Are there any tea trolleys still going?
Posted by Macrosnail@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 71 comments
Just wondering if there is anywhere in the UK that still does tea trolleys at their place of work? I never got to experience one and I expect they're all gone, replaced with coffee machines etc but maybe maybe maybe...is there still somewhere that has a tea trolley pushed around the workplace with warm drinks and snacks?
ToiletDestroyer6000@reddit
That shit got thrown out of the modern day workplace along with being paid triple/double/time and a half for nights, Sundays and bank holidays, final salary pensions, subsidised staff canteens(slowly disappearing), all expense paid Christmas party and work events and annual pay rises.
This isn’t the 80s anymore.
WaltzFirm6336@reddit
Tbf at the job I had ten years ago, one of the in house cleaners was 60+ and was being forced to retire due to ill health (couldn’t bend, get up and down to clean tops and bottoms of things etc)
The boss created a position for her as a morning break tea lady. Very sweet, but a bit stressful going from everyone quickly grabbing their own drink in the small shared kitchen, which worked fine, to Doris serving everyone at a snails pace. But god love the boss and Doris.
GeorgiaL44@reddit
Tbf my industry gets most of this, though it's because we're heavily unionised (theatre).
Fade_To_Blackout@reddit
Luckily for me it is still time and a half for Saturdays, same for overtime for some folks, and double.time for Sundays, nights and holiday working.
Not quadruple for Sunday nights, I did ask!
CrossCityLine@reddit
Speak for yourself. I get time and a half on every BH, unsociable hour and every overtime hour I work. Triple time on Xmas day and double on Boxing day and NYD.
SupportNo9543@reddit
Me too, time and a half after 8 hours, double time weekends...
ImaginationInside610@reddit
I had a few all expenses Xmas parties in the early 2010s.
lgf92@reddit
We still have them nowadays and I work for a small firm of solicitors. Like we're not ordering Bollinger at the bar but the firm will pick up the cost of a meal and the drinks.
TruthfulRepugnance@reddit
More's the pity
DamienTheUnbeliever@reddit
I'm now considering buying a trolley just to do this despite working from home. I already have a teapot I never use because I'm the only consumer and I'd rather have fresh than stewed for half an hour.
DrKnackerator@reddit
Great BBC Archive show called Blessed are the Tea Ladies :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=49&v=ZOg08w8jyZU link to the first section which is brilliant. Alice and Dolly working on an early 80s City trading firm. Phones, green screen monitors, screaming and shouting, smoking and these two ladies doling out tea and chocolate biscuits :D
KrombopulosTunt@reddit
Yeah I do but it’s an excuse to get you more productive. Tea trolleys come around twice a day and people will come to your desk and take your order so you cant get up and make one yourself unless they’re super busy I’m which case they just leave the trolley there
PepsiMaxismycrack@reddit
My cousin works in a place that has a tea trolley - it also brings round wine and beers on Friday afternoon
Negative-Associate38@reddit
A friend who worked for an alcohol company had this too in c2008 - at 2 pm on a Friday the tea lady came round with tea and coffee, at 3pm she came round with the drinks trolley.
KopiteForever@reddit
I worked at a bank that had this too. Hot drinks were free, cold cans and bottles were charged, snacks and cakes also chargeable.
Free soft and alcoholic drinks on a static trolley every Friday afternoon.
srm79@reddit
Halifax by any chance? We had this in Chester, and a lovely canteen for lunch making fresh sandwiches to order
KopiteForever@reddit
No, was a smaller bank in London. Don't want to say the name for fear of doxxing them/me but a lot of banks offer perks like that. Official things and unofficial regular drinks on nights out etc
TheNewHobbes@reddit
I temped at the AQA exam board back in 2001 and they had one that went round the building twice a day involving two ladies a trolley and two massive urns, one for tea, one for coffee. If you wanted decaf, tough, if your office was at the end of the round and you didn't like stewed tea, tough. In a meeting, the loo or on the phone so you missed it, tough.
Afaik they didn't have any kitchens or machines elsewhere so it was the only time you could get hot drinks during the day.
I would find it impossible to work there now given my caffeine dependency.
VOOLUL@reddit
Bet365 in Stoke on Trent had tea and coffee bought to your desk by tea ladies (sometimes gents) when I worked there a couple of years back. I believe it's still a thing.
