Donating forks to the dining hall • Hacker News Board

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#51

Post by megablast » Thu, May 30, 2024, 3:49 AM UTC

bashtoni wrote: post #20

I love this story, despite it being the sort of thing I can imagine ending up on LinkedIn. Anyway, one question I did have which made me a little suspicious of the neat ending: why is the fork in the last picture obviously of a different type to that shown in the engraving picture? The order was 180 forks all of the same type. Maybe Henry bought his own forks to donate?

You, at your new job, is like a cafeteria with not enough forks. You have to go out, spend your own resources in filling in what is required at your company. That makes a successful company, and a successful you!

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#52

Post by albedoa » Thu, May 30, 2024, 3:50 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #50

megablast wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, they would take it into their office?

Yes, exactly. Presumably they still do, but we no longer care.

I know this is beside the point, but did you try asking them to stop doing that?

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#53

Post by tjbiddle » Thu, May 30, 2024, 3:53 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #2

My partner and I donated cutlery to our Apt complex multipurpose media room. It's where people who live there can watch movies on a projector or have meetings or birthdays. We bought over 50 teaspoons. I think we're down to 5. We got 10-15 each of knives forks and spoons and they were predated, but not as much. The body corporate tut-tutted and said they wouldn't do it, I think it's ok to accept some people just wind…

Is there a chance these are being accidentally thrown away, rather than stolen?

I'm sure I've thrown a non-reusable utensil in the garbage more than once in my life by accident. While I of course would feel bad, I'm also not going to dig it out of a 50gal trash can in nice clothes.

Surely that happens many times over 5 years when you have dozens or hundreds of employees.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#54

Post by baggy_trough » Thu, May 30, 2024, 3:56 AM UTC

A "flood the zone" strategy similar to this works well for cheap items that continually vanish, such as pens, socks, charging cables, etc.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#55

Post by nullhole » Thu, May 30, 2024, 4:05 AM UTC

edgineer wrote: post #15

graphe wrote: post #13

I'm doing the opposite. I've been amassing small disposable plastic spoons when I order food for my supplements from various establishments for my supplements, looking for ideal sizes. I like to use the one from coffee shops, the best ones were from the airport. Disposable wood chopsticks can be surprisingly durable as well as long as it's not basilica wood. What counts as an ideal size/shape/material for your cutler…

Balsa* wood!

As the old saying goes,

beware brittle balsa basilicas

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#56

Post by dreamcompiler » Thu, May 30, 2024, 4:05 AM UTC

Since we're on HN I half expected this to have something to do with repositories on github. I need to get out more.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#57

Post by martyvis » Thu, May 30, 2024, 4:07 AM UTC

This could have been a follow-up to "The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322240/

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#58

Post by arittr » Thu, May 30, 2024, 4:25 AM UTC

martyvis wrote: post #57

This could have been a follow-up to "The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322240/

That was a great read

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#59

Post by wjnc » Thu, May 30, 2024, 4:33 AM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #3

Reminds of of the replacement of "threeks" at the UW-Madison campus in the 1980s. At the time, it was common for satirical parties to win student elections and do odd things like cover the campus with plastic flamingos. One of the satirical parties was upset that the UW-Madison cafeteria didn't have true forks (with four tines) but only "threeks" (forks with three tines). So they decided to work with friends at North…

Don’t tell me “fork” and “four” are related.

Did my homework: “Old English forca, force (denoting a farm implement), based on Latin furca ‘pitchfork, forked stick’; reinforced in Middle English by Anglo-Norman French furke (also from Latin furca ).”

Four in Latin is quattuor. Scared me there.

Re: Donating forks to the dining hall

#60

Post by dexwiz » Thu, May 30, 2024, 4:39 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #47

I love this spirit. In the office where I work, the main door locks whenever it closes, so the first person to arrive each morning props the door open for everyone else. Well, a new tenant moved in to one of the other units, and they started taking our doorstop. Morning after morning we had to go find it and retrieve it, for weeks! One day it occurred to me that I didn't have to complain to management, or get mainten…

Many doors have a toggle on the face plate below or above the latch that changes auto lock behavior. But auto lock is good for security.

I once had a friend move out of a place in part because he would often get locked out. I showed him how to change this at his move out party.