Next step: peeing around the lunchroom perimeter

This is a story of vengeance, greed, retribution and the office lunchroom. It is not for the faint of heart.

Our building at work is getting remodeled. We moved into our newly refurbished digs about a year and a half ago. It had a lot of positives over the old space, like no more black mold coming out of the vents and dusting our desk with toxins and no more mysterious leaks from the ceiling you had to dodge to get to the bathroom. But the most exciting part for me was our very own break room. 

Previously, our break room was pretty much a closet with a refrigerator and a sink the size of a piece of notebook paper. We had to microwave everything on a tiny, ancient machine with mysterious origins in the office my coworker and I shared. If we had a space heater on and turned on the microwave, all electricity got knocked out on the south side of the room. Also, a former boss would frequently come into our office to microwave leftover mussels and brussel sprouts, and I cannot even begin to describe for you the horrors of that smell, which lingered all day long (he went back to his office and left us with the stink, which I can best describe as a crotch-roadkill combination). We also were left to eat lunch at our desks, which meant no real lunch break because people would come in all the time and ask us to do stuff. 

So you can imagine my elation when the brand new space that had been created for us had its own lunchroom. A table to sit at, a TV, a huge sink, two microwaves, even an ice maker.  (It was all cracked, plastic trays in the old space.) My coworkers and I relished those early days: watching HGTV, eating lunch without someone interrupting us to ask us to write a press release or update the web site. Not every day was like this - we often worked through lunch - but it was nice to know we had the option.

Until one day, two mysterious women were sitting at our table. In our lunch room. They didn’t work in our office or any of the other three units (I work for law enforcement, we call our little departments “units”) for whom our break room was created. One had a red mohawk, which I’m pretty sure is a blatant violation of our organization’s dress code. They were watching a show I’d never heard of called “Paternity Court.” Apparently, there are enough promiscuous people out there to create a daily television show in which the daddies of babies are total mysteries. And apparently, there is an audience for such a show. And they were sitting at our table.

A little detective work revealed that these two women work in the large unit on the other side of our floor.  The unit that has its own, much bigger break room. It has two TVs and like 10 tables and also is newly remodeled. It even has a dishwasher. Why they would come monopolize our only table and taint our room with trashy baby daddy television baffled us.

My coworkers and I were just dumbfounded for a while. We thought maybe they would go away. But they didn’t. Every time I went in to try to relax, eat some Amy’s frozen enchiladas and watch House Hunters International, they were already there. While I forlornly microwaved my meal, they would yell at the TV, “That baby looks just like him!” They also had unique views on nutrition, saying things like, “Well it has a lot of fat, but this macaroni and cheese is gluten free, so it’s good for you.” And they gossiped constantly about the other women in their unit. Meanwhile, I would take my meal back to my desk and get interrupted by phone calls while trying to eat.

So a couple weeks ago, my coworker and I decided to stage a coup and reclaim our rightful place in the break room. We had figured out their schedule, and we arrived to the lunchroom 10 minutes before they usually did. We spread out our food, turned on Property Brothers and waited with anticipation. The red mohawk lady sauntered in with her lunch bag in hand (obviously kept in the refrigerator in the break room she knew she was supposed to be using). She looked at us, looked in her bag and said, “Oh, I forgot the bowl to heat this up in,” left, and didn’t come back the rest of the day.

It was a sweet, sweet victory. She knew that we belonged there and she didn’t. We assumed she told her friend. They didn’t come back for a week and a half or so. But then we got busy or lazy or whatever. We ate at our desks more and went out to eat some. Then something odd happened. The remote control to the TV was no longer in the break room. We looked everywhere, even in the fridge. 

The two women started coming back a week and a half ago. But just yesterday, my other coworker caught them carrying a remote in with them. She asked them where it was because we’d been looking for it. They shiftily replied, “Oh, it’s from the other break room [the one where they belong] and works all the TVs.” We found this to be super shady. We were pretty sure they took it in retribution for our lunchroom stand-down. (Which, if you recall, was OUR lunchroom to begin with that they invaded when they have a perfectly good and much larger one of their own.) My very clever coworker then posted this sign on the bulletin board in the break room:

The very next day, the remote control had mysteriously reappeared, as though someone realized they’d been caught. I put a piece of duct tape on it, writing “5th Floor North Break Room,” then listed the three units located on the north side of the floor. The interlopers’ unit was conspicuously not among them. 

And yet still they come. The shame of being called out on their sin wasn't enough. So pretty much my only remaining option is to mark our territory by peeing around the perimeter of the lunchroom. Wolves respect that. Maybe Paternity Court watchers will, too.