Dear paper towel filler person....or non-Christmas mini-rants

The BBQ Pit
1

Apologies, this is way mild, and as per usual I have no colorful, fun, 4-letter outrage type words for you.

However this IS very annoying.
Look, I know that your job probably sucks, and that filling up the paper towel dispenser isn’t the only thing on your list. I’ve done customer service menial stuff for work as well. But it is NOT going to do you the least little bit of good (that is, save time or allow you to refill less often), for you to stuff the paper towel dispenser (not the roller type, the type with the stainless steel opening which is supposed to dispense folded paper towels) to within an inch of its life!

All that does is make the first “customer” to visit after you refill it, have to pull out huge hunks of paper towels so that they can get something other than tiny shreds. When it’s stuffed that full, the dispenser won’t dispense. I HATE this! I get finished washing my hands and then try to get “a” paper towel. But NOoooo, the stack is stuffed in there tighter than J.Lo’s butt into her latest jeans! I try to grab the little flap of the first paper towel in the opening, I pull, and get a small shred of paper towel, I try and try and get several more shreds. Finally, I have to grab near the edge (rather than the middle of the opening, where I can get a hold of the ends of the towels). Only THEN can I grab and pull a big enough clump of towels out of the side of the opening so that the pressure is relieved enough for the towels to now be pulled out normally, one or two at a time. In the process, at least 20 paper towels fall into the garbage (which to be fair, probably wouldn’t happen to a person who doesn’t have my muscle condition and dexterity problems).

Since this is such a mild one, perhaps others would like to share their non Christmas related mini rants?

2

How close to this event did it occur to you to post this on SDMB? I’m not making fun or anything. I just find it amusing these days that when things happen to internet people often the most significant thought to occur to them is “I’m telling the people at [popular user-generated content website] about this!”

Edit: mini-rant of my own (while I still have time in the edit window): The marketplace forum. When browsing SDMB I start with the pit, then move up the forums in the drop down list. My next forum to check is MPSIMS. It used to be the next one up from the pit. But now that’s Marketplace. So due to a kind of muscle memory I keep clicking on a forum I’m not interested in. It’s mildly annoying.

3

{Internet tough guy}Listen, bub, this forum is what’s keeping a lot of Calgary drivers ALIVE!!![/ITG}
Seriously, writing the mini-rant in my head when I’m annoyed at something allows me to get my irritation out and move on. It’s kind of therapeutic.

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Dear paper towel dispenser makers,

My job is to fill paper towel dispensers. It’s what I do. I live for this. People take my job for granted, people may scoff, but knowing that I’m there for them when their hands are wet, their nose is runny, or their glasses need cleaning, I make the world tick in my own special way. Who knows how many happy marriages are out there thanks to my efforts at drying first-daters’ sweaty palms? Who knows how many serious illnesses I’ve helped avoid because my towels were there to finish the hand-washing. I could you on, but you get the point. I may seems small to you, but what I do is important. I love my job.

So please. Please. You know that towels come 1,000 to a package. You know that I don’t have a barrel of loose towels filling up dispensers with custom amounts. Can you please stop making dispensers that only hold 900 towels?

I’m just trying to earn an honest living …

5

Exactly this. No, the paper towel thing doesn’t produce “urge to kill” or anything, but it happens frequently enough that at the time, I’m like GRRRRRRrrrrrRR! Add to that a muscle condition that makes it difficult for me to grasp items or to have good small motor dexterity (that is, where some strength is required, thank goodness, or “OH NO”, depending upon my audience, I can still type reasonably well :D.

If I understand lobsang’s question properly he wants to know when it happened last? Well, in my old office building in Anchorage, it was almost every blasted Monday morning upon my first pee of the morning :D. The latest one was just prior to this weekend (I live in WA now and work in downtown Seattle). So I’m thinking it’s a common office cleaning crew thing to do. I’m guessing that they think “well, if I cram this full enough, it won’t empty as quickly, and then next time I come to this bathroom maybe I won’t have to open and refill it”. And then when they come in, and it is in fact, empty or nearly empty, their reasoning is “well, I’ll have to cram it even MORE full, I guess I didn’t cram enough in there last time”. At least that’s my guess. The annoying part for me is both the struggle to get a damned paper towel, and the knowledge that their desired outcome is backfiring on them.

