WTF
8For those of you that are still employed, and if you wondered why your employer provided free coffee as well as free snacks has suddenly disappeared, here is the answer.
Thank OB3 since as of January 1, 2026, employers can no longer deduct the cost of workplace meals, snacks, or coffee provided to employees.
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wow! I don’t drink coffee but I only worked for two companies that didn’t provide free coffee. Both were over 20 years ago so I guess back then they were just cheap.
@ironcheftoni I’ve only gotten free coffee when I was working at restaurants. Nowhere else.
@Kyeh when they were remodeling my current company’s office, apparently there was a big debate over the brand of single serve coffee maker. They didn’t want keruig because they said people would steal the pods to take home. I argued that we would most likely bring better stuff from home. They went with Flavia instead. They were okay I guess but their tea varieties were sparse.
@ironcheftoni @Kyeh @Felton10
I’ve gotten free shitty coffee at work. Often it was burnt.
I wonder if the new tax code allows employers to continue to deduct the cost of coffee for workers, provided that the coffee is really really shitty?
/giphy shitty coffee
I don’t drink coffee so I haven’t noticed, but I do miss free bagels on Friday that went away post Covid.
25 years ago, the credit card transaction processor I worked for provided free coffee and free fountain drinks. The free coffee remained everywhere else I worked (sadly I wasn’t a burnt bean water enjoyer). I was laid off in December 2025, so I haven’t been in an onsite role to know if the free coffee has been removed.
@gordondkane Recently got made redundant.
@gordondkane @poids
: (
Since the sum total of my employment types throughout the years has been either in restaurants or at the hospital ER I work at currently (except for a stint as a self-employed contractor) I’ve always had access to a (free) coffee pot at work.
@chienfou
There’s gonna be a lot of tired people in the hospital if they take away the free coffee. I don’t know that I’ll want to go.
@Star2236
thumbsup_tone2:
@chienfou @Star2236
That’s the kind of place I’d want to donate a coffee station to if they were in need. Along with keeping them bright eyed and bushy tailed we gotta keep the happiness flowing! 
Well Star, I gotta say, the hospital ER isn’t a place I want to go to whether or not the employees are overdosed on free coffee or not! Lol
Seriously though, I hear what you’re saying.
My pharmacy workers have been calling to check up on me, and asking my guy how i’ve been doing when he’s there, after seeing new prescriptions for me coming in from the hospital. I’ve been trying to think of the appropriate gift to express my appreciation for everything they do.
So far I’ve come up with a card, flowers, a fruit basket, maybe a box of candy and some specialty teas. I’d love to hear some ideas that anyone else has. Thanks!
@Lynnerizer @Star2236
The simple act of acknowledgment goes a long way!
If you include something edible I would try to make sure they are packaged in such a way that they can be spread among different shifts/workers that work different days. It’s always a bummer to come into work and find out that the local EMS has dropped off a plate of cookies (or a church a fresh baked cake) a day or two before only to find a pile of crumbs (if that)when you come to work
Flowers, possibly a balloon arrangement (though that can be an issue in stores sometimes due to them escaping and then getting up in the ceiling and the sensors for fire etc) or maybe some nice inspirational saying plaque is something they could all share over several days/forever.
@chienfou @Star2236
Thanks, those are good tips!
@chienfou @Lynnerizer
I think anything you send to eat at work always goes over big. People are always hungry at work and enjoy the jesters. I understand what @chienfou said about coming into work and noticing crumbs and that does suck (former psych hospital worker and drs Christmas gifts were always awesome) but it’s not something that can always be helped. If you do get individual stuff l, who’s to say people won’t take it home before others can eat it? People are selfish and think about themselves first.
POPSOCKETS! ROAD ROCKETS! SONNY CROCKETT! AWESOME!
@chienfou @Star2236
One can hope anyway. 
People taking stuff home…
Sad but true! I’m thinking that won’t happen here with such a small crew of people.
@Lynnerizer @Star2236
Most everyone will appreciate whatever you bring as a token of “a job well done”! Go for it.
