ESSIE BURKE | Human Interest | CONTACT
Terry Cranston was ready to quit his soul-destroying job as a customer service officer when a seemingly second-hand sandwich press arrived in the lunchroom at his South Betoota office.
The 46-year-old opted against hitting send on a terse letter of resignation and instead took his multigrain cheese and tomato sandwich from the insulated pouch in his work satchel.
“I had given the old sandwich press a wide berth because my coworkers refused to clean it and it was caked with coagulated cheese,” Mr Cranston told The Betoota Advocate.
Mr Cranston said he was the first to road-test the slick Teflon plates of the new unit, which was so generous in proportion that an entire loaf of Turkish bread could be clamped inside.
“As I removed my piping hot sandwich from the press, all thoughts of giving my job the arse and studying documentary filmmaking by correspondence slipped from my mind,” Mr Cranston said.
The middle-aged public servant is one of thousands of Australians who stay in jobs they hate because their employers offered a small perk when they were about to throw in the towel.
Katie Portmanteau, a 27-year-old solicitor from Revesby, said she was poised to quit on Monday by flipping the bird at her supervising partner but was placated by the arrival of the weekly fruit box.
“I can’t imagine working in an office where I have to buy my own mandarins,” Ms Portmanteau said in an email sent at 2am as she was leaving the office in a taxi.
