They all laughed at me at the invention symposium (that I dreamed up in my head) when I showed them that it could be done! I installed a handle to my coffee grinder and emerged vindicated and victorious. The handle was real. The vindication was imagined.
For nearly a year now my Bodum Bistro electric burr coffee grinder has been a source of frustration. Not in grinding coffee beans to be brewed into delicious perfection, but at the struggle I went through each time I had to pull it out of a below cupboard. It has gripping dots on the rear of it that insufficiently provides hand traction to help raise out with one hand.
Two weeks ago I wrote an email to the Bodum company, headquartered in Switzerland and the manufacturer of these coffee grinders and got a satisfactory response thanking me for my suggestion of a new design. I described a grippable, ergonomically fit handle on the backside of the appliance.
"Thank you for your feedback. Please consider that it will be sent to our design team so they can consider it." See? Satisfactory. But what Tiago S., a member of the customer service team who responded to my suggestion, isn't considering himself is that I will send him photos of the engineered handle on the back of my Bodum Bistro electric burr coffee grinder and that it has become a resounding success in my household.
The installation of the Ace Hardware black utility pull handle came with great risk. I could have cracked the outer plastic by drilling 4 screws into it. The screws might have bored too deep into the cylinder and interfered with the grinding mechanism. The handle could have been too flimsy for the size and weight of the grinder. The risk was worth the reward. But what of my invention symposium colleagues residing in my head? Those people, they will laugh no more.