When my wife was having radiation therapy after her double mastectomy I took a couple of bouquets of flowers from the yard to the staff at the treatment center… one for the front end admin/intake desk area and one for the back nursing staff/treatment area. They were all very appreciative. Include a card so that it will hang around & be posted to a bulletin board for everyone to see even if they don’t notice or get to see the actual gift.
@chienfou @Star2236
And yes I agree, they’ll appreciate whatever I decide on. Thanks 
That was sweet of you.
I hope your wife is doing well these days.
@Lynnerizer @Star2236
is doing wonderfully well. She opted for flat closure and has been super happy with the results. Having spent over 50 years lugging around a pair of DD+ she is finding the lack of “front ballast” a welcome relief.
In fact, SWMBO
@chienfou @Star2236
I’ve always been a tiny A and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Glad she’s now healthy and HAPPY! 
Good for her! A woman after my own heart!
@chienfou @Lynnerizer
I don’t know if hers was due to the big C or just a personal choice but I’ve thought about it. With the amount of nerve damage I have and the fact that bras give me such a problem (due to the nerve damage). But I’ve also thought about a breast lift and then not needing to wear a bra either.
@chienfou @Star2236
Either option is something I would consider if needed. I said that I had always been a small A. Buuuut, recently with weight gain I’ve went up a few sizes and I now live in sports bras because of those same nerve issues, even my belly is totally numb but still painful. The sports bras are the most comfortable things I’ve found besides a kind of tight skin hugging tank top which is pretty much like a long sports bra anyway. Lol
@Lynnerizer @Star2236
Yep… the big C. One lump plus a second smaller one which was too close to her nipple to allow them to just do a lumpectomy. Once she knew she was losing one she decided having both taken off would be the better choice for her. If nothing else for the Peace of mind. I’m good with it since it makes her less stressed and more happy.
@chienfou @Lynnerizer
I totally get it. Never have to worry about it again. I know someone else that did that too.
While I understand your sentiment, I think the tax benefits are probably NOT the critical decision point. These are, after all, a tax deduction, not a tax credit. Given the common complaint that businesses are paying way too little in taxes I would suspect that this line item cost (which has been continuously spiraling) and not the tax deduction is what’s motivating them to drop this perk.
@chienfou
“drop this perk”
Nice one!
The building my primary care doctor has free coffee in the lobby of the downstairs lab offices. Don’t tell anybody about this, ok, but I always grab a cuppa joe when I go there.
I provide free coffee
@capnjb
And it is delicious! Even if it’s decaf!
Thanks BTW!
@jkawaguchi Yeah, you made me question my morals with that roast. Heh. Glad you enjoyed it though
@capnjb
And good coffee I might add
@Star2236 It’s normal coffee… it’s just fresh coffee
That makes all the difference. Happy you enjoyed it 
@capnjb How about those that Don’t drink Coffee or Tea.
@capnjb @mycya4me
You have our condolences…
@mycya4me
Well, (and I mean no disrespect here), I suppose you are shit out of luck for the Secret-Not-So-Secret coffee club membership.
We have only had one tea drinker to join this nonsense (I’m looking at you @ironcheftoni 
) Let me know your beverage of choice and you might be able to wait at the back of the line 
This is starting to become the Mighty Morphin Caffeine Rangers! 
@capnjb @mycya4me yeah, I’m just a mutant that way
@capnjb @ironcheftoni Hot Coco, BUT only during the Colder months (Not the warmer one) Oh BTW I also don’t eat IceCream during the Colder months!
Strange you are trying to keep warm & you want to put cold stuff inside- same goes for warm/ Hot drinks during the Warm/ hot months!
@capnjb @chienfou The way I look at it I save a LOT of money! BTW I also don’t drink any think that has CO2 in it either. I gives me GAS (that I can’t use in the car! Come out the wrong end!
@mycya4me I think those that have ice creammilk shakes and such in the cold months are miscreants
. A fast food chain in the southeast has eggnog shakes for a couple months in the winter. I love good eggnog but I dont want a shake when its 25° but i tear their fresh watermelon ones up when they have em in July and August
@capnjb But the real question is, do you provide free decent chocolate? The heck with coffee. Chocolate (well and good ice cream) is necessary to my happiness, health and wellbeing.
