The beginning of March we had four auditors in the office for a week. While they were here the snacks and drinks in the vending machines were flying off the shelves, with sales  nearly doubling from the previous week. With those numbers, I’m thinking that our auditors were verifying the quality of more than just our books. Oinkers?

Now, although the auditors may have purchased a snack or two, I doubt we can attribute the major increase in snacking to just those four people. The average snack level of the entire office must have increased during the audit.

Morrena, who restocks our vending machines, said: “I can always tell how stressed the office is by how fast the drinks and snacks go out of the vending machines. When the auditors were here I couldn’t keep it stocked.”

Stress in the work place can be expensive. The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine reports that: “Health care expenditures are nearly 50% greater for workers who report high levels of stress.”

Not only are people eating more junk food, which is unhealthy, they are feeling more stress at work. Vending machine inventory turnover can give managers more than an ethereal way to quantify the stress level of their employees and office.