So everyone here has probably used those continuous roll towel dispensers in public washrooms, right? You know, the kind where there’s a short loop of cloth towel hanging beneath the dispenser, and you yank on the front of the loop to get a length of clean towel? These devices have a sort of built-in rate limiter to make sure you don’t yank more towel than is necessary to dry your hands: you can pull only so far before the machine stops with a click. Then you have to wait ten or twenty seconds or so before you can pull again.
In principle these dispensers are great. They’re less wasteful than paper towels, and maybe also even blow dryers. Their only problem is that if the person who used the dispenser before you didn’t yank down on the towel all the way until it clicks, then when you yank down on it, you might get only a few millimetres of clean towel. Then you have to stand there for twenty seconds before you can pull again to get a full length.
Unfortunately, my workplace is infested with consummate ignoramuses who don’t understand how these machines work. About half the time I use the washroom, I end up yanking my predecessor’s remaining two millimetres of fresh towel and then standing around with dripping hands waiting for the machine to reset itself. Needless to say, this is extremely annoying. :mad:
I must confess that, I, too, was once such an ignoramus. But I was cured of this cluelessness fifteen or twenty years ago by a comic strip that someone had helpfully taped to one of the towel dispensers at my university. My memories are hazy, though I do remember that the strip depicted a couple of guys discussing these towel dispensers and complaining about people not pulling the towel until it clicks. After reading this comic my eyes were opened and I never again committed the mortal sin of inadequate yanking.
I’d love to be able to find this comic again so that I can tape it to the dispensers in my workplace. Does anyone happen to recall where and when it appeared? I’m thinking it was a Dilbert comic, though a search of the online Dilbert archives for keywords like “dispenser” and “towel” didn’t turn up anything for me.