@mycya4me @PurrpetualNap Milk shakes are good any time of year. I grew up in the snow belt. We’d beg mom to by ice cream so we could make milk shakes. Now dad was a different story - took no begging there but he mostly didn’t grocery shop. He’d beg mom for ice cream too. We’d tell him they invented this thing called a car so we could go the 3/4 of a mile to Franklin’s Ice Cream (which was later bought out by United Dairy Farmer’s) to buy some ice cream (it was good).
And don’t even try to hide coffee in ice cream either. It still takes terrible to me. Wrecks the ice cream.
@capnjb @chienfou @mycya4me
I don’t like carbonated drinks either but I don’t like them because of how they make my tongue feel.
@Kidsandliz
I’m still trying to get adjusted to the chasfit toothbrush I got from here. That Sonic vibration makes my tongue feel weird but I’m getting used to it…
@Kidsandliz
Well, that is a very blunt and direct question.
Heh… I like that 
So in this dumb thing, we have evolved from coffee to tea to cookies to bread to chocolate to who knows? 
And I am not sending ice cream!!!
edit - send me a whisper
@capnjb OK I’ll bite. I’ll whisper you.
@capnjb @chienfou @Kidsandliz Well the reason I don’t like CO2 / carbonated drinks is because I don’t process the Gas the correct/ proper way. It bloats/ tears up my Tummy & it is released from the rear. Not Kool. So make sure my tummy is not upset & I pass gas… it don’t drink it! Better for all that way!
@Kidsandliz @PurrpetualNap If it is cold/ frozen I don’t touch the stuff. Of course if it is frozen & you can nuke or grill it, it becomes warm! then it is good!
At my last job there was a fairly high-end coffee/espresso machine and a supply of decent beans in the break room. It was a fairly small office though (a dozen or so people).
First office I worked in gave out free cans of fruit juice and sodas too… until jackasses started taking boxes of it home with them.
@OnionSoup
It’s always that one guy
I know that most users here are retired, but “to those of you still employed” can also be read as “the job market sucks”. Both are true. And a little horrific.
And I’m a little scared library volunteers have started asking me when I can bring them another fruit basket.
You mean my old job could have been giving me free snacks too! I thought they sucked rocks before but now I know they do.
I can’t remember ever getting free coffee … wait, at Marineland I worked in burger galley in the summer of 1984. Free soda in tiny cups. I would make a “suicide” by mixing soda from every spigot.
@cfg83
/giphy One of us!
@cfg83 This one and not the one at Niagara Falls, right?
The other one is this:
@narfcake I worked at Marineland of the Pacific. Best summer of my life.
@narfcake OMG, go to 8:01 . I am in that picture.
Nostalgia neurons at full power,
.
@cfg83
I know a guy
@capnjb … who knows a guy?
@cfg83 Check your whispers
@cfg83 @narfcake
You are famous for life on youtube then.
@Kidsandliz @narfcake BUT NOT FAMOUS ENUFF!
/giphy look at me
Almost 25 years ago, I worked for a CPA firm during tax season for three years before I moved. First time I was ever exposed to “k-cups” and thought I had died and gone to heaven. They also had a drawer in the breakroom which was full of various types of candies. Got to keep everyone awake and on a sugar high during that time of year.
Worked most of my career at an SDA hospital. They did not provide coffee. In fact, when I was a floor nurse, they didn’t even allow a coffee machine until about a year before I left, and we had to provide our own (Only allowed because the intensivist in the trauma unit provided one for them and refused to remove it).
Later in home health, I bought coffee and the machines for the unit until someone else bought a Keurig (barf).
