"What? I'm not exactly going to make a special trip to the kitchen to return one spoon am I?"
The average office has easily enough cutlery to cater for its staff. In fact, recent research has found that the average office has more of each item of cutlery than there are workers. This means that even if everyone had a fork, knife and spoon each, there would still be enough to go around.
So why is it so hard to find cutlery when you need it? The best bet is to look to your office's resident douche-canoe. They will normally have a collection of mugs, glasses and cutlery hoarded in their office like some sort of doomsday preparation.
We visited the corporate sales division of Canonjet Office Supplies- an office that has had significant trouble with its cutlery supply. Jane Maloney (32) heads up that division and has no doubt about the culprit.
"Two words. Leonard Murphy. It's always him. We have heaps of cutlery in this office. That's not the problem. The problem is Leonard Murphy and his inability to return stuff to the kitchen. He's such a dick. He must be aware of the problem, and he must know that it's his fault. But he doesn't seem to give a shit. It's just selfish arrogance."
We popped around to Leonard's office to see if there was any merit in what Jane was saying. And it became instantly clear that she was right. There was a couple of mugs, several bowls including a bowl with unspecified congealed several-day-old pasta sauce and more cutlery than you could count. Including an absurd number of tea spoons that he had used to eat tuna directly from the can.
We asked if he realised the trouble that he caused.
"Nah I'm not the problem. There's heaps of cutlery. There's probably some in the dishwasher right now. Someone just needs to turn it on. I'll ask my P.A. She'll turn it on for us."
And this is not a problem isolated to the Canonjet Office. Nearly every office in Australia has their own Leonard. An arrogant, entitled, selfish douche-canoe. An until we discover a cure for that level of douchebaggery, cutlery will always be in short supply when it is needed.