Should I be tea’d off about selfish kettle fillers?

In our workplace kitchenette, a colleague filled the kettle in front of me with only enough water for herself. I had to refill it, this time adding enough for everyone to enjoy. Is this colleague’s behaviour acceptable?
S.J., Hawthorn, Vic

I ran this past my wife because she’s a kettle-boiling enthusiast. She drinks about 45 cups of tea a day, 55 if guests drop around, 75 if they stay longer than an hour. And she got pretty upset when she heard about your situation, saying, “This is terrible! A person should always fill a kettle with enough water for the next person! It’s courteous, it’s practical and if a kettle was left empty and somebody switched it on, then that kettle could ... it could ... die!” A tear rolled out of her eye, a dark-brown one, made of pure liquid tannin.

Not being a big kettle-boiler myself, I don’t agree with my wife, though I’d never say that to her face; she swings a tea bag like nunchaku. My thinking is that leaving the kettle empty saves electricity because people only boil what they need. And it saves time because the kettle boils faster. And it saves the kettle because there’s no limescale build-up on the inside (apparently, limescale can taint the flavour of a hot beverage, and it can only be cleaned with vinegar, which, according to my wife, taints the flavour of a hot beverage a whole lot more). Clearly, this is a hugely polarising issue, but we both agree that if this colleague knew you were waiting to use the kettle and only filled it with enough for herself, that’s pretty shabby behaviour. Next time you see her heading for the kettle, pour in a bit of vinegar before she gets there. It’s okay: you’re just cleaning off the limescale.

guru@goodweekend.com.au

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