Over my time there, I had 4 different ones, an old school grind and brew until it died, then 2 different used superautomatics that eventually died, lastly a Ninja cafe one that allowed single cup brew
@Cerridwyn I’ve worked at (and visited) numerous hospitals… Hospitals always have the worst coffee (for guests and employees both)… It’s like they go out of their way to find the most terrible coffee
@OnionSoup bad coffee can be better than no coffee. But we were off campus so we were sort of on our own for a lot of things but policy was against the organization paying for caffeine. Although by the time I left the floor back in the early 90s most floors had them, coffee pots that is. After my appendectomy her number of years ago I was having a bad caffeine headache and I asked the nurse if they had coffee, she told me yeah but it was probably made by day shift, this was right about after shift change. I said I didn’t care and she brought me a cup it was the best worst coffee I ever had, or the worst best coffee I ever had depending on how you look at it
@OnionSoup my hospital had AMAZING coffee for us in the ED. What was given to patients and visitors…now that’s another story. That came out of some commercial dispenser and may as well have been hot brown water!
@OnionSoup @PurrpetualNap one late night visiting an emergency room, an attending gave me warm coffee to calm down. I’m not a coffee drinker so I set it aside. Good thing because an hour later they were back looking for a stool sample they misplaced. Turns out, coffee doesn’t have marshmallows.
@Cerridwyn @OnionSoup
The small community hospital that employed me kept a commercial Bunn style pour over coffee maker in the ED the entire time I was there (over 30 years). They changed the coffee ground provider a handful of times during that period, getting a ‘new’ replacement coffee maker each time. Some of the coffees were not (too) bad if you got them when they were fresh, and if you didn’t pour an entire carafe of water into the maker. Of course it had a tendency to sit on the burner for hours at a time depending on who was working and their coffee consumption. I made countless pots of coffee for patients/family members when I saw the sludge that was left in the pot that would have been available to them otherwise. I also drank a bunch of cups of coffee during that time. Certainly not as good (by any stretch) as the beans I have gotten from @capnjb but the price was right and it’s suited its purpose. I am far from a coffee snob.
@Cerridwyn @chienfou @OnionSoup
Heh, I have too many ways to make coffee to list, but my drip maker brews into a thermal carafe so it stays hot but doesn’t continue to cook
It also wants to know how many feet above sea level it is so it can calibrate 
@cerridwyn sent me some amazing double walled glass coffee glasses that are amazing. Super hot liquid in a glass vessel doesn’t feel right, but the way they are designed is amazing. I just have to be careful to not fill them above the insulated walls
That can get hot quickly 
The tops of the cups/mugs are very thin glass, like a fancy red wine glass and get very hot, very fast. But I love them and use them almost every day 
Just when I thought coffee couldn’t get any more interesting
After being away from all the “juicy” discussions due to having to have 3 more unexpected surgeries in the past lil bit, I figured a discussion about my favorite beverage would be the perfect place to jump back in!!! The only job I ever had aside from working PT with hospice pts at their home was working in the ED for 13 years before becoming disabled. Let me tell you…if there wasnt a coffee station in our break area, we ALL(,Dr’s, Nurses, CNAs, lab, hell even janitorial) would have been crazy!!! We had a lovely setup with constantly filled highly caffeinated pot, a nice espresso machine, milk steamer and frother, and never fewer than 3 choices of wonderful beans of which I may or may not have eaten as a snack from time to time, and lots of syrup options. Often times, we had some really good specialty homemade syrups too. We were a level 1 trauma center, and without that delicious caffeine constantly flowing through our veins we wouldn’t have made it. I went to visit and say hi a few months ago, and they still had the same setup BUT WITH LOCALLY ROASTED BEANS! You better believe I took full advantage of that yumminess while I was there too!!!
@PurrpetualNap Wow! I would like to go to a medical facility where the staff is happily well-caffeinated. It seems like a very good idea!
even at current bean prices, coffee is the current legal speed at work… nicotine has been relegated to a few specialized positions who understand COBOL. any company who eliminate the free legal speed are just asking for lower productivity and caffeine withdrawal based mutiny.
@thismyusername I do understand COBOL, I suppose, but we don’t use it around here. And no nicotine for me – just glorious caffeine in the form of tea
@cf1 @thismyusername Cripes I had to learn some stupid early version of COBOL when I took calculus. I hated calculus then I had to program it to solve the problems using that program. WHY WHY WHY?
