Every Day Shit Happens

Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place safe from interruption is the private toilet.

Lewis Mumford

So today I am going to talk about something that is on most everyone's mind at least once a day. You guessed it poop. Before you give that sentence a glance and say "I'm out of here". Hear me out. I will be making valid points and that might make you go hmm or wow.

I'd like to start off by pointing out how drastically society has changed about their bathroom habits. Back in 1887 Massachusetts enacted the first laws about mandating segregating men and women's restrooms. So 128 years ago someone thought that this idea was good. Why? Women were entering the workforce and men wanted to protect them from basically the disgustingness of men. Don't blast me of I'm slightly off, but if I am completely off let me know, leave a comment.

So let me get this right because women are working the need to use separate bathrooms when in public arose, and at around the age of 5 or 6 we then start training our children to think the same way.

This might be out of context but when the there were black only seats on the bus or black only water fountains that was called segregation and that was ended in 1866 and then we deside it is a good idea to do again 11 years later? C'mon people lets be serious here.

I was doing some article browsing the other day just following links where ever they may take me, some better some worse, end result i stumbled across a couple interesting points I will address.

The first. Co-ed bathrooms, showers, locker rooms, etc. In the right light I think all of them could be great options.
Co-ed bathrooms could be as simple as a gender undefined bathroom with a sign that does not say men, women, laides, gents, etc, just bathroom, lavatory, restroom, water-closet. Shh you just fixed the ongoing problem of when there is a massive line to get into your gender specific bathroom but the opposit sex is empty. Co-ed showers could good, but be a little tricky due to the hyper sexualualization about everything(there is a fetish that is basically furry's more or less eating other furry's and this gets someone off?), although many colleges have co-ed bathrooms and here is an article showing other opinions.

As this article comes near the end, I want to bring this post away from the debate it is starting to stray towards and over to the lighter side.

Segregated bathrooms might have helped start the notion that women dont poop, they excreat Hersey Kisses. Now if that is actually true that once a girl becomes a lady they make chocolate, remind me never to make a road trip to Hersery Pennsilvsainia for a tour of Hersey chocolate factory(shudder). Now there is this book called Everybody Poops. I think I will leave my trust in that book title.

For my closing words I am going to leave you with an informative, possibly long winded story to follow up with unique question twards the end.

Statistically speaking most people reading this article have probably changed a diaper(or a million). With that said there is a very extensive isle at nearly every grocery store and at least a small one dedicated to baby care in every convince store. One of those products are called baby wipes ranging in scents, brands, price, etc. What are baby wipes for? Wiping baby bottoms is the obvious answer, but as any parent can tell you they are great for wiping everything. When it's time for you to do some wiping of your own you reach for a roll of your trusted brand of bathroom tissue. Here I ask the question. Why? We wash baby's bottoms yet we dry wipe are own. Isn't that like taking a step in the wrong direction? They sell flushable personal wipes marketed to adults. They come in small packages and charge exuberant prices. Granted they do the job great and feel that extra sense of clean, mean while your wallet gets the crappy end of that deal, no pun intended. Why pay 10x the price when they are really only baby wipes. It's like putting a different hat on and becoming a different person. I have read many articles shunning the use of flushable wipes and refers to them as a sewers worst nightmare or something if the such.  I know a few of you are reading this thinking something along the line of if it don't back up in my house it's not my problem. If we follow several city's public works departments statements we're going to be throwing the soiled wipes into that trash can that sits near your toilet or sink.  Now maybe it's just my way of thinking, if I can't flush flushable wipes why would I buy them. If I liked the extra feeling of clean why not take a trip down the baby isle. Not that someone would question you, but if they did and you didn't feel comfortable with telling them why just tell that your [Insert person here] ran out and you were already going where ever.

Sorry for the long windedness bad habit.

Charmen says it all;

Enjoy the go

~Daved1058

Facility Maintenance

Here is something everyone can relate to, but rarely does it ever become a topic of conversation, unless the situation was dire, to quote Kimberly from Rat Race "I'm prairie dogging it!" or unsanitary, lack of soap, paper towels, and/or toilet paper.

So, back to the topic at hand, facility maintence.   My work has since hired new contractor cleaning crews to clean all the restrooms, sounds great since at a prior meeting the bathrooms were substandard and needed more frequent maintence due to workforce and projected hiring.  All this was sounding pretty good.  I think most people can agree that public/work restrooms are rarely a pleasant experience and are utilized when issues of pressing urgency arise.

Every day sometime around 9:00am Monday through Friday they start doing the sweep through of the buildings presumably to clean them.  They wheel their little carts around with cleaning supplies, restocking supplies, and that trash can bungied to the front of the cart.  I assume they are cleaning in there.  Yet how in the course of maybe the next 1-3 hours every bathroom is in such disarray.  I am talking about paper towels over flowing out the cans, all the paper towels are gone, no toilet paper, or soap.  I work in a very low traffic area and I just don't get it.  In my building we have 2 gender specific bathrooms;  one "Men" and one "Ladies"; and we might have the foot traffic of +/- 100 people in my building per day, men out numbering the women 4:1.

Here is the math.  The contractors supply the bathrooms with EcoSoft® brand toilet paper(pro:100% recycled from...?, cons: sandpaper across rear, and single ply).  EcoSoft® has 1755 sheets per roll, 3 rolls per stall, and 2 stalls.  Gives us 5,265 sheets per stall and 10530 sheets in this 1 bathroom.  If my guesstimate(actualy a real word... speechless) is remotely close each of the 75 men who use this bathroom per day would need to use 140.4 sheets per day.  Depending on the brand you use at your house, that is about 1 roll per day of household toilet paper.  That is almost unfathomable.

Once we get closer to lunch time or later, about noon or so, people start getting creative from the lack of restroom supplies.  Kimwipes® for lack paper towels and toilet paper, general purpose cleaner(409, simple green, etc...) for lack of soap.

My point of view slightly changed while writing this article.  At first I was seriously leaning towards the thought of fire the contractors and hire new ones.  What if people really are using upwards of 150 sheets per person per day.  Either way I feel the bottom line is we need new contractors or more of them.  You just cant have bathrooms already out of stock with-in one hour of cleaning.  If there is no way around it, at-least maybe put extra supplies in the restrooms to be grabbed.  Sure people are going to steal a few rolls for them selves, but I feel that's better then flushing Kimwipes® or Techwipes® down the drain.

Plumbers cost a lot more then a roll of toilet paper, I have heard of up to $100/hour.  One source prices Ecosoft® 17990 at $2.16 per roll but you must buy a case of 36 rolls for $77.73.  For a price comparison Scott® 1000 is $0.73 per roll in a case of 27 rolls for $19.97 at your local Walmart.  Ecosoft® costs $0.0012 per sheet, single ply and feels like sandpaper, Scott® costs $0.0007 per sheet, also single ply, and in my opinion a tad softer with comparable "gripping power".  As a business man I'd rather have a few rolls of bathroom tissue or paper towels stolen then hire a plumber because of creative bathroom goers. 

Well now thats out of me.  Hope you enjoyed the read.

Daved1058