[Noisebridge-discuss] Quinoa, the other white pseudocereal.

[Naomi Most]

Just a classic communal food scenario.  Not laziness.

The biggest problem is each individual's perceived lack of fairness: the
first person makes the food and successfully shares it, meaning he believes
the cleanup is now in someone else's hands.  The next people take some, pass
it along to others, and feel absolved of the duty because they've given the
next group some value.

And when the last bit of food has been eaten, is it really the
responsibility of last person who touched it to wash up?  Because if that's
the cultural norm, then it'll become everyone's natural imperative to try to
never share in the last bits of food.

The worst is when there's food sitting out, people still around, but the
creator has left (feeling that the communal food has been adopted by others)
and there's no one presently interested in eating it.  Whose mess is it at
that point?

Should it technically be the person who created the food's responsibility,
even though they provided a service by creating so much shared food?  How
about the people in the middle who are theoretically now the new caretakers
-- how do they know when it's time to clean up and whether the rest is going
to be used?

What's needed is a protocol that protects the food while still demonstrating
that it's on offer.  And then makes sure that it gets cleaned up by someone.
 And, ideally, doesn't allow anyone in the chain to feel unfairly put-upon.

The only half-baked solution I can see is to make it Noisebridge Culture to
put shared food completely covered and away even while it's being shared.
 Then the problem to solve is making sure people get a signal that there's
food on offer.  And the hardest problem: fairly assigning clean-up duty.

I've never seen this problem effectively solved in any of the various shared
living and coworking spaces I've ever been a part of.

I'd rather not force a situation where people only ever cook for themselves
or their immediate specified guests, but abstinence is the only safe
communal food, it seems like.

--Naomi

ps. for the record, when rats are involved, I am 99.9% in favor of a
no-communal-food rule until the pests are eliminated.



On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:43 PM, alexhandy <alexhandy at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think whoever didn't clean up after themselves should pay to replace
> all the food the rats ate, and come by to clean it up.
>
> We have GOT to get on top of the slobs at Noisebridge. perhaps
> sloppiness fines? We cannot have rats wiggling into the couches with
> us, people.
>
> CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES YOU FUCKING SLOBS!
>
>
> On Sep 21, 2009, at 3:39 PM, miloh wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Although technically, quinoa is not a grain, it still attracts vermin.
> >
> > To the one who found the noisebridge dry goods box with quinoa in
> > it, cooked up a bowl, and forgot about the dishes:  looks like rats
> > got into everything.
> >
> >
> >
> > -rma
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
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-- 
"All we are is dust in the wind, dude.
Dust... Wind... Dude."  --Ted

Naomi Theora Most
+1-415-728-7490

skype: nthmost

http://twitter.com/nthmost
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