Open Pipe Do Not Use

Open Pipe Do Not Use
Originally uploaded by Dan Bailiff

Our office building is undergoing major reconstruction. The workers have completely gutted the place except for our offices, and so we get to deal with the chaos of things like using the back entrance and sharing a restroom with construction workers. Let me tell you that is no picnic. I'm a guy, so I'm used to seeing men's rooms kinda dirty in general. I avoid public restrooms unless I really gotta go and then I try to avoid touching anything. Construction workers seem to take it to a new low, as there is a constant mess on the floor of sheetrock dust, mud, and various, um, fluids. As if the bathrooms weren't bad enough they have closed them several times for hours at a stretch on different days to (allegedly) work on them. My cube happens to be on the opposite side of the wall of the men's room, and so I get to hear everything. The first time this happened the workers found something so hilarious that their laughing drowned out my headphones for over 15 minutes. I don't even want to know what they found so funny in there. The most recent episode involved me using the restroom after their most recent "fix" to find that a drain had been covered over with duct tape with the message "Open pipe do not use" scrawled on it. I seriously had to ponder why such a message would be necessary, as if men were in the habit of using a floor drain for questionable purposes. After awhile I realized that the proper use is for draining the mop water (although it looks like it hasn't been mopped for weeks, and this doesn't help things), and that water down this drain would probably just splatter on the floor below somewhere.

Also, most men don't wash their hands after. FYI