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such things as conference rooms. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the "fridge" would become the most unholy center of a nightmare that would plague me for months.

In our weekly morning meeting, one of the staff brought to my eager attention that the fridge was a disaster. Now, personally, I ate out everyday. I never really looked at it. But apparently, it had begun a little tiny version of the Big Bang. Life was beginning in our own private little corner of the office. People were bringing in their lunches and leaving them for months on end. Side note: If you have ever worked in health care, you will note that this is not an uncommon occurrence at meetings. Discussing insignificant, menial bullcorn ad nauseum is status quo.

Apparently, this was causing distress in some employees that, should I not handle it at that precise moment, would leave me working the floor alone.

In my most diplomatic way, I suggested to all that we create a simple cleaning chart, to be shared with the Medicare unit. We would assign one staffer from my unit, and one from Medicare to clean the fridge each week. With 27 employees, that would mean that each staffer would only be asked to clean the fridge twice a year, at most. Additionally, with the fridge being cleaned weekly, the job would be relatively quick and painless. Upon closing the meeting, all seemed satisfied with my efforts.

I hurriedly ran back to my office, thrilled to spend the morning creating Excel spreadsheets on fridge duty. Clearly, as a manager in health care, I really wasn't going to do much else with my time.

I emailed out the sheet, as did my counterpart from the Medicare unit. All was peaceful in the building. And then, it happened. My email beeped.

"Dear Andrea,

I am asking to be taken off this fridge duty. I don't put anything in the fridge. I go home to eat everyday.

Sincerely,
James (name changed to protect the innocent)."

Now, I understand this, however, that wasn't really the point. My stance on the issue as a whole was that regardless of use, the fridge was a shared resource. And as such, each member of the staff had a responsibility to maintain it. I took this approach in the email. I also noted to "James" that I had even put myself on the list, and would be the first one to clean (which was a far worse job than any subsequent ventures). But, again, being diplomatic, I offered to put "James" as the last person on the list. This would give him 27 weeks of time before he would be on duty.

I

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