How to create workplace refrigerator rules when rules did not previously exist?

Question

So at my office, everyone had been using the refrigerator responsibly and considerately for as long as I have been there. All of a sudden this year, at least one person has started storing raw meat in the fridge, sometimes in opened containers and sometimes, on the rack with no container at all, and sometimes even letting it go bad. The refrigerator now smells all of the time.

How can I institute rules for the workplace refrigerator, given that I am only a lowly employee (although everyone is, there is one owner/CEO about 50 or so employees with no middle management, so I want to keep this as democratic as possible)? Note there are two companies on the floor that share this fridge, so it would be difficult to form a meeting between both sets of employees.

Answer 1

It's simple, if it is unsafe or left too long, it's going to get thrown out immediately. Leave a note indicating they can find their meat in the trash. I don't see it as being any different as finding a fire, put it out now and don't wait to ask your boss.

I know this sounds too brutal, but someone could get killed by this stuff or get very sick. If they want to complain about their food being tossed, it will be a great opportunity to give them a health lesson.

Answer 2

Recommendation: Get approval from management in both companies to post a sign saying "Everything in this fridge must have a name and a date on it. Anything that does not will be thrown out. Anything that has a date later than "now" or earlier than "one week before now" will be thrown out."

But realize that by doing so you've just volunteered to be the primary enforcer for this, which means both doing the gruntwork and having to do the "don't argue with me, your own management approved this" discussion repeatedly.

If you're extremely lucky, the slob will get the idea after losing something they wanted to keep. But that isn't likely. They're leaving stuff because they don't care enough about it. If someone else will clean up after them, that's probably a win from their point of view.

EDIT: I'd suggest adding to the policy "Fridge will be emptied at the end of every month." (Or every other month, or every quarter, or whatever.) That gives you a chance to do a clean sweep and to wipe it down if needed. But again, unless one or the other company is willing to pay their cleaning staff to perform this service, you may be assigning yourself that job. And it's not unlikely that you'll have to do it on your own time rather than being paid for it -- your boss isn't going to want to pay expert prices for grunt labor.

This isn't perfect. But it's possible, it's been used in many workplaces and at least it gives you a defense for tossing anything unreasonable... while defining "reasonable".

Answer 3

At places were I've worked, we were fortunate enough to have a dedicated person to handle all the logistical nuances of making the office more comfortable for employees. Aside from typical office managerial duties, we've had office managers who, twice per week, would clean out the refrigerator by throwing away any unlabeled or out-of-date food.

With that said, if you don't have such a person, and there's a problem with sanitation in the office, that falls under the umbrella of "safety", which would fall under the domain of human resources.

Thus, approach the human resources department with your concerns. You don't necessarily have to mention specific names of people or get into specific details, but if you mention to HR that you feel there could be a food safety issue in the refrigerator, they should hopefully be able to take it from there and implement solutions to the problem, whether that be hiring someone or just simply clarifying the policy in a more official manner.

Finally, if your workplace is in the United States and covered by OSHA, they may be responsible legally to ensure a safe environment for all employees. In places where I've worked, HR is delegated the task of complying with such regulations, but this could be different in other places of business, such as small businesses with a small or nonexistent HR department.