Next time you're around the water cooler, here is something that may be deemed worthy of discussion: the amount spent by state governments in the United States on bottled water would send a shiver through Mr Wong in accounts.
While refilling that disposable cup, consider how a survey of four states in the usually cooler climes of the northeast found that the bills for quenching the thirst of government workers amounted to nearly US$4million last year. All this came amid fiscal belt-tightening, homes being foreclosed and wars being fought in two dry and distant countries.
Let's say Mr Wong also happens to be an ardent supporter of green causes, and a fierce guardian of the company purse strings; he will spring back from his spreadsheets in alarm at a finding in a Corporate Accountability International report that 50 billion plastic water bottles end up in US landfills or as roadside litter. See him cast his cost-cutting eye at the office water dispenser when he learns from his fellow environmental campaigners that it requires three times as much water to make the bottle as it does to fill it.
But where would a chat around the water cooler be without a contrarian opinion? Local suppliers reuse those hefty barrels that regularly need upending and replacing to sate many a dry palate. But the chief accountant is having none of it. Some businesses and local governments in the US are beginning to cut costs and reduce the use of plastic by installing stainless steel water dispensers.
Billed as more eco-friendly, they come with a purification system and are connected to the building's water supply. With the usual water dispenser features, the office can still have its own parish pump, with all the associated social and thirst-quenching benefits, but greener and healthier, manufacturers say.
Not surprisingly, at least one company supplying stainless steel water dispensers seems to have allied itself to the green cause and to statements issued by Corporate Accountability International, which targets what it sees as industries that flout ethical or environmental concerns. And the lucrative bottled water market has come under the spotlight.