Bring your own cutlery?

yes they allow this but i don't like it, its inefficient

Is the canteen "private" for the bank? Does it allow access for anyone? Do they have waiters taking orders at each table like in a restaurant? Or they serve you like in a camp, you carry a tray and decide in a long line what you want to eat - like in an canteen?

@Justin ..as well as plates, cups. glasses, napkin as well as salt & pepper and hot-sauce ;)

"Am I off the mark here or not?" - in my mind you are indeed off the mark. Bring your own cutlery.

Bringing your own cutlery is inefficient? What does that even mean? Are you off the mark? Yes, you are.

Yes, staff bring own cutlery is inefficient - suppose 1000 staff use cutlery, this can be washed in a highly efficient industrial dishwasher on site and then air dried. Alternatively 1000 staff members can drive home say, 10 km a day collectively carrying 1000 forks and 1000 knives with them, and do 1000 handwashes collectively. Some staff will not drive home and may use a company paper towel to dry there cutlery. There is also the question of keeping the cutlery clean on the way to work, some staff will use plastic bags, or paper towels to do this, others may wash ...

their cutlery before eating as well as after if it got dirty in transit. A few may purchase some sort of box for their cutlery instead, which would be unnescesarry otherwise. Sometimes people will forget their cutlery at home, and will be stuck. Others will keep cutlery on there work desk, some of them may not clean the cutlery properly when they do that, and then someone will have to complain about it, wasting time etc. etc.

@Dilitante those staff members have to travel to and from the office anyway, I don't see how carrying a knife and a fork will generate any massive overhead in their day-to-day travels. And keeping it clean? Use a pocket? Keep them in the container you use to bring in the food? Unless your journey to work is via the inner workings of a sewage treatment plant I can't see how there would be any particular mess!

maybe i'm to fussy or i don't keep my pockets clean enough, but if something comes out of my pocket i would clean it before putting it in my mouth

also the silhouette of a knife and fork in my jacket or trouser pocket is not really the look i'm going for

Is this metal reusable cutlery if plastic disposable? Is there another place where an employee could rise and store their cutlery (like a break room with a sink?)

@Dillitante Just a matter of interest... How do you bring your food there?

Collectively this is inefficient, but this is not a collective endeavor, it's an individual endeavor. The company doesn't and shouldn't care if 1,000 people have to transport, wash, and dry their own personal cutlery. This does not make the company less efficient. The company loses no money nor productivity due to this. Your argument that this is inefficient is false.

I simply lick my cutlery until it is clean, dry it with my handkerchief and then leave the cutlery in my office drawer which is reasonably clean after four years of use. I do not see a hygienic problem.

At our place we are not even allowed to bring outside food into the canteen.

It costs time and money to dishwash the cutlery - do you pay for that?

If you call yourself their manager in the same manner they started to call themselves a restaurant, will they obey your orders?

How much are you paying the canteen to wash the cutlery?

@JoeStrazzere I think I've agreed with every single answer of yours I've ever read on this site. But man, this is crazy. This is a staff canteen, not a restaurant - regardless of what they like to call themselves.

@Strawberry - reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Some things are worth getting bothered about and raising a fight. Cutlery is not one of them, IMHO.

@Crowley in a box

@JoeStrazzere Your comment reminded me of this instantly. "I didn't want to cause any fuss"...

Is losing 80 knives and forks per day (20,000 divided by approximately 250 working days per year) normal? I hope not!

Perhaps the catering company should introduce a returnable deposit on the cutlery instead then? Because, that's an absurdly high level of loss. (And, it would be interesting to see how much this measure does reduce loss - i.e. how much of the theft is by their paying customers, and how much is the freeloaders?)

To everyone claiming that making the staff do their own washing is "inefficient": Presumably, they already wash cutlery and dishes at home, for breakfast and dinner - plus whatever container they transport their lunch to work in. Adding ~20 seconds to hand-wash the cutlery (or put it in the dishwasher) is hardly onerous.

@Strawberry I think there may be some cultural issues here, in the US I think business cafeterias are becoming very rare (outside of dotcom culture areas) and fast-casual restaurants where you are served like a cafeteria (think Chipotle or Cava) are becoming very common. So mostly what we have now is "crummy restaurant that happens to be in the first floor of my building and sells food of a bland style with no wait staff". (Plus sometimes adjacent large-brand-name coffee shop.)