Q) I want to get out of the coffee club at work. I joined five years ago, but since I’ve been working from home four days a week I don’t feel like making a pot every morning, so I’ve switched to juice. I only drink coffee the one day a week I’m in the office, but I’m still being charged the full dues. The same woman has been in charge of the club since 1983. I don’t want to name her. When I asked if I could get out she just laughed. When I said I was serious, she laughed even harder.
A) An office coffee club is much like organized crime. Once you’re in, you’re in. You don’t get out until they say you’re out. And no pandemic will change that.
When people even try to quit, it usually doesn’t turn out well for them – so consider yourself fortunate…so far. One man in Missouri asked about leaving, and two days later he was arrested for stealing his neighbor’s French Horn. Though there was no evidence, he was convicted and served six years. A woman from Moline who wrote a resignation note was supposed to meet her husband for dinner that same night. She never showed up, and he didn’t hear from her until four years later when she called him from Paris, where she’d gotten a chorus job with the Folies Bergere. The list goes on.
Our advice: Keep paying the dues. Nothing says you have to drink the coffee.
Your Mentor, Dr. Miles Miller, holds a PhD in managerial logistics from Fordham University, where he has served on the faculty since 1978, specializing in pre-conceptualizations.
Send your questions to Mentor@cubiclef.com.
