Fridge Factor

The office refrigerators in the kitchens at First Marblehead Corp., an educational loan firm in Boston, are so sparkling clean and organized that they put any home fridge to shame. Each Tupperware container, Chinese takeout box, bag of fruit, and yogurt is marked with the owner's name. That's because it's the last Friday of the month, fridge-purge day, and everyone knows through bitter experience that if it isn't labeled, it's history.

"We no longer grow our own penicillin," says Sherri Gutzler, First Marblehead's distribution services coordinator and the one-woman, fridge-smackdown crew who makes sure the company's 10 office refrigerators are maintained to her exacting standards. She implemented the fridge-cleaning program nine months ago after realizing the company "had a problem."

Yes, the office fridge, long the secret, shared shame of the workplace, is finally getting a dose of discipline from office managers who, sick of leaving the job to the pack of highly paid, overgrown, irresponsible 5 -year-olds they work with, are taking matters into their own yellow-gloved hands.

Admittedly, there is no shortage of filthy office refrigerators out there, but an informal poll of office-bound peers indicates that their numbers might actually be dwindling.

So, which workplace disaster area should the fridge police tackle next? How about the copy room -- a workspace so dirty, disheveled, and impenetrably disorganized that to venture within is to risk a slow death by paper cuts and toner inhalation.

KRIS FRIESWICK