Deposit urine everywhere except the urinal, please.
March 8th, 2016
My coworkers are horrible, horrible human beings.
Not even counting the fact that they're intentionally ignorant, willfully reprehensible, and cheerfully despicable, the people I work with lack basic skills that you or I take for granted. For one thing, they don't physically understand how toilets work. Every single time I go to use the facilities, even when just to unload a gallon or two of tea I'd drank earlier that morning, there's bodily wastes everywhere.
It's as if they believe there's some a urine fairy, who slips into the restroom unseen, and magically removes all of their emissions for them. Since our building lacks modern niceties such as automagically flushing systems, each toilet and urinal has what you'd expect: a lever you can pull, or even trigger with your foot if you're flexible enough. And yet, these people can't make them work.
As you may be aware, we build aircraft parts at the building I work in. You know, for military aircraft! You'd think that people responsible for such important stuff would have at least a rudimentary understanding of how their waste moves from where they leave it out of the building. But there I go again, giving my coworkers far more credit than they deserve. I swear, they're horrible.
Things in the restrooms are so awful that I wrote a concern to the Environmental, Health, and Safety people at the company about this. In the event of full disclosure, this is what I shared with the management:
My concern is that grown adults don't appear capable of operating the features of the restrooms upstairs.
I know the American public school system has its flaws, but I'm pretty sure that flushing after you use a toilet is one of the basic things they cover before they move you on to more advanced subjects. And yet, both salaried and production individuals here don't seem to understand that if you don't flush after using a toilet, what you left in it STAYS THERE.
There are few things that are more unpleasant during my work day than walking into a stall only to see a turdberg breaking the surface of a forlorn sea of soggy toilet paper and urine-tainted water, or being practically blinded by the smell of whatever horrible chemicals someone's kidneys have filtered into the urinal.
Perhaps we could have every adult here take a test to verify that yes, they do understand how to operate the lever that makes their bodily waste go away. Or, if that's too embarrassing for some, maybe we could put signs next to each toilet that indicates just how they actually WORK. Because frankly, this seems terribly unsanitary and unhealthy. On top of being just plain gross.
Said management was forced to read my safety concern in their monthly safety meeting. I am told by my boss' boss at the time that he enjoyed every second he spent reading it, as did his boss. She told me later that she even framed that and put it up in her office. Which is no small praise, considering that she's an MIT genius who should probably be working anywhere better than here.
But, sadly, nothing changed. This was two years ago, and the problem persists to this very day. I was prompted to write about this because this morning, upon going to make use of a urinal, I found it in a state that implied, were I some sort of CSI, that someone's bladder detonated in front of the urinal, the walls, floors, and urinal itself liberally slathered with fluid.
Even on a bad day, I usually don't coat the whole room. Well, only once, but that was a special situation.