Logistics Officer
Information About Office Water Delivery
Ever since its invention, the water cooler – and subsequently,office water delivery – has been a permanent fixture in the modern day office environment. Instead of a water fountain – which itself has its own cultural associations and connotations, even as a icon of the American civil rights movement, another story for another time – many offices choose the use of a free-standing water cooler fitted with the instantly recognizable five gallon tanks mounted to the top. Actually, this is what provides office water delivery its name, in that these five gallon jugs are virtually delivered by truck to the office, usually on a regular basis and usually in exchange for the empty jugs left over from the former month.
The preference for office water delivery and these free-standing units is generally one of function over form. Through there are the usual logistical distractions of having to actually manipulate the heavy, five gallon jugs acquired by office water delivery, the characteristics of the unit itself more than make up for it. Whereas a water fountain generally only presents cooled water out of an individual spout, water coolers generally have a number of spouts, usually two or three. Needless to say there is the standard spout, which when managed with a simple lever delivers cold water, but it is not uncommon to find models with spouts for room temperature water, or even extremely hot, almost boiling water – perfect for use in making tea or quick coffee.
Aside from functionality, sanitation is a common reason for preference of office water delivery over locally available tap water through a water fountain. The reasonably sizable, free-standing units are frequently laden with various water purification technologies which, in addition to the large jugs of water which are already sanitized and purified at their bottling plants, make for the purest water accessible. Usually office water coolers use some form of activated carbon filtering, which uses specially treated charcoal to filter larger impurities (salts, dissolved inorganic compounds, etc) out of the water.
In recent years, it has also been common for these units to be fitted with some kind of ultraviolent light treatment, which usually kills what might be left over after charcoal filtering: dissolved organic compounds, bacteria, and so on.
Though incredibly simple in design and purpose, the insufferable banality of the present day office cubical labyrinth has made the ubiquitous water cooler a sort of social hub at the office. So recognizable is this fact that colloquial terms like “water cooler show” have been coined off of it, in reference to the kind of trite dialogue about well-liked culture expected amongst employees gathering around the unit. Even the phrase “word around the water cooler” in reference to rumors or gossip has entered the cultural lexicon. Interesting that such an oddly ordinary things as office water delivery may be, in a way, liable for such widely recognizable cultural phenomena.
Logistics Officer – Marines
