The last 28 years of my life have been an endless series of moving from place to place. And for some reason, this trend slowly (though maybe quickly) flowed with me to a new place of work in the form of a tradition every month with friends, that is, the IT department, codenamed URCPO, to move from room to room, from building to building , in the hope of finding a better place near Shcherbinkovsky, the sun never peeking out from behind the clouds.
On one of the moves, we managed to work next to a corporate coffee machine and along the way become addicted to regular coffee libations in the morning and evening hours. In general, we did not make any revolution, but simply confirmed the research of British scientists that in order for something to become a habit, you need to do it for three weeks in a row. Therefore, when a month later, as part of the next move, we were sent to work in the elite place "Plaza", we began to suffer quietly.
Our suffering was so great, and the dripping tears so often disabled keyboards and interfered with coding so much, that our project managers decided to equip all of us with a coffee machine in order to fulfill quarterly plans.
After long hours of choice, ranging from electric Turks to professional machines for coffee shops, like the path of a coffee bean on a Brazilian plantation to a cup in a Moscow restaurant, we decided that we could not choose anything and agreed to lease the machine.
It sounded tempting. Like a holiday romance. No obligations - and always delicious coffee.
But the first unpleasant nuance immediately became clear - in order to rent a coffee machine, you had to have a Moscow residence permit in your passport with you. Part of us hid our age and marital status - therefore, she did not want to give passports, part of the passport was lost or taken away for processing some work documents, part of the passports did not have the inscription Moscow, and only, as luck would have it, my red passport was lying on on the table in the most visible place, because 3 minutes ago I tried to check with it the straight lines I have drawn on the diagram or not.
Very quickly we signed an agreement with a young enterprising owner of the IP, who said that it was a great honor for her to supply coffee for programmers and that she was already flying with a brand new typewriter to us. Very quickly, just the next day in the evening, a middle-aged man came to us, explaining that the lady could not. And very quickly, stimulated and inspired by Serezha's finger, unobtrusively threateningly hanging over the F5 key next to the drop database command, I signed a contract for a long-term lease of the meringue to transfer to ownership.
It was easy to use the machine, and besides, we were very understanding. Therefore, they explained to us the purpose of all four buttons that perform 51 commands in just some 30 minutes, unlike the previous stupid saleswomen, who, according to our middle-aged man, took him an incredible 32,5 minutes to train. Well, I also compared it - IT-shnikov and salesgirls of tights - of course we are smarter!
Unfortunately, when he left and we were left alone with the typewriter, it was no longer possible to stay in the office, because the last 11-hour bus to civilization was leaving, and we decided to try coffee the next day in the morning.
In the morning, having bought sugar and marmalade, taking a coffee cup and saucer from home, I arrived at work 15 minutes in advance to have time to drink coffee in peace and quiet.
But I was far from alone. Four, including Seryoga cracking his knuckles and Ilya clicking the mouse hard, crowded around the typewriter.
- Hello! - I said. Miss to baby? I really want to try. So I brought sugar.
— Wait, we decide how we will charge cups of coffee.
- What?
We decide how we will charge.
- But we handed over 400 rubles each yesterday? Isn't it easier to just rent 400 rubles a month and not charge anything?
- Here you are a woman, you can immediately see, only adapted to wastefulness! 400 rubles per month! You think what they can mean to people. That's a monthly subscription to Netflix! This is the interest on the loan for the slow cooker! This, after all, is a three-hundred-minute unlimited on MTS-e.
- Eh ... but maybe it’s easier than 400 rubles and that’s it? Did you ask the others? Are you sure they won't like it?
- Yes, what is there to ask. And it's clear that it won't work. There must be a differential system. Everyone will pay in proportion to the number of cups drunk. And the one who drank a cup that exceeded our monthly volume of coffee will switch to a higher rate, because it will have to order a new portion. Here we are just sitting, we are calculating the integral in order to understand the correction factor and after which cup it is introduced.
So you can't drink yet?
- Of course not! Although, let's write you one cup on credit. Please leave a receipt.
