Maybe it was just a coincidence.
Or maybe when something that big is out there, a presence that size, it just doesn’t go undetected. It has to be sensed, and said, by someone, in some way.
If I Had a Nickel
If I had a nickel for every time I spilled a cup of coffee, I’d be rich!
Here’s how I’d do it.
1. SETUP AND EXPENSES
First: the coffee. At Costco you can get a 12-pack of 34-ounce cans of Folgers coffee for $65.99. Each of those makes 270 cups, which comes out to 2.04 cents a cup. An industrial-strength filter-free coffee brewer capable of brewing 40 cups at a time costs $119.99 at Costco. Five of these will be a one-time expense of $599.95. Costco also sells a 1,000-count box of 12-ounce paper cups for $116, which comes out to 11.6 cents a cup and to 1.16 cents per use of cup (based on a conservative estimate of ten spills per cup). I do not have a Costco card, but I can borrow one from a friend.
In terms of a workspace, a 1500 square foot space downtown with easy-to-wipe floors rents for $750 per month. While this is technically the kind of work one could do at home, I believe in keeping work and home life separate when possible for psychological reasons, especially in an enterprise such as this one, which I can easily envision driving a person insane. Mental health is an issue I take very seriously.
The single biggest one-time expense that I anticipate would be the construction and installation of a waist-high circuitous conveyor belt that would deliver cups of coffee from one side of the room to the other at a speed of four miles per hour, allowing proper time for me to retrieve and spill coffee cups on one end of the room while an assistant restocks and refills the coffee cups at the other end of the conveyor belt. I would estimate $14,400 for construction and installation (this is a ballpark estimate because none of the custom-conveyor companies I consulted understood the nature of the request) which can be amortized over the length of the enterprise.
2. STAFF
I would require one full-time assistant dedicated to preparing the next batch of coffee while I am busy spilling the current one and one additional full-time assistant simultaneously dedicated to cleaning the debris of the previous group of spills while I am on to the next. This system of cleanliness and order will help provide a situation of maximum safety, sanitation, and efficiency, as well as maintaining the all-important positive psychological environment. (Once again, mental health is an issue of paramount importance to me.)
Alternatively, I could conceivably enlist two unpaid interns who would receive college credit instead of monetary payment, but then I’d have to spend time writing their evaluations: time I could have spent spilling coffee.
I am presuming minimum wage (and would in fact become very angry if one of these employees asked for more than minimum wage for this job, likely out of proportion, especially given the stressful work enviroment I anticipate for this enterprise). Staffing would come to a total of $116 per day.
3. MISCELLANEOUS & UNANTICIPATED COSTS
Rubber pants and other similar miscellaneous expenses too numerous and minor to list in full detail here should add up to no more than $1000 per year.
Cleaning materials when purchased in bulk from Costco should average no more than $50 per day.
Theft of company materials is likely to run as high as $1000 per year. (While I believe in paying minimum wage, I don’t expect my workers to like me for it.)
Psychological counseling to handle the effects of devoting my life’s work to this crushingly bizarre and isolating activity of no relevant value or connection to the wider world should run me approximately $750 per week.
4. NET INCOME
Finally, the fun part: time to knock these babies down and watch the nickels come pouring in!
Assuming that at full operational capacity with a functional 4-mph conveyor belt that averages one spill of coffee per two seconds over the course of an eight-hour workday, we’re looking at approximately 1800 spills per hour and 14,400 spills per workday.
At 5 cents per spilled cup of coffee, that comes to $720 per day, or $3600 per week, or $180,000 per year, allowing for two weeks of vacation per year, during which I envision myself going somewhere calm and cold.
5. TOTAL PROFITS
The total cost per spill associated with this process comes to 2.9 cents per cup, or $417.60 per day, or $104,400 per year. The remaining expenses total $52,232.00 annually.
These figures combined, and then subtracted from the previously calculated $180,000 net income from spilling approximately 3,600,000 cups of coffee per year at a compensation of five cents per spill, leave me with a total profit of $23,368 per year, before taxes.
6. CONCLUSION
So, maybe I wouldn’t be rich, but I’d get by.
A Good Problem to Have