When I was 16, I was the little b!tch boy at an engineering firm. Among the various random tasks such as set up and maintain computers, sweep the entire parking lot with a broom (boss wanted to see me work my ass off and laugh about it, heh), and knock down a wall for remodeling, I had to make sure there was always coffee available. If I ever missed refilling it (a few times), I would get a screaming boss (really huge guy) calling my name from the hallway. It was funny cause' the engineers were scared of him too. So when the boss would come looking for me (I would usually sneak around the other way into the break room and start refilling coffee before he found me), all the engineers would quit talking and behave in their cubicles. (think Dilbert)
It was crazy. We had a coffee machine that would brew 2 gallons at a time using a bunch of Maxwell House restaurant coffee bags. They always wanted the coffee to be strong and would complain to me if it was too weak. Also, the coffee machine had no sort of ventilation so the bottom 1/3 of coffee would always be burnt. The coffee that came out of the thing was like 200 degrees (ya, sue hot) and it seemed to behave more like a thick sludge than normal coffee. We went through 11 billion gallons of coffee a day. They used to think it was funny that a bunch of non-exercising overweight aging engineers would be putting down coffee like frat boys drink beer.
The engineers always would just call it mud.. as in "Hey B!tch Boy, get me another cup of hot mud with 2 creamers." It was the absolute worst coffee I ever had. I think the engineers agreed with me. But, every morning after failing to get enough sleep, the coffee was a godsend. For some reason, I get a weird craving for that awful burnt mud and I brew a batch using double the normal amount and then I burn it. Yum.