per day.
She’s admitted that she’s stopped making coffee at her home because she knows she can make it at work.
I am her source of caffeine.
Except now I’m graduating. I’m leaving for good. Thus begs the question: would I be the a****** if I took my coffee maker with me?
What will Anne DO?!
On one hand, I’m a nice person, and I know Anne will get lots of use out of the machine.
I also own a nice coffee maker don’t technically NEED the cheapy little machine, and won’t need to bring my own coffee maker to my new job because they provide free coffee to employees.
On the other hand, Anne hasn’t exactly been a great coworker.
She’s made it hard for me to feel productive and intelligent in my position, and I’m petty.
So, would I be the a******?
The coffee maker was hers from day one, and no one’s entitled to someone else’s caffeine supply—especially not someone who’s been anything but supportive.
Right?
This person agrees.
This person agrees, but does have some questions.
And this person says it’s fine, but please give a fellow caffeine addict some fair warning.
She brought the coffee and the boundaries—Anne just didn’t respect either.
Tough luck, I guess.
If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.
