I think it was on this board I first heard the sentiment, “whoever invented the urinal obviously didn’t wear shorts very often.”
Excellent point.
:eek:
Or flip-flops.
I mostly wear shorts and do not have any problems with urinals. Whats the beef?
For some reason, this whole exchange has come across like interactive fiction:
There is a rectangular cutout on the wall.
>examine cutout
The cutout has a hinge along the bottom.
>open cutout
I don’t know how to do that to the cutout.
>unhinge cutout
It’s too early in the game to become unhinged!
>fold cutout
It’s already folded!
>unfold cutout
The cutout unfolds into a changing table.
>change baby
You can’t do that while you’re carrying the baby.
>drop baby
Don’t drop the baby! He’s fragile!
>put baby on table
The baby gazes up at you from the table, frowning. He stinks!
>diaper baby
I don’t know how to do that to the diaper.
There is a baby here.
>change baby with diaper
Fumbling with the new diaper, you clumsily change the baby. You wash your hands and congratulate yourself. Maybe you’re not such a bad parent after all.
The baby gazes up at you from the table, smiling. He smells like baby powder.
>get baby
Taken.
The signs are generally required by law. Restocking supplies is left up to the discretion of the business.
Most public bathroom hooks are kind of C shaped, with 2 prongs that stick out, one over the other. Put your bag or purse on the lower one. That makes it much more difficult to reach over the top, grab a strap and make off with the loot.
My pitting is reserved for those businesses that buy superthin toilet paper. The kind of paper you could read through. Coincidentally, this kind of paper is always found in bookstores like Borders or Barnes & Noble. I know there’s probably a cost factor involved but I work in a prison and we use better toilet paper than this.
This one might get me Pitted on my own, but it’s just too hard to pass up. Not so much a Pitting of the bathrooms themselves, but of the person(s) in charge of who can use said bathrooms, and what standards of cleanliness they are required to uphold.
At my last job, we had quite a few workers from Somalia, as well as various other foreign countries. Our workplace held very highly to the ideals of cultural tolerance - once a year we were even required to attend “diversity training” to ensure that non-Merkins were respected. The Somali workers I came into contact with were mostly just like everyone else at the job; some were lazy, some worked very hard, and most fell somewhere in between. But evidently there is a custom in their home country that requires them, upon each time they enter a restroom, to bathe their feet in the sink. Take a moment to let that sink in, wouldja? They sit on the counter, plop off their shoes, and wash their sweaty feet in the sink. shudder
Now I’m not the heartless racist bitch you may be thinking. I definitely understand that Somalian culture is probably extremely different from Midwesern American culture, and perhaps clean feet is a part of that. Fine. But this is just grody! I can’t fathom why on earth they couldn’t just use a bottle of water, and step outside, if it’s that important.
So, like any good peon of the workforce, I took the issue to my manager. I informed him that the practice squicked me out big time, and ased if there wasn’t something to be done about it. His response? “We’ve had complints about i for several years now. The thing you must understand, is that we have to be tolerant of their culture.” Fuck that!! I’m all for tolerance and diversity, but that’s very unhygienic, and what about MY culture??
Anyway, sory for the slight tangent, but that’s my big gripe. For the rest of my life, every time I use a public restroom, I’m going to wonder who has had their feet all over the sink and counter.
They had a different reason for getting rid of paper towels at my place of work. Because moron employees used them as toilet seat covers and then would flush them down the toilet causing lots of clogs, lots of calls to the plumber, lots of $$s given to the plumber. Even with signs-o-plenty “DO NOT FLUSH PAPER TOWELS” the employees figured it was their god given right to do so anyways.
Managements solution: blow-dryers.
Many valid rants, here. I suspect public restrooms are built the way they’ve always been built, with not much thought given to how they could be better.
My office just installed automatic soap dispensers on all the sinks. Manual toilets, manual faucets, but automatic, touchless soap dispensers. Does anybody else see why this is beyond useless?
And the soap from the old dispensers smelled really good, too.
Let me get this straight: you (potentially) wash fecal matter off your hands in that sink, and you’re worried about someone’s foot sweat? Yes, you’re being a xenophobic idiot.
Given that they wash their feet so often, how dirty do you expect their feet to be, anyway? Jesus.
Splatter. It varies based on how forcefully you’re peeing (hey, sometimes you’ve really gotta go) and the shape of the urinal, but most urinals are pretty bad shapes. Although, the crack about the guy who invented the urinal is probably not apt, since the old-school giant to-the-floor urinals don’t splatter.
I’m with tdn I’ve never seen a folding shelf in a public restroom. I’ve seen baby changing stations, but that’s not what you’re talking about right? All of the one’s I’ve been in are hooks or nadda.