@cf1 @Kidsandliz @thismyusername Heh… I did COBOL and PASCAL in the 80’s
Machine language confused my busy brain 
@capnjb @cf1 @Kidsandliz @thismyusername
My favorite (old) COBOL joke:
Have you heard about the new object oriented COBOL?
It’s called ADD ONE TO COBOL
On my first day of working for a CPA firm after graduating from law school over 50 years ago, the senior partner took me to downtown Washington DC to a big client which he told me I would come alone to for the next two days and would be auditing petty cash. Having kept a $100 petty cash at a company I had worked for over the summer I thought “yippee”-that sounds exciting.
What I found was that the client was the second largest law firm in DC and its petty cash fund was 20k and was replenished multiple times a month so in excess of 200k flowed though it every three months. What was even more impressive was the breakroom on each floor of the firm which contained not only coffee but a fountain type soda machine and snacks galore-all free for the taking.
@Felton10 I worked for a two early dot-coms that both had soda fountains and a wide variety of snacks in their kitchens. The 2nd even catered lunch every day so we were readily available for fixes if needed.
The 2nd hired me away from the 1st just before the 1st laid off all of its contractors, which would have included me. The 2nd spent $2MM a month until it couldn’t find investors anymore (when many dot-coms went bust) and really didn’t have a viable revenue stream, so I was laid off from there after about 9 months (shocking many local IT recruiters, who thought it was doing well). The 1st website was reborn and still exists while the 2nd went bankrupt and is defunct.
The snacks and coffee are now being recorded in the “Office supplies” account, or possibly “Maintenance costs.”
@algae1221 If a company buys all their breakroom supplies at Staples, doubt if person posting the invoice is going to break the items out between office supplies and non-deductible items. Although if they are audited, that might be the type of invoices agent might want to look at to see if they were recorded correctly.
When I worked security 2 decades ago. We had a commercial one like a diner. Keeps a hot tank so when you add water it pushes out to the pot quickly.that I’m pretty sure someone recovered from a closed store. And a can of folders. Idk where that can of coffee got budgeted
It had a spout to spread the water which would get some blocked by mineral flakes. So I cleared those. Bought a backup nozzle.cleared with vinegar.
Because I worked nightshift and had time as it got worse at heating water I started running vinegar through it to try and clear the build up
This did not work. One night between rounds I disassembled it. There was at least a eighth inch coating of minerals around the inside of the water tank I had to chip off. Somewhere I have a pic of the scale I cleared out it this thing.
@unksol
Yep… that reservoir tank can be a serious problem. My absolute worst event dealing with ours was when someone would decide to ‘helpfully’ pour the coffee back through to warm it up when they forgot to turn the burner on. This made for a tank of diluted coffee being further diluted every time you ran another pot through, basically…forever. Never understood why there wasn’t a drain mechanism on that reservoir so that you could clean it out more efficiently.
@chienfou ok. That’s just dumb lol. That’s what the “burner” is for but no sane person puts anything but water through a coffee machine. Of any type
Well ok. Vinegar/acids to clean. But nothing to drink. If you can tolerate the old coffee there is the microwave…
I guess if they grew up with one of those church/potluck style percolators… It would kinda work. But that’s very different. That was a continuous cycle and didn’t have a pot. Just a epout
@unksol
Yeah, it always baffled me as well. Makes me wonder how many people would do that with a pour-over (Mr coffee style) pot??
@chienfou lol I have that “pour over” motif from meh.
My sin is that I’ll make a pot with two big scoops of coffee. Using the areopress scoop. Drink a cup from my big mug before work. Fill my contigo autoseal
And add another scoop/6 cups of water to top the carafe up.
I’m not a coffee snob but never have I ever thought dumping coffee through the water intake of a coffee maker was a thing lol
Just for fun if you’re my type of person
My previous employer was so cheap at providing free coffee that the word “cofee” was misspelled.
@poids
My hospital posted a do not flush these down the toilet sign that included the word(?) towls. It was posted in front of EVERY toilet in the entire hospital. It wasn’t until I came back in to work for my seven-on-7-off week that anyone noticed that it was misspelled. Needless to say the person who made the sign was dumbfounded when I pointed it out.