Attention! Important Public Service Announcement!

We here at Deepest Darkest Thoughts don’t often use this space for PSAs, but today in the spirit of Christmas, with hearts full of giving, love and in an effort to foster community cooperation, we present to you a short educational piece. Learn it, live it, profit from it by earning the undying admiration of your coworkers.

[Scene: company break room. Two people walking out with full cups of coffee. They are smiling and chatting. One person, empty cup in hand, enters, walks to coffeemaker to see nothing but empty pots.]

Voiceover: How many times has this happened to you? You’re headed to a meeting and just need a hot cup of coffee to keep you alert through that presentation by Accounting on the merits of double declining balance vs. straight line depreciation, and yet when you arrive you find no coffee, and no one has started a fresh pot. But what can you do? You’ve never learned to make coffee. You have no idea how to work such a delicate machine as a coffeemaker. Doomed you head to your meeting without benefit of caffeinated alertness.

[Worker, empty cup still in hand, leaves break room, clearly unhappy and grumbling.]

Voiceover: It doesn’t have to be this way. You, too, can learn to make coffee in your office’s coffeemaker. Watch this demonstration carefully.

[Enter man in suit and tie carrying empty cup along with his Blackberry, folio, and Cross Pen. He sets his things, other than his coffee cup, down on a nearby table and approaches the coffeemaker. He pours the last cup of coffee into his cup.]

Voiceover: The first step will be to locate the necessary items. Often you will find coffee filters and premeasured coffee packets in a drawer or cupboard near the coffeemaker.

[Man opens drawer and removes a coffee filter and coffee packet and sets them on the counter next to the coffeemaker.]

Voiceover [Man doing each step as voiceover describes it]: Remove the basket from the coffeemaker and throw the used filter and coffee grounds into the nearest waste basket. Place the filter in the basket. Now open the packet and dump the ground coffee into the filter. Slide the basket into place in the coffeemaker so that it is placed like it was before you removed it. Make sure the coffee pot is positioned correctly on the warmer to receive the brewed coffee. Locate the button on the machine labeled “Brew” and push it once.

[Man picks up his full coffee cup and other things and walks out of the break room, smiling and greeting two coworkers entering the break room as he walks out. The two coworkers approach the coffeemaker, see the coffee brewing, and smile.]

Voiceover: See? Now wasn’t that easy? Just a couple of minutes of your time can make you more popular with your coworkers than you ever thought.


This public service announcement brought to you by the TS Council for Improved Interoffice Relations and coffee drinkers just like you.