OK, I can kinda see a reason for this, in a way. If the soap dispensers needed to be replaced, and the office wants to slowly upgrade to automatic everything, maybe they’re just replacing stuff as needed? IOW, maybe when the toilets need to be replaced, they’ll be replaced with auto-flush (don’t get me started), etc.? I know, I know, this is the Pit. Why am I being so nice and reasonable and all?? Which brings me to. . .
An item women get to worry about but men don’t have to.
Yup. Menstrual products.
Now, I understand how the human body functions (at least on a very basic level), but as if urine and feces on display in a dirty bathroom stall is not enough, to top it all off (like the cherry; heh. Where’s the puke smiley when you need it most?) you have blood! Ugh. It’s like the trifecta of gross-osity. It’s nasty, people.
Ladies, I know sometimes, as much as you hate it, your cycles just leave. . .traces. For og’s sake, people, clean up after yourselves! Is that too freakin’ much to ask? I mean, I’ve left my own “traces”, but I sure as hell clean it up, even if it means wetting some of the toilet paper in the sink then going back in the stall!
And don’t even get me started on those little “feminine product disposal bins” in lady’s rooms. They, in and of themselves, are fine. A nice touch, really. No woman wants to walk out of the stall carrying a used. . .product. . .to put it in the common trash bin. But some of these places never fuckin’ empty the things and then they are overflowing when I have to use the toilet! Yuck! I’d really rather not see my own if it can be avoided, and I sure as hell don’t want to see yours!
And don’t even get me started on the filthy, nasty, disgusting bathrooms with the signs on the door that say “If the restroom did not meet your standard of cleanliness, please let us know. . .we care!” More like “Please let us know, so we can tell you in person to fuck off!”
And what about those “sign-in sheets” that are supposed to be initialed and dates when the restroom is checked for “acceptability”, but the last time it was initialed and dated was 2005 or something? Yeah, I can believe that’s the last time an employee checked that!
Oh, damn. You shouldn’t have gotten me started!
I can’t disagree with the pitting, but there are extenuating circumstances for some of the issues. I work at a gas station / c-store. We have a single-occupancy unisex restroom. It’s actually very clean - we get compliments constantly. But TP, towels, and soap run out. If you use the last, please tell me! I’m not a mind reader.
We have a missing hook, as well - not a purse-theft issue in a single-occupancy rest room, but I think someone poked their eye out (not literally out, but hurt themselves) and we had to take it out. We have a missing mirror - it was taken out because it was broken and acid-etched with graffiti multiple times.
Our TP dispenser sucks.
If there’s piss on the floor or seat, it’s because someone pissed on the floor in the last half-hour or so. Blame your fellow horrible, horrible human.
Joe
ETA - Oh yeah, just read the previous post. Yesterday I went to use our rest room, and there was quite a disgusting pool of blood (period, I presume) in front of the bowl. Period or not, Bleargh!
No, they are right in the stall, mounted on the wall. About 5-6 inches deep, spring-activated usually so when you remove your purse it will fold up again.
My favorite: you walk into the restroom knowing that Capt. Fecal Matter (CFM) has probably been in here before you
No latch on the stall (OK, my random choice at opening the door may not be where CFM has touched it)
Soap dispenser has some kind of manual button that EVERY USER has to push (ok, CFM may have touched it and I’m washing my hands anyway even if do pick up a few germs)
Water faucet that requires touching to turn it off (great, CFM probably used these to turn the water on to wet down his comb. No choice but to try to turn it off with my pinkies)
Towel dispenser has a manual lever. (Shit CFM probably fucked with this and now I have to use my “wet” fingers to get a towel, I’ll once again sacrifice the little fingers on the lever/button/gear/wheel/whatever.
Time to leave. Oh for fuck’s sake, the door has a doorknob that requires the grip of a gorilla to open. CFM probably didn’t clean off his shit stained hands in the restroom but you can bet he put a hearty grip on that doorknob.
I’m hosed.
Well to be honest sometimes I get splatter on my pants at work too. Ok, now I see what you guys are talking about. It’s not just the splatter itself but the fact that with shorts and flip-flops it can get directly on the skin.
Yeah those old all the way to the floor urinals were a lot better than the modern half-to-floor ones.
It’s not just that. I’ve always though of using a sink as a one-way process; the dirt and germs flow off my hands, into the sink, and down the drain, but I don’t think they can swim fast enough to come back the other way. It doesn’t matter if the person before me cleaned and gutted a fish; water, soap, wash, rinse, paper towels and I’m good to go.
They did need to be replaced, but that’s not what I was getting at. The rationale I’ve heard for the touchless gadgets is to avoid spreading germs. So, if you reach over to the manual dispenser, squirt a couple shots of soap onto your hand, and pick up a stray microbe from the pump, what’s the absolute very, very next thing you’re going to do?
You’re going to wash your hands! Any little germ you picked up is going to have a lifespan of about half-a-second. It’s inevitable! It’s the fucking soap dispenser!