My day job is your standard 8 hours a day, paid every two weeks, paying more each year for less insurance coverage kind of job. So and average American kind of job, I guess. The kind you commonly hear about, and that has been known to raise a fair amount of grumbling from the main stream working class. Yes, we are grateful for the job, but we’re still going to complain about it. Hey, it’s our right to do so and more importantly we are not getting paid enough to not complain.
Bitching about work is one of those unifying past times. Much like smoking is the universal make a friend anywhere in world… for other smokers I mean. It’s also the device responsible for the universal “you dirty bastard stop trying to kill me with your cigarette smoke” look that all non smokers seem so proficient at giving to all the smokers. Still, if a smoker from Germany finds himself, or herself, in Canada waiting at the bus stop and someone walks up next to them and lights a smoke, and then the German lights a smoke… next thing you know the two smokers are chatting and making plans to hang out… or at the very least they exchange addresses so they can become pen pals. The only other thing I can really think of that brings people together like that is babies or little kids. I mean people with kids making friends with other people with kids… not smokers and people with babies making friends. You really don’t ever see that happening.
Complaining about work seems to be that same kind of thing. It’s a universal that I believe most people have done at some point, and some continue to do on a daily basis. It’s so traditional it’s even become a Hollywood cliché. Hey if there is one thing Hollywood does well it’s create and over use cliché after cliché. It’s what they do best. Although, sometimes I wish they’d get a hobby or something.
So the other day I noticed something at work. Something I could not pass up sharing with you. To date I believe I’ve only written one other time about work. What surprises me is that the setting for this story takes place in the exact same location that my previous work story did. It’s not in my office, or the training room, or a meeting room, or even the parking lot. No, today’s story, just like last time, takes place in… the restroom, toilet, lavatory, bathroom, crapper, jon, powder room, potty, just to name a few.
The way I got there was rather standard. I had finished some tea, Earl Gray… oddly enough I do need to thank the Germans for my affinity for Earl Gray. Odd I know, but it was in German that I was first introduced to a cup of Earl Gray with a smile of milk and a quarter packet of sugar. It’s absolutely lovely.
The tea, being tea, did what tea does best. It satisfied me and then, after a while, it urged me to stop working and get a little exercise, via a little stroll to the “facilities” and back. When I got into the restroom, I walked up to the urinal, assumed the position and notice that the urinal next to me had been wrapped in a big plastic bad. This was not the odd bit. The restroom has always had a history of abuse and repair. I personally think it has something to do with the fact that we hire a bunch of mentally evolving boys, ages 17 to 24. Hey being of the male persuasion I feel perfectly qualified saying that usually we really don’t begin getting a mental grasp of anything more than ourselves until after 25.
Right, so the urinal wrapped in plastic has been something that I’ve seen before. The thing I wasn’t prepared for was the sign that accompanied the plastic wrapped urinal. Here is an actual photo… don’t worry it’s safe for work.
Yes, a sign in all capital letters saying “DO NOT PEE ON PLASTIC BAG.” I couldn’t help but start chuckling.
Then the realization hit me… there is only one reason why a sign like that would exist… sigh. I put had to put my head down in shame because of my Y chromosomic tie to the male race, more so, to the male whose actions resulted in that sign being made in the first place. Yep, there’s always that one exceptionally under evolved member of your phylum that ends up doing some like that making an entire group of people look bad.
Still, I do laugh a bit every time I look at that sign. I guess you could call it toilet humor… in an odd kind of way that really isn’t all that funny if you start to analyze it too much. Still, at face value, I thought some of you might get a bit of an unprepared smile from it. I think that’s it then. I wash my hands of it. I just hope that the next time share a working observation, it takes place in a different room.
Any thoughts?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: desk job, Office Space, and Earl Gray.
I think the “DO NOT PEE ON THE BAG” sign is a universal campaign among the worlds Janitors, because there was one just like it in our bathroom at work. In reading your blog and interest in all things satire, I believe you and me have much in common. A strange thought, considering the lone island I thought I had been marooned on for the past 31 years. That being said, I do have a story to share, although mine does not have much of an ending. You see, one day I entered the Mens-speaking of which, what happened to the Men/Women helper below the shapes? I think having the shape of a male and female alone might lead to confusion in some circles. If I were Scottish-which I think my tree roots in Scotland-and I wore a kilt, I might mistakenly go into the room with the dude wearing a skirt thinking someone had taken the time to be incredicly accurate.
I think I lost my train of thought. Oh, right. So I hop into the hopper and freeze, as though stepping into sub zero weather without any clothes on. I slowly take a step back and ease around the corner of the handicapped stall* and peer over to the other stall where what do I see? You guessed it, a cut out photo of Jake Gylllannthal (sorry about butchering your name, sir) in his Brokeback Mountain getup taped to the side of the stall. Now, several things enter my mind; but, two stand out real tall like well grown pot plants in the Daisy garden.
1. Is that the Brokeback Mountain dude?
2. Mass panic.
I had drank plenty of water, up to this point, and was mid turn in the PP dance but could not move an inch further because of the thought of number 2. Mass panic, I mean.
How would you have felt? I ask you. I work for a well established computer company that shares the same name as a certain type of Apple and blends with a kind of marial art. IN case you are still wondering. Fuji/ Ninjitsu.
The panic, I think, was directed at its purpose. Was it there as a joke? Had someone tried to call out someone else who might fancy the styles of the same sex? Or…was it a sign? And, if so, for who? I honestly felt like I had joined a party in which I had no clue I was invited too. Time passed, minutesd, hours, days…OK just a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity to me. Anyway, I could not ignore my urinary foxtrot any longer and locked myself in to do what I was there to do.
But here is the strangest part. No one, not the Janitor, not the facility security guard (who is male), not the managers, not the director, no one took it down for two weeks. Then, one day, it was gone…
*for the female readers, there is a rule among men, Richard should back me up on this if he is not too cherry cheeked, that the presumably cleanest and germ free stall in the Mens room is the handicapped stall, which is why it is always the first to be taken and hardly ever occupied by an acutal handicapped guy. IN fact, some guys who find the one stall being used, often go in search for another one in the building, provided there is more than one Mens room.
Ha. It’s amazing the random things that appear on the stall walls, and 99.998726% of the time it’s not the good kind of amazement.
As for the handicapped stall, I would agree that on the average it is the first place men gravitate towards. Although I will say that my place of work has done a great job trying to cure me of this, mainly because the handicapped stall has been out of service almost as much at it has been in service. It’s a very unreliable spot to be in. But, yes, when I go out to eat and such, it’s usually the first place I’ll go.
Richard,
Ironically I have a catalog of mens room stories in my head. Being one of 6 boys in a household offered many opportunities to be tutored in the “man rules of urination” etc. By far the most memorable took place back in the late 60’s when I was a wee lad. In a sports arena, the urinals went along the walls as normal, and about 8 on each side. In the middle was an island of urinals that were about waist high on a man. And yes, they were face to face with about 6 urinals on either side. So you imagine my youthful horror of hurriedly picking an open spot only to look face to face with a 15 year old who was just waiting to watch me panic. Which I did. I really don’t know what happened after that. I just can’t get it out of my head. And I laugh about how many times grown men experienced that horror. I can’t imagine doing that at this day and age! Peeing face to face is something no man, boy, woman, human animal should ever be asked to do. WHAT THE HELL WERE THE DESIGNERS THINKING??
Thankfully, no more to come until more alcohol is consumed in person with you!
I look forward to story time at our next wine party if you and Laurie can make it.