Daylight robbery in the IFSC!

jelly4

Hi,

Today at work our company increased the prices of tea and coffee. They have opened a new coffee chain in building and the price increases are as below:


Product Old price New Price % increase
Tea, 0.65, 1.00, 53.85 %,
Coffee, 0.95, 1.30, 36.84 %,
Cappuccino, 1.65, 2.60, 57.58%,


We do not have facilities to make our own tea and coffee and theres no where to store milk or sugar. We've asked for tea/coffee making facilities however we've been told that due to health and safety regulations we aren't allowed operate a kettle. (its nice to see the company trust us with millions of dollars but not with a kettle). In addition, previously we could buy a cup of water for 10cent but now they are "Unable to provide this service".


Anyway, my questions are:
How much do u pay for tea and coffee at work?
Do they trust you to operate a kettle and make your own tea and coffee?
Are we being seriously ripped off or do all companies charge a fortune for tea?

jimmycrackcorm

ask for a microwave instead.

Huggles

jelly4 wrote: »

Anyway, my questions are:
How much do u pay for tea and coffee at work?
Do they trust you to operate a kettle and make your own tea and coffee?
Are we being seriously ripped off or do all companies charge a fortune for tea?

1. Zero
2. Yes
3. Yes

I'm not sure but don't employers have to provide basic refreshments?

Dord

Anyway, my questions are:
1.How much do u pay for tea and coffee at work?
2.Do they trust you to operate a kettle and make your own tea and coffee?
3.Are we being seriously ripped off or do all companies charge a fortune for tea?

1. Free tea & coffee in my workplace
2. Umm... yeah, I'm not a child.
3. You're being ripped off.

AARRRGH

I am nearly certain (can't find any links) that one of the basic conditions of employment is access to "hot water" facilities.

Eoin

€2.60 for a cappucino would be an OK price if you were buying it from a decent chain on the street, but I'd expect it to be pretty good coffee. If it's middle of the road stuff, that's a rip-off. If that's supposed to be a subsidised price, then it's a rip-off regardless of the quality.

Heathen

- Free tea and coffee in my job
- Yes we are trusted with operating a plethora of kitchen machinery
- Yes you are most defiantly being ripped off... common trend in Rip off Ireland now! :mad:

I say Balaclavas should be worn, flags should be burnt and marches should be more common :) :eek:

m_stan

Huggles wrote: »

1. Zero
2. Yes
3. Yes

I'm not sure but don't employers have to provide basic refreshments?

+1

the_syco

By law they must provide drinking water.

themadchef

Sounds like a complete rip off to me.

Even the old coffee price was a bit rich.

whiskeyman

I'd ask under what exact health and safety regs a kettle isn't allowed.
Don't put up with this.

bill_ashmount

We get free tea, coffee, coke, fanta, 7up etc.
Also get free cakes and buns.

To be honest it's not as great as it sounds, makes it very easy to pile on the pounds.

OP, Bring in a flask if you have to. Not ideal, but better than been ripped off.

Davidth88

We get free tea/coffee and access to kettle/microwave/toaster

Now I have heard that the revenue are looking at the free tea/coffee as a BIK soon, but that may be hearsay.

In bigger offices you can't really supply kettles and stuff, they quickly breakdown, and the areas need constant cleaning.

The prices seem a little steep to me , it's usually a nominal amount , for example I think Eircom charge 40c ( open to correction )

eth0_

All drinks and snacks are free where I work.

I've only worked for one company that refused to give us a kettle (Xerox, about 8 years ago), and that was CLEARLY because they were making so much money out of the canteen and vending machines.

Health and safety...yeah right. On my floor in work we have a kettle, microwave, and a proper coffee machine (the sort baristas use in coffee shops), and we are trusted to use them. And you can really scald yourself using the milk foamers on those coffee machines.

DamoKen

jelly4 wrote: »

We've asked for tea/coffee making facilities however we've been told that due to health and safety regulations we aren't allowed operate a kettle. (its nice to see the company trust us with millions of dollars but not with a kettle). In addition, previously we could buy a cup of water for 10cent but now they are "Unable to provide this service".

Not only are you being ripped off, the company you are working for are in breach of at least two HSA regulations.

jelly4 wrote: »

previously we could buy a cup of water for 10cent but now they are "Unable to provide this service".

Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007 section 18 paragraph (d) wrote:

an adequate supply of potable drinking water is provided and maintained at suitable
points conveniently accessible to all employees

jelly4 wrote: »

due to health and safety regulations we aren't allowed operate a kettle.

Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007 section 18 paragraph (e) wrote:

suitable and adequate facilities for boiling water and taking meals are provided

You'll find the full doc here ->http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Legislation/Acts/Safety_Health_and_Welfare_at_Work/General_Application_Regulations_2007/General_Application_Regulations_2007_SI_2007_Unofficial_Copy.pdf .

I'd seriously consider contacting the HSA directly about something like that, I've never worked in a company where we had to pay for tea/coffee let alone water!!

DamoKen

Davidth88 wrote: »

In bigger offices you can't really supply kettles and stuff, they quickly breakdown, and the areas need constant cleaning.

I've worked in offices that employed from 20 to 800 staff and I've never experienced that. Each floor would have it's own coffee/tea stations or several stations depending on the size of the floor, water coolers dotted around the place and fridges etc.

The size of the company is irrelevant.

Davidth88

ok, maybe my comment about bigger companies is ill thought out.


I was just trying to give a balanced view.


I used to work in a building with 300 people , we had coffee vending machines that were free

Morlar

jelly4 wrote: »

Anyway, my questions are:
How much do u pay for tea and coffee at work?
Do they trust you to operate a kettle and make your own tea and coffee?
Are we being seriously ripped off or do all companies charge a fortune for tea?

Free (though have worked in companies where it was not and there were strictly low prices as a condition on the suppliers vying for the captive market).
Yes
Yes

It might be an idea for alll of the employees to make the request for their own facilities clearly to management (if they haven't already done so).

Saint_Mel

We have free tea/coffee and milk/sugar. Plus access to a microwave and toaster. Its a long time since I worked in a place that didnt provide free tea/coffee

jdivision

Get nothing free (except water but they don't provide cups). Prices sound reasonable enough to me

dan_d

I work on a building site and we get free tea,coffee,milk etc....but then we're a bit spoiled!

Xcellor

Tea + Coffee + milk + sugar + cups free.

We have weird teas like "camomile" as well, tastes manky mind.

We have access to hot water / cold water / microwave / toasters.

Even in the last hole that I worked these basic things were free

X

Agent Smith

shouldnt you be working instead of making tea?



And tea/coffee/milk/sugar are free in my place

taram

We have access to a tap/fridge/microwave/kettle and crockery so I always make my own coffee using my cafetiere, and one of the other guys makes tea...the rest of the staff buy theirs from the nearby coffee shop which I think is mad, it makes sense for a mocha or something, but for a tea?? Used to work in Pennys, they provided a subsided canteen, a big coffee and a mars bar was like 75/80 cent Used to be on a sugar high all day

Zaph

jelly4 wrote: »

We've asked for tea/coffee making facilities however we've been told that due to health and safety regulations we aren't allowed operate a kettle

Total and utter b*ll*cks. I work in the IFSC and we have tea and coffee making facilities on both floors of the building we're in.

PeakOutput

most companies iv worked for provide free coffee for the simple reason that caffeine keeps you going

besides that though does no one else find it ironic that someone working in the irish financial services center is complaining about something that is effectively a direct result of the free market they probably make their money off?

im drunk thoug hso i reserve the right to remove this post in the morning

watna

We have a proper coffee maching like baristas use (which we use without supervision!), a filter coffee machine, numerous kettles, toasters and sandwich toasters and they provide tea, coffee (instant, beans and filter), milk and numerous types of herbal tea. I'm in NZ but in my last job in an office with about 10 people we had a little kitchen with a coffee machine, kettle, fridge and toaster.

Sounds pretty scabby to me. You're not asking for your own starbucks - just a kettle!

loyatemu

Kettle, Filter Coffee machine, espresso machine, fridge, filtered water dispensers, toaster, panini press. In the IFSC too!

kanoute696

We work for the same company - its a rip off..
one girl brought in a flask of hot water today!

youcancallmeal

Thats absolute nonsense! I've never worked in an office where they didnt have free tea/coffee/water. The IFSC is in general a bit of a rip of place anyway e.g. sandwiches, drinks etc

irishguy

We pay €0.70 for a cup of hot water and I think its €0.83 for piss poor coffee/tea, its index linked so it goes up every year. We are not allowed to have water boiling facilitates in the office, health & safety reasons. I work for a major Irish bank, its more profitable than financial services these days

what2do

Just don't get the health and safety issues, we have a water heater thing that spews out really hot water however we are all adults and touch wood have managed not to burn ourselves yet. Also have a coffee maker, a toaster, microwave and kettle... all rather dangerous I guess????

