The ones in rest rooms that cost 25 cents. How often are those broken, empty, or unusable?
Note - I just fixed one at our facility. Knob wasnt turning right.
Always. They are ALWAYS broken or empty. Happily, people are generally willing to help you out because if you’re needing to actually use the machine you are clearly already having a bad day, because generally one is not caught without supplies when needed.
Did you try turning it left?
Yes, this is one thing that women are always very together in. I am as regular as clockwork now, but when you’re a teen, i’s much less so.
Even when the machines are working, they only offer the nastiest, most low-grade product. I’ve never even considered using a machine if there was a woman around to ask for a spare.
Concur with Hello Again – they don’t sell pads, they sell small diapers. Made out of sandpaper. With misapplied adhesive so it grabs your pubes instead of your underwear fabric.
I’ve never turned down a request for a spare. This really is one area where IME women ignore Mommy Wars, catty rivalries, or other animosities, and are in complete solidarity.
I can’t even think about turning down a request. That poor woman is suffering, or she wouldn’t have asked me. The only time I’ve had to say no is when I don’t actually have one on me, which is super rare.
Yeah. They are either empty, or they still have pads in them that were manufactured in 1979.
True story: I once walked past once, and for no discernible reason, it dispensed a pad. I didn’t need it, or I would have wondered about exactly how high tech those things were getting.
The only time I’ve ever been caught in this spot and not helped was at the Rijksmuseum, actually. And I couldn’t figure out the dispenser. And nobody helped!
ETA - funny story about it, I once went into the public restroom of the library where I work and saw a woman struggling with the machine (which is never stocked.) She specifically needed a pad because she was just a few weeks postpartum, so my tampon stash was of no use. I called Security because they handle a lot of that stuff and often nobody answers the phone in Ops, which sparked a, no lie, ten minute session of people with walkie talkies scurrying around the hallways of the library trying to figure out where they’re kept, and I heard over a nearby walkie talkie “what’s the mechanism for payment?” “Just DELIVER THE PRODUCT, will you?!”
For a while we made a ton of fun of our favorite security guard, “Will you just deliver the PRODUCT, man?”
(Finally they did deliver the product. The poor lady was so embarrassed.)
At the amusement park where I work, the owner has the machine rigged so that it always works and it’s free.
At that point I would be fashioning my own out of rolled up toilet paper, and heading home. Mortifying.
Yuuuuuup.
And in that case, we usually branch out and ask other women on their behalf.
Since the OP is asking for personal experiences, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
At one temp job, there was a stack of them, individually boxed, on a counter in the bathroom. It was a nice gesture.
The machine is ***always ***broken, and if it’s not broken it dispenses the sandpapery pube-grabbing pad as described, as others have said.
I’ve given my worst office enemy product, and offered her Aleve and Pamprin as well. Solidarity of “the Curse”.
I always have a few, um, products in my desk drawer at work, even though I’m winding down that phase of life because you never know.
Wow! This person is deserving of accolades and awards. If I were you I’d hang on to that job! (Is the owner a woman??)
I’ve found ONE in my entire life that was stocked. Yes, the pad was like a crotch mattress, but it was better than nothing (no other chicks nearby at all).
And yeah, the unspoken Public* Period Pact is very strong, as it should be. If I (somehow, for whatever reason) discover that someone I know breaks this pact (by having supplies and lying that they don’t or saying they have them but won’t give one, not by just not having any with them)… I gotta say, that WILL negatively impact how I see her as a person.
- hey, you could also leave the L out!
As of this fall, I no longer need them once and for all. YAY!
But…in the girl scout drawer of my desk, there is the remainder of the last pack (menepause can come with certain…uh…surprises, ifyaknowwhatImean). I have kept an emergency stash there for the last seven years or so, after I got caught without. They, along with Motrin or Tylenol, are welcome to sisters in need.
To answer the OP’s question, my current workplace machines are stocked daily and in working order (I see them used enough), but, yeah, the quality of the product is subpar.
The owner is a man, but the person who runs the park is a woman. I think of her as the owner really.