(A love letter to the teachers’ lounge)
Where is the most disgusting place in any high school?
The gym locker room?
The cafeteria?
A random boys’ bathroom?
Nope.
It’s the teachers’ lounge. Or the teachers’ workroom. Whatever name your school gives to the small, windowless space where hope — and hygiene — go to die.
I remember walking past the teachers’ workroom when I was a public high school student in the early 1980s. Cigarette smoke poured from the doorway. The ditto machine hummed, spitting out warm purple worksheets with that unmistakable chemical scent. It was a heady blend of nicotine, ink, and exhaustion.
I assumed things had improved since then.
They have not.
The Microwave: A Horror Story
“By 3:00 p.m., that microwave is a crime scene.”
In every school where I’ve taught, I’ve refused to use the communal microwave. If I could stash one in my classroom, I did. The shared microwave in the workroom? Absolutely not.
Teachers bring leftovers from last night’s dinner to heat for lunch. Lasagna. Pot roast. Trout. Tuna casserole. Curry. Brussels sprouts. Each one announces itself long before the timer dings. The resulting bouquet is unforgettable — and not in a good way.
Then come the explosions.
PLEASE COVER YOUR DISH, says the laminated sign.
Someone doesn’t.
Lunch detonates. Beef stew splatter. Then spaghetti and meatballs. Tomato sauce joins the mural. Each new user reheats every previous splatter, baking it permanently onto the walls.
By the end of the day, the microwave looks like a biological experiment. The custodians refuse to touch it. The faculty plays a long-running game of “Not It.” No one ever loses.
Nasty.
The Refrigerator: A Cautionary Tale
At a small private school where I once taught, we had one communal refrigerator in the basement. Like all shared fridges, items entered with hope and exited with mold.
One day, an administrator was assigned to clean it out. As I walked down the basement hallway, the smell hit in waves. I covered my face and shouted, “What IS that smell?!”
Someone had left cauliflower in the fridge. For weeks. Possibly months. It had liquefied. The container leaked. Putrid cauliflower juice had dripped throughout the refrigerator.
I have smelled many things in life. This remains the worst.
I don’t think the administrator left it there.
But she had to clean it up.
There’s a life lesson in that somewhere.
The Workroom Conversations
Beyond the smells, there’s another reality of the teachers’ lounge: the conversation.
Sometimes it’s positive. Often, it’s venting. Teachers processing difficult mornings, challenging students, confusing emails, unrealistic expectations. Most of it is appropriate. Occasionally, it slips into gossip. Sometimes I’ve overheard things that weren’t my business. Sometimes I’ve overshared my own frustrations.
The workroom can be a safe place…
or a dangerous one.
Psychologist and researcher Brené Brown notes,
“We need spaces where we can be real without being ridiculed.”
Sometimes the teachers’ lounge becomes that space by accident. Sometimes it becomes something else entirely.
The Popcorn Years
In the early 2000s, my school ran on a 90-minute block schedule. Four blocks/mods a day. Three classes and one glorious 90-minute planning period.
A small group of us shared fourth-mod planning. Once a week someone popped a bag of microwave popcorn. The smell drifted down the hallway. Others arrived. Another bag was popped. Paper towels lined the table. We sat. We talked. We laughed. We breathed.
No emails.
No grading.
No meetings.
Just teachers being human.
It was therapy disguised as snack time.
Why It Matters
Teaching is isolating. Most days are spent surrounded by students and very few adults. When I taught theatre, I could go an entire day without seeing another grown-up. The teachers’ workroom became the one place to exhale, share burdens, and remember you’re not alone.
Teachers need each other.
Even if the microwave smells like fish casserole.
Yes — the teachers’ lounge may be the most disgusting place in a school.
But it’s also where friendships form, burdens lighten, and laughter breaks through exhaustion.
Just… maybe bring your own lunch.
And your own microwave.