jaffa20

I work for a major bank too and it's 65c for tea and coffee (which is mank-utter piss). It's free between 12-3 so i might just bring in a flask and rob some to keep me going and avoid the 3pm slump. The subsidised canteen is way to convenient though. It comes directly out of our wages when we get paid and it's depressing how much you spend on **** you don't need throughout the day.:(

PurpleBerry

jaffa20 wrote: »

It comes directly out of our wages when we get paid

Wow :eek: That sounds really stingy Jaffa.

dazberry

We get free tea, coffee, choco milk (WTF), hot chocolate, soup - I think they're mostly crap - I'm allergic to caffine so I only ever tired the soup, it smelled ok but tasted like salt. We also get free water and free favoured water. However there's a starbucks in the building and most addicts spend their time sucking down that crap instead - a caffine allergy is truely a blessing.

D.

Eoin

Neesa wrote: »

Wow :eek: That sounds really stingy Jaffa.

Why is that stingy? It's already subsidised, and whatever you buy is deducted automatically. They did that in Bank of Ireland's head office as well when I was working there, it was a fantastic canteen.

PurpleBerry

The reason I declare it stingy is not to do with the price but the fact that it's on credit. C'mon, you know yourself when it's mid-month and payday seems so far away you just think "feck it" because the money isn't coming out of your pocket that day.

I'm not saying saying that everyone thinks like that but I'll bet a lot of people do. The company is encouraging people to spend more than they would have. If you had to pay upfront for everything you might just have a tea or maybe that's all the money you have on you. But, because it's on credit maybe you get something else aswell to go with the tea. It's surreptitious.

jaffa20

Yeah, i would rather pay by cash so i know how much i'll get paid on the day. But then i'd see a rather large deduction from my wages from what i ate in the canteen. Ok, i probably should bring a packed lunch but the canteen is way convenient. The hot meals and drink are subsidised but the snacks etc aren't and i'd buy a lot of stuff i don't need cos it feels like i'm not actually paying for it. I never get a receipt so i never know i much i spend on a daily basis.

Eoin

I guess you just have to try and manage your own finances.

dudara

We have free tea/coffee and fruit in small kitchenettes on every floor - hot water is from a boiler not a kettle. If that's not for you, then the canteen brews starbucks which is sold at a subsidised price.

gazzer

I have worked in offices for the last 17 years and we have NEVER gotten free tea or coffee (thats the civil service for you). Having said that though in every office I have worked in there was always a kettle and a fridge so you just had to bring in your own tea bags, sugar and milk.

In the office I am in at the moment we each contribute 1.50 a week to a kitty and from that tea, coffee, sugar, milk, bread, jam, butter, biscuits etc are bought.

Proxy

Thats shocking, but I used to work in a local government office and it was the same - you'd actually be shouted at by kitchen staff if you tried to operate the "machinery" on your own.

The company I work for now has free coffee/tea, boilers, coffee machine, biscuits, buns, and even free lunch (you order in from a selection of companies via the intranet). The way I see it, you work for them, they should reward you at least adequately. Tea/coffee and a biscuit doesn't break the bank and definitely helps productivity and workplace morale.

Pythia

We have excellent food and drink facilities. Tea and coffee is free, so is fresh milk. We don't have kettles, we have these big hot water dispensers. Posh hot drinks are e1 each (hot chocolate etc).

All the food is super cheap too.

I had no idea it was illegal not to provide hot water facilities. I used to work in a call centre where we had no access to a kettle/sink/anything. If you wanted tea/coffee you had to get it in the canteen for 55 cent. In my next job there was unlimited tea and coffee available, it felt like such a treat. It's crazy how you get used to it though.

JaneyMc

I get free tea/coffee/hot chocolate/milk/ bread (white, brown, pita, and batch). We have one of those conveyor belt toasters, microwave, sandwich toaster and the big boilers that give instant hot water. There's about 30 of us I think in my office.

In my last job we had to pay for everything but we could bring in our own teabags/coffee if we wanted.

Mr. Incognito

We have on eof those tea and coffes makers on every floor.

WHy don't you just buy a kettle?

SoupyNorman

Its a real testament to the reputation of a company when you speak to employees and they fill you in on their fringe benefits or lack thereof!!!

In the OP's case things seem pretty dismal. The fact that they get in an external operator means that they are not there for the employees benefit..They'll want to be making money off you guys.


A good employer will try insulate its employees from the extortionate prices in this country and very much so in the IFSC locality where I used to work. Even by providing tea and coffee for free or subsidized (cack as it usually is) it still gives the person the option, and its this that is the most annoying element.