Not something that on would normally call blog worthy, unless you say found money in the microwave or some how received super human powers or a portal to another dimension.

Alas, none of those things happened before, during or (at least to me) after cleaning the microwave.

The microwave here at the office is probably the same as just about any microwave you would find in break-room, kind of run-down, a little beat-up on the outside and most likely dirty on the inside.

I have worked in about nine different offices, some were what one would consider upscale, others would be consider ghetto, and a few just run-of-the-mill, but all of them had the microwave.

And at some point, someone would microwave something that exploded or at the very least splashed something onto the top or the sides of the microwave. In some cases there were breakroom watchdogs who would mass mail the office to inform them the offense that had been committed by exploding the food in the microwave, other times it would simply just sit there. And at one office, the nightly cleaning staff was nice enough to wipe it out, not sure if this was part of their regular duties or not, but they did it.

But back to the title of this post

“I cleaned the microwave today.”

I didn’t clean the microwave because of some mass emailing, nor did I clean it because my food exploded (notably this was the 2nd time I ever used the microwave since working at this office in May). I cleaned the microwave because it was dirty, not “I think there is something that is going to infect me dirty,” but dirty nonetheless.

The microwave was slightly worse than the previous time I had used it (about three weeks prior) and I have to admit I had the urge to clean it the first time that I used it, but there were lots of people in the break room and the sink was full of dishes and I just wanted to eat my oatmeal.

This time was different, I was in the office early, there was no one around, the sink was empty and I had a few extra minutes, so rather than bitching about it or making a fuss or going to the extreme of getting and putting my own microwave in my office (to which I have the space available), I cleaned the microwave.

I did it because it bugged me and I knew it must be bugging someone else, so I did something about it. I have worked along side the watchdogs and have to say that their attitude while correct in the idea that everyone should clean up after themselves is harshly negative and toxic in that it feels like someone scolding someone, vs helping someone.

I am not suggesting that someone should constantly cleanup after others, unless that is their job, and to be honest that job would kind of blow, but the feeling of doing something nice for others is sometimes reward enough.

I guess over the last year, I have felt the need to belong to a group and part of belonging to a group is contributing and hopefully in contributing even in the smallest way (like cleaning a dish in the sink or the microwave) it will make someone else feel compelled to do it next time. This might be a naive idea, in that people are selfish (myself included), but sometimes that cliche idea of “Pay it forward” sometimes works.

Anyway, I had the idea for this blog post while cleaning out the microwave, that sometimes you shouldn’t turn a blind eye or worse yet remove yourself from a group setting, sometimes you should just take a minute to solve the problem and quietly clean the microwave (and possibly write a slightly pompous blog post).

Back to the grind.

Laterz