Seriously, sometimes the internet delivers stories that are so wild, you have to read them five times to believe they’re real. And this one? Well, it started on LinkedIn, of all places, and involves a hotel coffee machine, raw chicken, and a quest for a promotion. You heard that right.
A product manager from Austin, Texas, named Alexander Cohen, decided to share a rather… unique money-saving strategy during a work trip. On a Monday back in September, he posted that he needed a cheaper meal because his hotel room didn’t have a kitchen. His solution? He “managed to use the coffee machine to cook chicken with butter and garlic.” Yes, the machine meant for making your morning caffeine fix.
His reasoning? He wanted to save his company money because he knows “that every dollar counts on the P&L,” adding, “It’s the little things that get you promoted.” He even tagged his post with hashtags like #work, #money, #hotel, #coffee, #promotion, and #careeradvice. As you can imagine, the internet had some thoughts that ranged from sheer horror to hilarious disbelief.
Reactions flooded in immediately. People questioned the hygiene, the sanity, and the potential health risks. One commenter on LinkedIn asked, “I take it they’re not counting the sick time you’ll need for giving yourself salmonella on a business trip?” Another chimed in, “This is satire, right? It has to be satire.” The jokes started too, with someone suggesting “chicken satay” could be next.
This utterly bizarre claim quickly escaped the confines of professional networking. The post went absolutely bonkers, rocketing across social media. It garnered over 1,400 likes on LinkedIn, exploded on Twitter with more than 82,500 likes and over 5,440 retweets, and hit Reddit where it received over 6,200 upvotes and hundreds of comments. People were sharing their own (clearly fake) hotel cooking hacks, like making “fried eggs in my hotel room using my company laptop” or having a “barbecue on the iron.”
The story took another turn when Cohen himself commented on his post, asking if anyone knew “how to get the taste of chicken out of the pot” because hotel management had apparently been alerted and was “threatening to charge the company card” he had on file. At this point, many commenters started leaning toward the idea that this whole thing might just be one giant, elaborate joke.
And it turns out, they were right! We got confirmation straight from Alexander Cohen himself, who told TODAY Food in a direct message on Twitter, “I wasn’t even traveling at the time. I was actually at the Austin FC game at the time and we were delayed because of rain, so I figured I’d have some fun.” So, no hotel coffee pot chicken dinner actually happened.
Cohen revealed that he actually enjoys posting satirical stories on LinkedIn “almost as a hobby now” precisely because “no one expects jokes on a ‘professional’ social network.” He admitted, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying how far this thing has spread,” adding that he was genuinely surprised at how viral the post became across different platforms. It just goes to show the power of a truly unexpected (and slightly horrifying) story!
So, next time you’re scrolling through LinkedIn, keep an eye out—you never know what bizarre tale might pop up. And if you need a sign to step away from your screen and embrace life beyond the grind, Alexander Cohen has some simple advice: “Work is work. Go outside and enjoy life.” Maybe just don’t try cooking dinner in the lobby coffee maker when you do.
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