Coffee at Work: Does it help?

(images from author's personal IG)

You have a facebook profile, you have instagram. A day doesn't pass by without you noticing that sometime in the day, someone posted a coffee shot, a coffelfie (selfie with coffee), or a group shot with coffee in a coffee shop, even a photo of someone's desk and coffee stash. And we can not deny it anymore, more and more people are into coffee now more than ever before.

So. How do we benefit from it?

Coffee keeps us awake. Or at least we think it does. Whether its the instant caffeine fix or just the warmth (or heat of a boiling cup) of this dark liquid, it somehow extends our wakefulness a little mire throughout the morning, or thru the unholy hours of 2 or 3pm. All the more for our call center friends - coffee is the new water!

Coffee helps us sleep. Quite contradicting with the first one, right? And not good if you're still at work. But if you haven't noticed it yet, for long-time we-now-take-it-black brewed coffee drinkers like me (but I'm back to having cream/milk and brown sugar now), there came a time when our wake up jolting drink doesn't work like that anymore. It came to a point when, when taken with cream and sugar, it made me even sleepier - more like a relaxing cup of warm milk before bedtime. Which is precisely why I shifted to its pure, unadultered, steaming, black brewed glory. For a time. And then realizing I also don't want to reach a plateau of some sort, I went back to the CCS (coffee, cream, sugar) combo - well, when I don't get it from coffee shops where I always get either a cappuccino or a machiatto.

Coffee time is recess for the office. Aside from a time where you can temporarily stretch out your back and legs from sitting too long, it's a time where we can exercise freedom of speech without annoying our stern, old-maid, librarian-type bosses (you get who or what I mean!). And something we sometimes unknowingly look forward to, just like lunch time!

Coffee is common ground. More like neutral ground for opposing parties in a board meeting, or a level playing field for all those gunning for the promotion. It's something almost all would agree to have with everyone else without seeing cannon balls being shot from one side of the table to the other.

Coffee is a tool. Whether for hardworking people to stay awake and laser-focused on work despite being up all night with a baby or for let's-work-hard-party-harder workers with a hangover from a friend's birthday party, it's also something we all can use for those extra I-want-your-position-sooner-or-later-Boss-so-I'm-gonna-learn-the-ropes points kind of thing. Or a term (coffee table meeting, "Let's discuss over coffee") we can and should use so we can tell everyone that we need something to be decided on without binding ourselves to arrive at a decent and smart decision while spending the entire day talking about all things related and unrelated.

Coffee has health benefits. We've heard that before or read it somewhere - coffee, especially the brewed variety - has antioxidants that help us out with free radicals and aging. But we also have to remember that despite those antioxidant properties, too much caffeine absorbed into our system hinders it from absorbing calcium - which is needed for strong teeth and bones. So make sure there's some sort of balance somewhere.

With all if those being from a normal-day office worker point of view, how do you think coffee helps our call center friends work better, or smarter?


And while you're out and about having coffee in your office while surfing the net, or logging on your social media accounts in a coffee shop, try visiting the Sykes E-Recruitment Site for career opportunities or for the reason why this article has come forth from my brain to this blog (*wink*).