GodAtum@reddit
Yes I work at a trade firm
Opening-Fortune4@reddit
The FT has one
Dapper_Source1121@reddit
Yes we get tea trolley three times a day.
FarroFarro@reddit
I worked for the council for a couple of months just over ten years ago, there were a couple of women who did it but were both close to retirement and I think they were just waiting until they retired, rather than making them redundant, once they'd finished they didn't replace them.
goldenhawkes@reddit
One of the “old hands” where I work was reminiscing about the days of the tea trolley and cake trolley. The tea trolley went in the early 00s replaced with hot drinks machines, but they still all had their tea break all at the same time round the tea machines. And the cake trolley persisted a few more years and alas, that too has gone.
We now no longer all take tea breaks round the vending machines, apparently they used to be in positions surrounded by what would now be called “breakout zones” but now they are in the corridor.
sossighead@reddit
They don’t even have them on most train services these days it seems.
Nine-Eyes-@reddit
Hard to have trolleys going up and down when they are making passengers stand in the aisles
CactusCastrator@reddit
I was on an EMR one yesterday and saw one. Never seen one on Northern though.
Goblin_Nuts69@reddit
I hate the train ones, so loud and always seem to bash my knees
ClassroomDowntown664@reddit
it depends on the TOC and what spec the government told TOCs to use as some like GWR have a trolley service to create more seating
NoEnthusiasm2@reddit
They did on the last train I took in Wales. The guy behind it was very nice but obviously neurodivergent and gave me a long lecture on how the can of coke I had just bought was likely to give me diabetes.
twentiethcenturyduck@reddit
We still have at seat trolley service on some Greater Anglia trains out of Liverpool Street.
finalcircuit@reddit
I did a day's work (external IT specialist) at a slightly old skool manufacturing company in the late 2000s. Their building had burned down a couple of years before so they had shiny new premises, but they still had somebody coming round with a tea trolley. That was the last time I saw one and it seemed anachronistic even then.
goodmythicalmickey@reddit
Wowcher do this on a Thursday afternoon, but with beers and wines instead
Leafblind@reddit
In control of the ambulance surface we sometimes get them on the Night Shift, but if we’re Hella busy like we have been the last few days. It’s helpful when there is literally no time to get up from your desk. It often some one more senior bringing it round.
bluejackmovedagain@reddit
Pre-covid our placement students (who were with us for a year) took it upon themselves to get a tea trolley for doing the tea/coffee round.
That sounds like we exploited them, we really didn't, they just found it funny and they'd realised how much extra work we were doing to support them. Most of them ended up coming back when they qualified.
EllaSingsJazz@reddit
I've never experienced a tea trolley but I worked for a company that gave all drinks for free. Each floor would have a fridge full of coke cans, Fanta, water bottles etc. To help yourself to. It had a cheap canteen and again, drinks were free from there.
londonbrewer77@reddit
I’ve worked in a few places that have a drinks trolley on Fridays, but I’ve never seen a tea trolley.
BillyJoeDubuluw@reddit
Truthfully, besides from the train and the plane, the only person I know who really still has a tea trolley is a cousin of my Grandma’s, all set up and ready to accommodate double figures of relatives in one sitting!
I haven’t seen a “commercial example” excluding my trips through Scotland and France on the train or flight attendants serving refreshments in a long time…
What I will say, is a number of my corporate clients work spaces have a tendency to include very fancy - but self-service - drinks and snacks cabinets and such…
Top-Car-808@reddit
Last place I experienced a tea trolley was in Dublin, in a financial services setting. We were visiting from London. I asked the CEO about it as a sort of conversation starter, and he said that he caculated that it saved him a fortune - it basically meant his traders and fund managers didn't leave their desks to go out and get coffee. A tea lady was paid basically min wage, loved her job, knew everyone and it worked great. She had tea, coffee, and a range of free snacks.
This would have been back in the late 90s
plaguerpete@reddit
Wren kitchens call centre does - cheaper than letting the 'resource' leave their seats to get one as that affected the 'dynamic'
2c0@reddit
I have a trolley I use to transport large or heavy goods. I always offer cakes and tea to my colleagues when I pass - It's all imaginary though. I keep the real stuff locked in my office.
Desperate_Contact561@reddit
Not at work but on the 7:09am Lockerbie to Glasgow Trans Pennine Express 3 days a week.... Coffee isn't that great and the coffee drinkers get on the train with a coffee from the local take away.
