Coffee Break Can't imagine your office without java? Take a moment to learn how it got there.
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It's not you. It's not your product or service. It'snot even the restroom, though that's close. If there's onething that your business couldn't survive without,it's--without question or argument--coffee.
Can you imagine what would happen if you refused to let youremployees sip coffee at their desks or, if not there, in thecompany break room? You would likely be strung up to the ceilingfan and left to spin the day away, while your employees went off tosip mocha lattes and plot your ruin. Your business would curl upand die. As well it should. Coffee and the workplace have had asymbiotic relationship for some time now.
The first coffee break as we know it likely happened around theturn of the 20th century. Howard Stanger, a professor of managementand marketing specializing in industrial relations and businesshistory at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, says it was in1900 when the Larkin Company, a hybrid soap manufacturer andmail-order company, began giving employees free coffee to drink inbreak rooms. As far as he knows, this is the earliest example of anofficial coffee break.
Like many businesses of the time, entrepreneurs were concernedthat their female employees not be subjected to their brash maleco-workers and the harsh conditions in the factories. Since womencouldn't completely be shielded, "companies often tried tocreate domestic spaces where they could take a break," saysStanger. "In photographs, you'll often see [break rooms]decorated like a middle-class home." Offering coffee in theserefuges was an amenity that would lead to future amenities, likehealth benefits and pension plans in the 1920s.
Today, of course, coffee at the workplace dominates much morethan a few minutes a day, because people appreciate the drink forthe same reason their counterparts did 100 years ago, observesStanger: "They drank it for the caffeine jolt, the warmth andthe comfort."
Bean There, Done That
A timeline: Great moments in the coffee/workrelationship, from the bush to the break room.
850 A.D. First known discovery of berries containingcaffeine. As legend has it, an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldinoticed his goats were friskier after eating red berries on ashrub. After trying them himself, the goatherd realized he felthappier, too. Kaldi had just created the world's first coffeebreak.
1475 The world's first coffee shop opens inConstantinople.
1600 Coffee reaches Europe. The first coffeehouse opensin Italy in 1654.
1674 Not everybody is consuming the drink. In London, theWomen's Petition Against Coffee declares: "Coffee leadsmen to trifle away their time, scald their chops and spend theirmoney."
1901 Instant coffee is invented. Offices across the worldslowly, but surely, recognize what this means for them.
1920 With Prohibition in effect, martinis during businessmeetings fall out of favor, and coffee sales take off.
1971 The first Starbucks opens in Seattle, launching achain that currently boasts more than 8,000 locationsworldwide.
1972 Mr. Coffee enters the market, inventing theautomatic drip process. It becomes a staple in office break roomseverywhere.
1999 Over 81 million Americans drink coffee in theirworkplaces, according to a Gallup Poll survey; 52.3 million obtainit from their offices.
