Well we’ve been in the new offices for the best part of a year now, sadly that is just exactly how long it took the caterers to bring around the demise of the Kipper Club. We had only just gone international as well, introducing our European colleagues to the wonders of the breakfast Kipper, only it was as I said a disaster on that occasion. In order to be as fair as I can to the catering company that provided this service for us I would say that they have had some problems, these problems seem to have been ongoing for quite some time. I’d like to say that this will be fixed in a short time, but in fact it looks like it will be a problem for some time. Just to let you know how and why the Kipper Club ended I’d like to run through a brief history or time line, it all started probably in late May or early June 2010 – the Chef in post at that time had said if there was anything that we wanted to ask. We did, there was some initial debate and Kippers on a Friday was the suggestion. For a period of time we were treated to some lovely Isle of Man Kippers, at the price of a full canteen meal – but initially all felt that this was worth the cost. Well it’s amazing how things can change, as of now no one thinks that it’s value for money.
The picture above is of a Kipper, it’s about twice as large as the Kipper we were served with last Friday. Now I’m not one for bitching when it comes to food, I was in the Merchant Navy after all so know when food is not quite up to standard. Generally it would be better just to not have it again, which is in essence what has happened – as there were a number of members usually around six there’s the loss of revenue to consider along with the loss of good will.
In actual fact what you can see in the picture on the right is a traditional Kipper, normally they come in pairs, however had any of the kippers that were served been close to one of these it wouldn’t have been a problem. We wouldn’thave left the canteen feeling a little unhappy, as this was not the first time we had been left feeling this way in recent months. It was decided to have a vote to see if we continue the Kipper Club, the decision reached was summed up by one of my colleagues sending out an email with the line from the “Hitch Hikers Guide” as used in the title of this blog post. Still there’s not much point in lamenting the fact that the Kipper Club has gone, the loss can be looked on as a lesson in life, we could have stayed with the original Kipper supplier if we agreed to a 33% increase in price. There were various suggestions from bring our own in and nuke them in the microwave, all the way up to we should just book a table in the canteen and get outside caterers to deliver them.
Now if we were going to have a bash at getting them delivered, here is a picture of what I’d like my Kippers to look like when they arrived. But alas it would seem that this is very unlikely, what I’ll have to do is find out where I can get some on my way to the office. Or our other option would be to ask the Chef for something that doesn’t challenge his artistic abilities and culinary skills so much, perhaps we could go for the properly fried egg club or the mediocre poached egg club. We could really push the boat out and create the Bacon with less than 50% fat club, the possibilities are endless – but at the moment I’ll just agree with my colleague “So Long and thanks for all the fish!”