To whoever stole the Purell from the office:
I told you staff I would do my best to keep you safe and healthy. I was lucky enough to score 8 large bottles of Purell in addition to a couple of the smaller ones we had leftover, which would be enough for a few months. According to my staff, they have replaced 3 bottles with the large ones. There are 2 left. This means at minimum 3 bottles have gone missing. A survey of the office reveals only 3 of the larger bottles with the rest all the older smaller ones. There have been almost no patients in the office. There are only two of you. Nobody else is here. I look the other way when things like water seem to deplete too quickly but this is a patient safety issue. I can’t get more hand sanitizer. Nobody can. I understand you might want to have some to use at home but I bought that for the office. I don’t even take any home and I’m the one who paid for it. It’s a particularly crappy thing to do and I am pissed. The remaining Purell is getting locked up and only dispensed by me. In the meantime, wash your hands! It works better than hand sanitizer anyway.
I also had a hand sanitizer situation at work. Things are very slow, although we remain open as an essential business. Two weeks ago we had one huge pump bottle sitting out for anyone to use. My receptionist asked me if I relocated the hand sanitizer, as it just poof disappeared.
We had exactly one person in the building other than me and the receptionist that day. I was pissed off. I called the person’s home phone we had on file and told her we had something missing and after reviewing security camera footage I knew what had happened. I told her I’d wait an hour, then I was calling the police and turning over the video.
Ten minutes later she sheepishly returned the bottle. She also looked around for the camera, then asked where it was hidden. I confessed I did not have a security camera.
I work in a lab; some of our PPE went missing as well. It’s locked up now and needs to be signed out.
This is a small building and we all know each other…I thought.
I think we’re all in for a big dose of this in the coming days.
We’ve had guests check out these past few weeks and take all of the toilet paper in the room with them - and a few even called and said they had none in the room and got more.
You can make hand sanitizer using isopropyl alcohol, aloe lotion, and some optional essential oils to give it a more pleasant aroma. Just heat up the aloe so it mixes smoothly and make sure the alcohol content is above 60%.
Stranger
My guess is that most of the sanitizer thieves are taking it home.
To them I say: Wash your damn hands with soap and water. It works better, is cheaper, and saves the sanitizer for places where it is needed.
So was this an employee or customer? And if an employee, will she remain one for very long?
Customer. I currently have one employee, with the others laid off.
We locked ours up in order not to create a temptation for the cleaning crew.
Be careful about what scents you use. The plant where I work has started putting out quart bottles of hand sanitizer that smells like coconut. Pretty pleasant, right?
Except, is it really smart to incentivize people to sniff their fingers when they’re also being advised to keep their hands away from their face?
There’s an idea.
We can help people maintain social distance and avoid touching their faces by making sanitizer that smells of rancid butter.
Can’t imagine she’ll be a returning customer, then. How embarrassing for her.
Talk about adverse unintended consequences!
Stranger
Not to turn this into a GQ thread, but what’s wrong with pure isopropryl alcohol (or just a flask of some ultra-high-proof alcoholic beverage) and splash onto your hands a bit and rub? Is it that it’ll dry/crack your skin? (I assume germ-killing is no problem)
The dry skin is the main concern, especially if you are using it several times a day.
That’s probably why you also can’t find any isopropyl alcohol to buy, right now.
– I won’t actually need more than I’ve got for quite some time. And by the time we (probably) need hand sanitizer for markets not due to open for nearly two months, the local distilleries should have produced enough to go around; at least some of them are switching production over to hand sanitizer. Health care people, quite reasonably, will get the first batches.
That’s awesome! But you should go buy a cheap camera now. 
Yes, if you use it too frequently (especially 91% which is intended for dilution) it will dry out your skin and cause it to develop cracks. Occasional use is fine, but if you are really going to be using it several times a day you want to combine it with some kind of moisturizer. Apparently a lot of people are having difficulty getting them to combine because they are trying to mix it at room temperature, where you really need to heat up the aloe lotion to 140 °F or higher (but not so high that it forces the alcohol to evaporate) and then vigorously whisk it together. I keep IPA around for cleaning electronics and plastics because it evaporates with little residue and does a pretty good job of dissolving adhesives without attacking the underlying material, and with judicious use a 1l bottle lasts a long time.
High proof ethyl alcohol really isn’t adequate; you need at least a 60% concentration, and isopropyl alcohol is more effective than ethyl alcohol. But soap and water is even more effective, so save the hand sanitizer for when you can’t wash.
Stranger
She’s welcome to return, although if she doesn’t I’m cool with that, too.