EC's Latest Rules Govern Its Coffee Machines

from the politicians dept

Wed, Mar 11th 2009 11:00pm — Carlo Longino

The European government's penchant for regulation is well-documented: its generally fruitless battles against Google and Microsoft are but two examples. Now, though, it's taking on the really serious stuff: the quality of the espresso in the European Commission's offices. The NYT says the EC bought 21 high-tech coffee machines at 5,000 euros each for its headquarters, "as a perk to keep top officials and visiting dignitaries from having to line up in cafes on other floors of the star-shaped Berlaymont Building." The big bill attracted criticism as another example of wasteful spending, but a bigger problem emerged for Commission employees -- the coffee didn't taste good. The Italian company that made the machines plans to replace them with some modifications (apparently water softeners in the coffeemakers were partly to blame), and it will also train "coffee monitors" in "coffee tasting theory and sensorial techniques," "recipes and hints," and "ordinary machine maintenance procedures." I'm not sure if it's heartening or frustrating to learn that bureaucrats' penchant for wasting time, money and other resources is pretty much the same the world over.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: coffee machines, europe, regulations

18 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 11 Mar 2009 @ 11:48pm

Espress Yourself
Hopefully, I can save Europeans the embarrassment of having to learn how to make coffee.

Alton Brown did a great analysis on his show "Good Eats" on this topic, back in 2007. The episode was called "Espress Yourself" (Episode ID: EA1018H).

In 1/2 hour, this Proud American explains the secrets and four parts to making a great Italian Espresso.

La Miscela, La Macinazione, La Macchina, and La Mano.

If you watch only one episode of "Good Eats" make this the one.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2009 @ 12:46am

It's not just the bureaucracy, it's the Italian coffee machine makers following the American business practices and managing to sell all kinds of training that's not needed.
If the Italian company was a Haliburton subsidiary you wouldn't wouldn't be writing this smart ass nonsense.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TW Burger, 12 Mar 2009 @ 12:48am

The History of Europe
It's been said that the cultural difference between Europe and the United States is that Americans think 100 years is a long time and Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance.

The difference in bureaucratic stupidity seems to be negligible except for the scale. European bureaucrats waste 105,000 Euros on coffee. American bureaucrats ignore banking misconduct and bring down the World's economy. USA! USA! We're number one!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
austin, 12 Mar 2009 @ 12:53am

I dunno. We laud companies like Google that provide excellent quality of life for employees; is the government not a workplace? Why should they have to suffer?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TW Burger, 12 Mar 2009 @ 12:53am

Re:
If Haliburton supplied the coffee machines each cup would cost 500 Euros and three hundred American troops would have died or been severely wounded installing, maintaining, and supplying the beans.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2009 @ 1:01am

............................................________
....................................,.-'"...................``~.,
.............................,.-"..................................."-.,
.........................,/...............................................":,
.....................,?......................................................,
.................../...........................................................,}
................./......................................................,:`^`..}
.............../...................................................,:"........./
..............?.....__.........................................:`.........../
............./__.(....."~-,_..............................,:`........../
.........../(_...."~,_........"~,_....................,:`........_/
..........{.._$;_......"=,_......."-,_.......,.-~-,},.~";/....}
...........((.....*~_......."=-._......";,,./`..../"............../
...,,,___.`~,......"~.,....................`.....}............../
............(....`=-,,.......`........................(......;_,,-"
............/.`~,......`-...................................../
.............`~.*-,.....................................|,./.....,__
,,_..........}.>-._...................................|..............`=~-,
.....`=~-,__......`,.................................
...................`=~-,,.,...............................
................................`:,,...........................`..............__
.....................................`=-,...................,%`>--==``
........................................_..........._,-%.......`
...................................,
[ link to this | view in thread ]
yogi, 12 Mar 2009 @ 1:04am

I'm optimistic
As long as they are minding their own business.

We should confine them to regulating everything in the building: stairs, elevators, the wall paint...

That way they will be too busy to regulate away the individual.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TW Burger (profile), 12 Mar 2009 @ 1:06am

Government versus Industry
In the last place I was consulting they had a Star Bucks in the building. A Venti was $1.85, a double espresso $1.65. This kept everyone happy, made a profit (no rent for the operator) and improved productivity by keeping people in the office instead of running around the nearby malls.

