Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Employees need written reminder to flush twice

Someone on the maintenance crew where I work has taken to affixing notices to the stalls in the men's bathroom. For several weeks now each of the two stalls has had a posted sign instructing visitors not to leave any waste or paper in the commode and to flush twice when necessary. Apparently some guys still weren't getting the hint because recently we were greeted with a new sign that reads:

Gentlemen:

Please do not leave paper or waste in the toilets. If necessary, please flush twice to clear the bowl.

Please do not leave the seat or floor wet. This is unsanitary and inconsiderate to others who use the facilities.

Thank you.

The maintenance lady, whose written English is apparently much better than her spoken English, didn't bother to take the old sign down before posting this new one. The two are just scotch taped to the wall side by side, both in large Times New Roman letters. If it had been me, I would have taped one to the inside of the stall door and one above the tank. That way regardless of the reason for one's visit, a person could still read the notice. That's just me.

I don't frequent the stalls unless someone is already at the urinal, so I can't vouch for their day-to-day cleanliness. However of the few times I have ventured into one, I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary. As a rule, I don't have lengthy restroom visits at the workplace so I might not know if the seat was wet, and because I don't have lengthy restroom visits at the workplace, I probably wouldn't care if the seat were wet. Some things you just let ride. As for a wet floor, sure it's gross but how wet can it be? A drop here and there? It's not like people are stepping knee-deep in the stuff. Step over it. Then again, if our maintenance lady is having to get on her hands and knees to unstop a backed up toilet, maybe any amount of alien bodily fluid is too much to be face to face with. Anyway, my point is that I've yet to walk into the bathroom and found that it didn't meet my expectations. Are these signs really merited? Are the men in this building really so haphazard when it comes to elimination that they need to be reminded of what you'd think is just general common sense?

I discretely removed one of the signs from the bathroom for the sole purposes of bringing it back to my cube and copying it verbatim into my blog. Holding up the sign, I then flagged down a female coworker on her way back from the bathroom to ask her if the ladies' room also contained such explicit directives. She looked at me shamedly. "Do you mean to tell me you put your hands all over that paper with everybody else's fecal germs on it?" After she wiped the look of disgust off her face she went on to inform me that indeed the women too were subject to these gentle reminders, only theirs included additional warnings not to throw feminine products into the commode. I've seen similar signs in some unisex bathrooms. Again, do women really do that? Try and flush tampons down the toilet? Even the industrial flush has its limits.

Since I now have the one sign at my desk, I have a good mind to doctor it up or rewrite it altogether before posting it back in the stall. Maybe I could incorporate a little Charmin-inspired jingle of my own. Hey there, bear, you're not done yet. You better wipe that seat. Don't leave it wet. Hmm, is that a double entendre I see? Part of me wants to come up with something off beat and put it up there like PLEASE REFRAIN FROM USING THE COPIER PAPER AS TOILET TISSUE or maybe PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE YOUR EMPLOYEE EVALUATION IN THE COMMODE. Or what about this: وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب ?

Come to think of it, maybe I should leave well enough alone. I like to think I enjoy a fairly wholesome reputation at work, and a stunt like that might jeopardize the image. Who knows how much havoc I've already caused just by taking down the one sign? Will the night watchman still know to flush twice if necessary? Besides, my coworkers have enough to worry about without having to put up with my shit.

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