My second motive was to provide a non-Xmas, non-winter mini-rants thread. :slight_smile:

6

Corrolary: Windshield washer fluid tanks in most cars hold four liters. Windshield washer fluid is sold in four-liter jugs. The warning light comes on when there is still a little bit of fluid left in the tank. Does anyone else see the problem here? :dubious:

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It seems we’re moving into 8 hotdogs/12 buns per pack territory here.
Channeling Andy Rooney…" 'dja ever wonder???" Perhaps this is less a rant, and more a question that should be asked of some expert or another… even, perhaps …Cecil?
:smiley:

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I don’t, really. The first time you fill it up, or if you’ve had to use it too long you need four liters. If it were less than that, you’d need to buy more. It’s better to have too much than too little. And how do we know how long you go with the warning light in effect?

The thing with the towels is that you never need 1000. Not that I’d change the towels–I’d change the container.

9

Our forward-looking, technology-loving organization got the powered dispensers that are supposed to dispense a length of paper towel when you wave your hand in front of the magic eye. They don’t always work, although I did learn that if you reach up inside and jiggle the cutting edge, you can sometimes get it to dispense.

Or you could… now all of them seem to dispense as soon as you tear a towel off. No more hand-waving - a towel is always hanging there. Unless it runs out. In which case you have to call someone to refill it rather than reaching for a new package of folded paper towels that used to be conveniently stacked in the corner. I expect a lot of those got filched.

And not only did they replace the convenient pump soap dispensers with automatic ones, they changed the soap from something barely tolerable to something vile and stinky! But I fooled them - I carry my own little bottle of softsoap. VICTORY IS MINE!!!

Now I’ll stop before I go off on idiots who dump their lunch leavin’s in the bathroom sinks, and the inevitable clogs.

10

Now I’m having a flashback. Did you know they also make urinals that have such a sensor? They sense when there’s something there, and flush when you move away after you’re done. Neat and hands-free!

But one time I was using one, it suddenly flushed. Instantly I realized why. “OH NO,” I thought, “Did you just flush because your sensor can’t detect anything there? You did NOT just do that!”

Thus do machines diminish the pride of man.

11

My first thought would have been to check for puncture wounds on my neck.

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Napkins, too. Whoever fills the dispenser in my office lunchroom likes to put them in* backwards*, so the opening reveals not a handy little folded end to grip, but an impenetrable wall of napkin. I have to just stick my fingers in and squeeze, inevitably pulling out more napkins than I needed.

13

You know what pisses me off? People who start new minirants threads instead of posting to the perfectly good existing ones, so the entire front page of the fucking Pit turns into nothing but minirants threads.

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I think you posted in the wrong rant thread there SFG. This thread is about that lowlife,mouth breathing, bottom feeding pond scum of a retard towel guy who gets his rocks off overfilling the towel dispenser just to piss off the people who wash their hands.

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Wait, I thought this was the thread about whether to call it a windshield or a windscreen?

16

Dear Customer of Paper Towel Purchase:

We extend severe condolences as a result of the difficulty in workmanship of our Products. It is to always appreciate this company shows interest above all toward beneficial impression of our workmanship. Please give most punctual to us regarding predicaments afterward.

All My Best,
ABC Corp LLC

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Dear Customer

Our apologies. That last message was from an employee (now former employee) at our Varanasi facility who is (was) not authorized to communicate with customers. It does not represent the opinion of the ABC Corporation.

Please rest assured that the ABC Corporation strives to provide the world’s finest paper-towel-dispensing machines, and we value the opinions of our customers. We have recently released the ABC-2525 machine which is designed to contain 2,500 paper towels, thus reducing the need for janitorial staff to load towels into the machines. They also use our patented Ezyfil mechanism, which reduces training time, so that anyone can fill the machines. We estimate that the average rest-room facility will recover the cost of one ABC-2525 machine in reduced staff costs within two years of purchase. In this time of economic uncertainty, reducing staff costs is obviously important to every business.

Regards
E. Scrooge
Public Relations Vice-President
ABC Corporation

18

Dear Employees.

Due to the large number of complaints received about the paper towel machine in the men’s room, we’ve decided to remove the god damn towel machine as well as the toilet paper dispensers.

Thank you,

The Management.

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Dear Morgenstern;
I believe you have hit on the solution.

Yours as ever,
Cat Whisperer

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The above memo was photocopied 10,000 times and all copies are conveniently available next to the wash basins and each toilet. Feel free to allow management to wipe everyone’s ass.