Not sure who left this note in the office bathroom. Perhaps it was me. Regardless, I agree.
My office bathroom is okay. The building management keeps it pretty clean. The sinks used to have those ridiculous auto shut-off faucets but they have since been replaced with regular swivel handles. My floormates’ bathroom etiquette leaves something to be desired, but I can’t really blame that on the bathroom itself. So all-in-all, bathroom-wise, I’d say I have a good deal. Work bathroom life was pretty uneventful. And then The Switch happened.
In what I can only assume was an attempt to save money, the building management decided to skimp on paper towels. One day, without notice, what were once thick and soft swaths of cottony cloth became thin, flimsy pieces of paper. Previously, hand washers had been able to grab one to two paper towels quickly, with a firm tug, and dry their hands completely. Now, this mockery of a paper towel would shred as you struggled to pull just one full towel from the dispenser. You could hear it scraping against your hands as you painfully attempted to dry them. In the end, you would waste five to ten towels, leave remnants of your dispensing attempts on the floor, and you would walk away with painful, red, and maybe even still damp, hands.
For the first week I heard murmurs among my floormates as I walked down the hall to and from the bathroom:
“Why would they do this to us?”
“They expect us to dry our hands with that?!”
“Do they think we’re some kind of wild animals?”
“Wow, we really shouldn’t have shunned the lotion when it suddenly appeared in the bathroom two years ago. Whoever put it in there really is a genius and ahead of his time.”
We all hoped this was just a temporary thing. Perhaps just an emergency purchase of cheap paper towels when they’d suddenly run out of the real stuff. But the crap towels persisted, as did the shredding and painful hands. Disbelief became anger and frustration, but as time went on we just learned to cope.
And then, one magical day, the good paper towels were back! So thick and soft. So absorbent! I’m pretty sure I took about a dozen trips to the bathroom that day just to wash my hands and make sure it wasn’t all a dream.
But no, it’s real. A week later the good towels are still there. Thank you, building management. Your good deeds do not go unappreciated.
Though I guess while I have your attention, can we chat about the toilet paper situation?