Some genius had the notion to install electric paper towel dispensers in all the restrooms at work. They’re motion activated; pass your hand in front of a sensor and it dispenses a length of toweling off a roll. Unfortunately, the amazingly cheap paper towels are very non-absorbent so it requires more of the towels to dry one’s hands than the old towels. Plus, the sensors are very temperamental and don’t seem to have a stable “sweet spot” to trigger them. So people are constantly standing in front of them, waving their dripping wet hands around in front of them in a vain attempt to get another section of towel. I firmly believe that whoever installed them also installed hidden cameras and we’re going to see on America’s funniest home videos or somewhere a whole reel of people making hand passes at the towel dispensers like Mandrake the Magician, and cursing.
I’ve always hated those too! I mean, the idea is sound, since you don’t have to touch a wet handle or whatever (but then, your hands should already be clean, right?) but they really just don’t work. I’ve only had the misfortune to have to use them in restaurants - I feel sorry for you!
And they’re always installed high on the wall, so while you’re doing that little dance with your wet hands in the air, water is running down your arm and into your shirtsleeve.
Where I work we have to dance to get the toilet to flush, to get water at the bathroom sink, and to get water at the water fountain. But so far we can just grab the paper towels.
Sometimes you can’t even tell where the sensors ARE! The ones in 30th Street Station in Philly are like this. No little red light, no obvious black plastic area, nothing…you just have to wave your hand around the box like a carnival fortuneteller and hope.
When I was in Denmark and Sweden, they allegedly had motion-sensor-activated paper towel dispensers in public bathrooms. I was never able to get any of them to work, even after waving my hands madly at everything on the dispenser that might have been a sensor. Rrrrrrh.
WTF? Why would you need electric paper towel dispenser in the first place?? Either you pull paper towels from the dispenser, or you start the hot air blower (which I always dislike), or you install the best solution, a roll of cloth towel. You don’t need handles for those - you just pull, a section of cloth is released, you dry your hands, the cloth is automatically pulled up and stored. Simple, and enviormentally friendly, and feels nicer than the hot air blast.
Oh, I’m sure they were installed to cut down on paper towel usage by dispensing uniform amounts. With the old towels I always needed 2-3 towels to dry my hands. But these new towels are so crappy that I have to try for at least four lengths. Maybe they think that by making us wave our hands around we’ll air dry them and not need towels at all.
And I thought our new dispensers were bad - they’re the “grab the paper towel with two hands and pull down to get a chunk” sort. The idea is you don’t have to touch anything but fresh paper towel.
Naturally, people just grab with one hand, so the paper breaks off inside the dispenser, forcing them to use the “emergency” feed knob on the side. (Alimentation d’urgence!)
I just skip the whole mystery and twirl the knob around to roll out the towels without messing with the tear it off, chunk by chunk method.
they have motion-activated soap dispensers in one museum men’s room here, and motion-activated taps too
Those things are possessed! Paper towel dispensers of doom!!! I can never get them to work when I want a paper towel, but if I just walk past one, it starts spitting out paper towels. I guess that’s a solution–instead of waving wildly at the paper towel dispenser, just walk past it, whistling nonchalantly, and you’ll get your paper towels.
I’ve found they usually respond to front-to-back motion better than side-to-side. Also, I find it much more convenient to get the thing to dispense first, then wash your hands, so when you’re done it’s just right there.
However, automatic soap dispensers is just dumb.
True, dat. I don’t remember where I was now, but I recently had a run-in with one of those “fully-automated convenience facilities” and spent a good 10 minutes waving my hands at toilets, faucets, soap dispensers, and paper towel dispensers in a mountingly frustrating attempt to actually leave the restroom with some degree of sanitariness (sanitarity?).
And people wonder why others don’t wash their hands after using the toilets.