Trivius@reddit
Still alive and well for patients in the NHS not so much f9r staff
DiscombobulatedBet75@reddit
We porters get plenty from them at our hospital 🤫
meniegg@reddit
The NHS still does tea trolleys on wards, with biscuits and everything. This is the only place I have experienced it and I'm 45.
However that does make old enough to remember working at places with proper staff canteens with real food being served.
DiscombobulatedBet75@reddit
I work in an NHS hospital and we have the same but they aren't tea ladies they are " nutritional assistants"
Blandiblub@reddit
For anyone reminiscing about tea ladies at work:
https://youtu.be/ZOg08w8jyZU?si=RFVpOjlf_4LVYDJL
Sin-Silver@reddit
Making a cup of tea or grabbing a biscuit is usually a just an excuse to take a break and having a walk. Having tea/coffee delivered would defeat half the reason.
EvilTaffyapple@reddit
We had one until COVID. We’ve only stripped because the majority work from home more now, so they can’t account for the number of employees in on any given day.
Used to be amazing. Home made soups, cakes, treats, etc. Everyone loved it.
DameKumquat@reddit
Not had one in the office since 2003 - when I went back to the same building in 2007 the tea ladies had retired and not been replaced.
mariominiaci@reddit
Mid nineties, university admin, the final boss of tea trolleys. Actual teapot. Hand made cake fresh that day onsite. Fresh scones too. Milk or cream (for the coffee). Crustless sandwiches. Best job.
missesthecrux@reddit
A tech job I did in Oxfordshire about 15 years ago had a tea trolley. And a lady that would make crumpets for everyone.
Same-Age-1891@reddit
You think this is the 1960s? They are long gone…
First_Report6445@reddit
Tea trolleys on trains were around until we'll in the 21st Century.
TruthfulRepugnance@reddit
I wish it was...
MarwoodChap@reddit
The last one I experienced was in 1999, at Durham University. I suspect they're all long gone now
Untrustworthy__@reddit
I hope so or I'll never get my Muller rice.
cr4lforce@reddit
Tea trolleys turned up at my office whenever somebody was raising money for charity. 50p a cup n another 50p for a slice of cake usually forced on tp you via guilt for the charity.
fukthefeed@reddit
I worked in Hong Kong for a few years from 2019 and my office had a tea trolly.
Loved it!
crooked_magpie@reddit
Not tea trolleys, but our work does have a kitchenette on each floor and a good coffee machine with teas, coffee, hot chocolate and flavoured syrups there for you to help yourself. So little extra walking, but don’t have to go out for coffee or pay for it from the coffee shop downstairs.
EyeAware3519@reddit
I started working in 1997, never seen one.
Recoil101uk@reddit
Last time I saw one of these was probably in 1993ish when I worked at the Job Centre. It came round at 11 with tea, sausage rolls etc then at 3 with Tea, cakes and biscuits...
Anxious-Bid4874@reddit
Still had a breakfast, elevenses and afternoon trolly plus a full canteen lunch service up to 1988 when I left.
continentaldreams@reddit
Not really helpful for the question though when we're talking about 38 years ago lol
grockle90@reddit
When I was working at a car insurance call centre, they'd occasionally do one for charity fundraising. Otherwise it was a case of using the vending machines or going upstairs to the canteen for barista-style coffee.
Patecatli@reddit
My first, last, and only experience of a tea trolley was working for a local authority in the mid 90s. Never seen one since.
skibbin@reddit
At the BBC back in 2013 there was one that came around very very occasionally, maybe once per month? I suspect it was when a bunch of snacks were nearing expiration. I think it was cash only and I'd already gone cashless, so I never got anything.
With any desk job I'm always glad of an opportunity to get up, so I prefer to go for a walk to a cafe or venting machine anyway
notthedoodaa@reddit
There's a food van that comes by my work every day. Tried it once ages ago, never again. Though the same bunch swarm round it every day. They must spend a fortune.
Danimalomorph@reddit
Not sure where it goes the rest of the year - but McMillans coffee morning sees it doing the rounds.
Expert_Dot1927@reddit
Not quite the same but north Ayrshire council have a small catering van that travels round some of their sites without a canteen, from memory the cakes were always excellent
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