I went for a piece of paper and a pen.
But Serezha has already moved to the next level.
- No. It's not a matter of putting everything down on paper. What if someone signs up for you or these papers get mixed up or the cleaning lady throws them away. You need to create a table in Google Docs and before each cup you will approach one of us and he will mark you. Moreover, we will conduct distributed computing, since I can confuse something. Checking in with me, you will also have to check in with Maxim, and then we will compare our tables.
- Good.
I took another step towards the coffee machine.
“No, nothing good,” Ilya intervened. — Are we IT specialists or not? Let's write automatic table reconciliation. I will make a parser that parses them and compares them line by line. If something differs, it will send notifications.
Yes, write. Good idea. Although, no. Won't go. What if one of us is not there, and she wants coffee? It is necessary that the human factor is not needed. You need to automate marking. I have a Raspberry Pi at home - we will connect it to an NFC scanner, we will short it to a typewriter, and it will be elementary easy to get a cup of coffee. Just attach a pass and that's it. And if you don’t apply it, it simply won’t flow.
— And where do we get the Raspberry Pi?
- I have at home. And my wife is at home. Now I'll dial for her, she will bring. All. For now, no coffee breaks. We are working. Let's drink later.
We all retired to our jobs with nothing. The coffee machine smelled wickedly of buried beans. I wanted coffee. And once every 15 minutes we looked out the window with hope - and if Serezha's wife was coming with our salvation from decaffeination.
She arrived around noon. Two Ilyas immediately rushed to code something. Two hours later, we again gathered near the typewriter to cut the red ribbon and drink the first cup.
— No, well, we can't start like that. It is necessary that bonuses are accrued from each cup - then everyone will drink more cups and pay with an increased coefficient! In addition, we need the opportunity to buy for someone on credit - in case contractors come to the negotiation room without passes.
- You're talking. Let's do.
- Let's. Simply, in a simplified way. From each cup, 1 ruble in bonuses.
- And how to write them off?
We'll decide later. Let's just hoard them for now.
— So, what about coffee as a gift?
- Here - so that no one spends too much on coffee as a gift, you will need to write off bonuses.
Then we raise the price of a cup so that we have a reserve fund.
- Yes, we raise it by 2 rubles.
— So only one goes as bonuses?!
- One in reserve. At the expense of intelligence and nourishment of new ideas.
We split up again. From old memory, I wrote a simple accrual of bonuses to pass numbers. The matter began to approach evening. At 17 pm, 30 minutes before the end of the working day, we again gathered at the typewriter. Everyone was with cups, but they held them timidly, no longer really hoping that today they would be able to drink coffee.
Natasha came up first.
“No,” the others began again. What if other departments find out about our idea and want to repeat it? You need to distribute it to the whole company yourself. Patent coffee by pass and then use it. Otherwise, no interest. Everyone will repeat.
- Yes, let's replicate and put in all the cabinets where they love coffee. Let's take a commission for it. A small one, but our coffee will definitely pay off and it will be possible not to celebrate, but just drink it every day
- Let's! Let's!
- Let's call our Know-How "One Touch Coffee".
No, it doesn't sound good! Something more interesting is needed.
- For example?
- Let's embed not a card, but face recognition and call it "Delicious coffee at any time - just wink"
- Yes. Perfect!
— Are we doing it?
— Let's do it!
- But as?
- We need a camera.
- I have a webcam.
- And I have.
“Here, take it tomorrow.” Let's make a recognition.
The end of shift bell rang.
It was time to leave. We wiped the dust from the coffee machine and left not a milliliter of Arabica slurping home. On the way, I stopped at the cheburek “At Ashot” and for 70 rubles they made me a small cup of coffee on the sand from the Karakum. I also bought a pack of pills for the coffee machine at home and drank a couple more cups in reserve in case (although, of course, there can be no such case, definitely not!), What if our business idea doesn’t take off tomorrow. And satisfied, she lay down tossing and turning from side to side, as it was unbearable to fall asleep with an unusually high level of caffeine in the blood.
Source: habr.com