I believe the point being made here is that taxpayers are paying for these (pardon the pun) perks.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2009 @ 3:55am

OMG...as if there can't possibly be better things to spend that money on? Not to mention the time...

...the ridiculous get ridiculouser (yeah, I know it's not a word)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Coffee Stain, 12 Mar 2009 @ 6:15am

Coffee -
Enabling you to do stupid things faster
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chunky Vomit, 12 Mar 2009 @ 6:50am

The more time they spend in the office jerking off over their coffee machines the less time spent jerking around the rest of us = good.

However, their ability to spend money this stupidly = bad.

Damn! They equaled themselves out to nothing more than zeros again.

Expensive zeros, but zeros none-the-less.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Crabby (profile), 12 Mar 2009 @ 8:44am

Re:
That's GREAT! I love it!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
trollificus, 12 Mar 2009 @ 8:44am

perks? Ha! I get it!
@ #4:

Wait!

Having to make do with coffee produced in a pot costing LESS THAN $5,000 constitutes "suffering"???

Were you also sympathetic to hedge fund operators whose bonuses were decreased from 8 figures to 7 JUST BECAUSE THEY LOST MONEY FOR THEIR INVESTORS?? Why should they have to suffer??

You must be the kind of person* who believes campaign reform that "gets big money out of elections" is done for a purpose other than increasing the current 95% re-election rate of incumbents. Why should incumbents have to suffer the inconvenience of uppity challengers?

Jebus. This country is going to die of Cynicism Deficiency.

*-i.e.: a sucker
[ link to this | view in thread ]
trollificus, 12 Mar 2009 @ 8:47am

Correction...not.
And yes, I'm aware the exchange rate of Euros to dollars is not 1-to-1.

Somehow, I did not think calculating out the exact number would have improved the post.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
trollificus, 12 Mar 2009 @ 9:02am

Actions taken by the EU Commission in response to the Bad Coffee Crisis:

Formed comittee to determine whether the "training" in good coffee making and appreciation should be handled by the EU Education Department or the EU Consumer Affairs Department. Result: Members of both departments would hash out shared responsibility at a conference held in a Columbian resort.

Formed committee to choose outside consulting firm to develop, test and administer "Coffee Education" course.
Result: Outside firm belonging to partner of committee member chosen. Consulting firm then hired members of committee as contract agents to actually do the work.Hands on all sides well-washed, backs well-scratched.

Consulted legal department about whether damages could be sought against Italian coffe-maker company.
Result: After meeting in resort city somewhat near coffee-maker factory and many, many hours of "work", legal reports "No."

Committee formed to mandate coffee quality across the EU, and penalties for advocating use of inferior coffee, coffee brewing devices and non-approved holding/dispensing devices (coffee cups).
Result: 5,000-page report issued favoring coffees from countries amenable to EU foreign policy, brewers produced by companies employing the most generous lobbyists and banning use of "I [heart] XXXX" and "World's Greatest XXXX" forumlations on coffee mugs as "resisting American cultural imperialism".

I may have gotten a detail wrong here and there, but...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
trollificus, 12 Mar 2009 @ 9:04am

follow up on above.
Still pending: EU Commission Committee on Wasteful Committees' (CWC) Report on Excessive Committee Formation.

But they should be back from Cannes any day...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 12 Mar 2009 @ 1:29pm

Public vs Private Waste
I wonder how often this sort of thing happens inside multi-billion-dollar corporations. Only, because they’re not subject to freedom-of-information laws, nobody gets to hear about it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2009 @ 2:05pm

Re; Public vs Private Waste
The answer is two-fold: "a lot less often" and "who gives a rat's ass".

This type of waste is reserved for government beuracracies, where the price tag never matters. Why would it? What happens to them if they waste too much money? Will there be some sort of cosequence? They can't go out of business that's reserved for, well, business.

If some company spends this much on coffee machines, who cares? It's their money, if it's a bad investment, it's their loss. What's it to you?

If it's your taxpayer money, though, you might want it spent slightly less frivolously.
[ link to this | view in thread ]