PhD student, fed up with her caffeinated coworker Anne, plans to take back her coffee maker when she graduates, leaving Anne to brew alone: ‘She stopped making coffee at her home because she knows she can make it at work. I am her source of caffeine’

Few workplace dramas are as quietly charged as the shared appliance power struggle. And for these Phds, it's the office coffee maker, that battered little shrine to sanity which, for three glorious years, dispensed liquid motivation to exactly one loyal subject. Then came Anne, the self-appointed queen of inconvenience, marching in with her nice-enough smile and an endless parade of opinions, unsolicited chats, and a caffeine habit so opportunistic it makes freeloading an art. Suddenly, the humble thrift-shop brewer becomes Anne's personal Starbucks, while our girl, the person who actually brought it, is forced deeper into the remote-working wilds to escape her ambushes about dishwashers and the "importance of team small talk."

Anne, who somehow turns every exchange into a TED Talk on her perceived superiority, quickly turns your coffee machine into her life-support system. The fact that she stopped brewing at home because your machine is available just adds insult to caffeinated injury. Now graduation looms and you are faced with a moral dilemma: leave Anne in a state of caffeine withdrawal, or let her keep leeching off your generosity far into the future.

The universe is dangling the sweet possibility of petty justice in the breakroom, sticking it to Anne one last time. But you resist. You rise above and leave her the machine, because sometimes growth means knowing you could be petty, but choosing to let the next STEMer inherit the mess.

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