Will somebody else just make a sodding cup of tea, please!

[Thurlow]

The etiquette in my office is that you make tea for everyone. About half a dozen people drink tea or coffee. Normally evens out over the day that most people have had a turn. But recently? I swear I've been making pretty much every single cup of tea, every day. Fine if I want to drink many more cups a day then everyone else. But I offer - and everyone else accepts

If you're happy to accept a cup of tea several times a day when offered, surely you could get up once in a while and offer to make it? Is that too much?

(They are very lovely people but making just my own cuppa would be seen as the rudest thing ever and so, I suspect, would be an announcement that I've made everyone four cups already today so could someone else please just walk to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Lovely, but not enormously jokey people)

I have PMT and its the first full week back at work and I have run out of chocolate, so I plainly am being a miserable, U sod, but... please make soothing noises and tell me IANBU here.

I could not STAND that

Time for regime change

Or a flask

In our workplace people give very subtle hints when they want someone to put the kettle on e.g 'Get off your arse, it's your turn to make the tea'.

It's an effective method.

I'd love to be able to do that. I really would. Sadly, nice as they are, it really wouldn't be the done thing!

Maybe I will just start having my own flask

It appears to have been the regime since before time immemorial, I can't change it. Sigh. I was quite pleased the other week when our tray seemed to have gone missing and we'd have had to all make our own...

YANBU its only polite to make a cup back or at least offer one back during the day. In my office even our manager makes us tea - I think that's really nice.

I would sigh "Oh I suppose I will have to make the tea again soon as no one else does (insert jovial laugh) Would anyone like a cup??"

Someone may/hopefully respond "Ah don't worry Thurlow, you've made enough today thank you, its my turn"

you could put a rota up if a bit of passive aggressiveness is more the thing

Tea regimes do indeed seem to be written in stone. The flask would be hilarious and so pointed.

'I think you'll see in Clause A of subsection B of the Tea Making Bylaw of 1987 that I am under no obligation to make tea for colleagues if the tea that I am consuming was brought into the work environment rather than made on site'

I never used to end up making the tea in my last job where there were tea rounds, it's just that I don't tend to think about wanting tea whereas if someone says would you like one, then I immediately think ooh yes I would actually.

But left to my own devices I haven't drunk tea for months because the urge doesn't strike me until someone gives me the idea.

Time for that old joke " what do you call those little thingies that golfers put their balls on?"
"tees?
"glad you asked! mines milk 2 sugars"

Oh, I hate it when I go to offices like this (freelancer). I am very specific (unreasonable) when it comes to tea criteria. In one place I worked, the accepted cup was one the colour of brick dust, half-full and tepid (once they'd all been dished out), with bits floating on the top - I never could work out what.

But it seems you are more grateful and less fussy than me. YANBU, but not much you can do, in afraid. Run the risk of looking like an appalling control freak and start a rota?!

squoosh

See, I think that's it Bertie - but surely occasionally people should think, "Thurlow's made three cuppas already today, I'll go and make these"?

It's hardly the worst job in the world. There's a telly in the kitchen after all, morning tea runs you can watch Jeremy Kyle for five minutes. I don't mind the morning tea runs.

Yes now you put it like that, it should but I don't think that ever occurred to me TBH Well, if I work in a tea round type place again I'll know what to do! Other people seem to drink SO MUCH tea.

You know when you're aware that if you ever actually brought this up in a sober conversation, you'd look like the tightest, weirdest person in the world?

I do drink a lot of tea though...

just go make your own tea. and report back on what happens!
in our office we all go make our own at pretty much the same time, which is an excuse to stand nattering in the kitchen .

Just tell someone 'your turn to make tea, thank you' problem solved.

This thread has made me want a cup of tea, here's yours OP

Just ask if someone else can make it, no point in dropping hints

Ta, livegold

I really wish I could say something. It's just one of those... sedate offices. I can't see it going down well. Sadly. I'll just keep whinging online.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Why do you have to fix everyone's cup of tea? Do you bring it to them? Do you just pour the water in a cup with a tea bag and leave it for them to retrieve?

It sounds like a waste of time if you have things to do that day.

Can you just put the kettle on, pour your own cup and breezily announce "Water's ready when you want your cups!".

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but have you thought of trying to go without tea for a day? I know, outrageous but bear with me - just have one day off and see what happens? Somebody else will surely step up to the mark - that's the hope. Then you've redefined the routine.

Your problem now is you've created a scenario where you do it all the time so nobody else thinks about it.

You need to break the cycle.

Good luck.

Just let everyone make their own. I'd much prefer that.

I worked in an office where making the tea meant carrying a tray of about ten mugs down two flights of polished stairs and it scared me stupid and I always hated doing it, but did it out of politeness because one member of staff would bring us about eight cups of tea a day and then snip about being the only one doing it. I was awash!

I'd have been much happier if I just could have had one or two mugs of tea a day made by me for me, thus freeing a hand to grip the bannister.

Make your own. The world won't end if you say " I thought we could just make our own tea as and when from now on". There will be a huge silent sigh of relief.

"But recently? I swear I've been making pretty much every single cup of tea, every day."
I would probably swear off tea at work for a week, take in bottles of water and mutter vaguely about January detox if anyone asks. Say 'no thanks' if when anyone else offers to make tea, for a week. That should give them time to re-acquaint themselves with the kettle. Then accept offers of tea the next week, muttering darkly about 'detox is just nonsense'.

Maybe, just to check, you could actually make a record of who makes tea and when? Establish what everyone's individual 'breaking point' is?

Someone else has just gone to make tea! Hurrah! Positive Thinking clearly works.

Bulb, the kitchen is the other side of the building, so one person goes with a tray and makes all the teas. Technically more time efficient than everyone going on their own, I suppose. And just one of those things that the team does - who knows how these sorts of routines start? Though a massive tea urn would be even more time efficient. I might ask for one of those.

My team used to be 4 people - now it's 8 (and we don't have a tray).

When the no of people went up, I realised the tea run was going to be a faff involving 3 trips to the kitchen, so I started refusing tea and then making my own cuppa 10 mins after the tea run.

Slowly this morphed to everyone making their own tea/coffee. Took a couple of months to take effect though! The upside is that everyone gets the exact cuppa they want rather than having to give detailed instructions e.g. "Show the teabag to the cup/stew it for 15 mins till it dissolves the spoon/about 2 drops of milk/half a cup of milk"

Hide the tray so you everyone has to make their own for a while, then when it's "found" say something like "thank god we can start doing rounds again!"

I could lose the tray. I could bribe the lovely cleaner who washes up to lose it.