Apparently our vending machine guy doesn’t take requests.
It all started with a Diet Pepsi.
I’m not normally much of a soda drinker, but when I do crave a soda I’ll usually go with a diet soda to avoid the inevitable crash that comes with slamming down 60+ grams of liquid sugar. I don’t care about the aspartame or sucralose or the artificial sweetener hoopla. There’s plenty of other things in life to worry about, and to be honest I’m still not convinced these artificial sweeteners are as bad as everyone claims they are.
At the office building where AJnet is located, we have vending machines in a lunch room-style common area:
I’m still not sure why an office complex has a common area, I’m guessing that the building may have been something else at one point. People from across the building do use the common area for their lunch breaks and such, so I guess it’s not pointless.
Anyway, one day I decided that I wanted a soda. So I went to the vending machine and scoured the selections for diet soda. All they had was Diet Pepsi. Not my first choice, but no big deal. So I grabbed a Diet Pepsi and a bag of Party Mix from the adjacent snack machine and went back to the office to get with some of the other writers about one of our projects.
I sat down and cracked my Diet Pepsi, only to not hear the usual hiss of carbonation that comes with opening a fresh bottle of soda. Then I took a sip and discovered the soda was entirely flat. So my next step was to check the date on the bottle. Apparently the thing had expired in February. I guess I’m the only asshole in the building who drinks diet soda. Whatever, I’m not going to be that guy who demands the vending machine owner keep something stocked when it clearly doesn’t sell. I sucked it up and bought myself a regular Pepsi, making sure to also eat some peanuts with it to minimize the crash.
Throughout the day, I got to thinking. Diet Pepsi clearly doesn’t sell here, but is there something else the guy could put in the machine that me and everyone else would like?
Of course there was.
Dr. Pepper.
Everyone loves Dr. Pepper. I even did a whole article on it back in the day. Dr. Pepper kicks ass. Instead of having a slot of product that doesn’t move in his machine, surely the owner would appreciate actually making money and filling the slot with something that would sell.
So I kindly left the vending machine operator a note that said “Diet Pepsi is expired. It doesn’t sell, can we replace it with Dr. Pepper?” Polite and to the point. I could have been a dick, I could have asked for my $2 back and made him come all the way to my suite to refund me, but I didn’t.
In retrospect, I should have.
Apparently the vending machine guy took umbrage to my suggestion, because the next day I came in and found my note crumpled up in a ball on the ground in front of the machine, and the slot refilled with fresh Diet Pepsi (I bought one to check). Well okay then.
I occasionally talk to some of the other people in the building, and when I brought this up more than a few of them told me that the vending machine guy is notorious for not liking when people request items. One person told me that the guy actually chewed them out for requesting something once, accusing the person of trying to tell him how to do his job. Are you serious?
I also learned that the guy filling the machines is the vending machine company owner’s son, so calling the company to complain would result in nothing happening. The owners of the office complex don’t care enough to switch vending machine providers either according to the property manager, we’re pretty much stuck with this asshole it seems.
I had several ideas on how to deal with this Dr. Pepper-denying prick.
My first idea was to publicly name and shame the company on here (they’re local), where Google would most certainly pick up on it. I decided against this because it’s honestly not that deep. Plus, I don’t feel like provoking a parking lot fistfight with the guy over a soda.
My next idea was to buy my own vending machines and offer to handle the building’s vending needs myself. Vending machines aren’t that expensive and would probably pay for themselves inside a year with some of the cows I’ve seen working around here. Like I said though, the owners of the complex don’t seem to care enough to kick these guys out, and it’s entirely possible the owners are golf buddies or something. Also, owning and maintaining a vending machine can be a pain in the ass. I have enough pains in my ass already.
And of course, I also considered taking the direct approach and talking to the guy face to face about it. But again, I’ve heard that the guy is argumentative, and I don’t want to escalate this into a fight that leads to me getting kicked out of the building.
So I settled for the next best thing, and left him a not-so-subtle message at the machine:
I also went ahead and bought some cases of soda from the local supermarket. While I was at it, I bought a bunch of chips and cookies so the rest of AJnet doesn’t have to give this vending machine asshole any money. In retrospect I should have probably done this for my crew a while ago (as my CFO Stephanie was way too quick to point out), but thanks to this asshole not wanting to listen to his customers the AJnet team will consistently have free snacks available and no longer have need for his services.
Hope that Diet Pepsi slot was worth losing 15 regular customers over, you arrogant jerk-off.
Edit: This is the kind of stupid we’re dealing with. Soup during the summer:
Last Updated on August 28, 2024