We’ve all read that article about the nasty refrigerator that sent seven people to the hospital and wondered how on Earth they let an office refrigerator get that nasty. It got me to thinking, what else in the office a potential threat? I’m wigged out by the office water cooler anyway, not the one with the jug but the one attached to the wall. Don’t get me started on the public restroom and how nasty they are…..
In a past life, many of us were convinced we had air quality issues. During the winter if one employee got sick, we all got sick. We went through Lysol and Kleenex by the cases. The air quality was eventually tested, after numerous complaints, but the results came back clear. The company even paid an outside contractor to replace all the filters yet, the next flu season, we all got sick again. I don’t suffer from Mysophobia but a public office is gross; between the sneezing and coughing and not wearing shoes, ugh.
What in your office makes you want to wear a hazmat suit to work?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
This makes me dry heave every time I see it: we have candy in the restrooms. Who eats toilette candy? I also don’t want to see you bring you coffee or soda in with you, that is so foul, and I’ve seen some pretty gross stuff in the Army, but people, you know better than to eat and drink in the restroom!
@Puf, candy in the restroom, serioulsy, that’s disgusting, who eats that!?! Is the dish replished, ever?
All the time! That candy disappears quicker than an honest person on Capital Hill.
@puf that has t be the nastiest thing I’ve ever heard of! Toilet candy! GAG! Everybody learned, in middle school science class, 1) toilets spray your funk in the air, 2) you smell b/c little particles (of bathroom funk) have landed on your olfactory glands. So, I theorize those people are increasing their daily consumption of sh!t. Thank God I have allergies and that mess can’t get past my nostrils!
@Puf, ok well there goes my appetite for lunch…..
“candy” in the restroom. Are you sure it was candy and not some sort of “air freshener”? Kind of like the Potpourri that someone mistakes for stale chips?
The best solution I have seen to keep shared refrigerators clean is to have a policy clearly stated on the front of the frig – “Refrigerator is cleaned out on Fridays – anything left in here after 5:00 pm on Friday will be thrown out!” Then do it.
Everyplace that I have worked with such a policy has never had a problem with yucky stuff in the frig.
“What in your office makes you want to wear a hazmat suit to work?”
Can I answer “fellow employees”?
I once worked in a place where a guy would not shower for days on end. Everyone in this company except those in management positions shared an office. No one would share an office with him. There were several days that I would get on the elevator and know that he had ridden in it within the last 30 minutes because his “aroma” would linger that long. I would get out and take the stairs. Every so often his manager would tell him to go home and not come back until he cleaned up. While I understand he was a brilliant software programmer, the amount of time spent by everyone else “working around” him wasn’t worth it.
Another place I worked – a document production center – had one manager-type employee who had a reputation for not washing his hands after using the restroom. This reputation was based on fact. (And I can tell you that men must gossip just as much as women; because ALL the women in the office knew this fact too) No one wanted to handle the documents that he had just handled. Often production assistants would tell him to set the papers down on the desk instead of taking them into their hands.
One day a previous employee came into work to show everyone her new baby. I had just been in the restroom and noticed that “jack” hadn’t washed his hands. When I came out; there was “jack” with the new mom and her baby sticking his “dirty” fingers in the kids cheek talking baby talk. I so wanted to scream!
Toilet candy=blarg
Did you see my post a while back about the “poisoned office?” I actually got an update today from an anonymous source that it has gotten even worse since I left!
http://www.jobacle.com/blog/2009/5/7/the-tale-of-the-poisoned-office.html
@Ben I did not see it but your office water cooler sounds a lot like the air quality issue at my old place.
@Charles We had that same note on a refrigerator at a former company, the problem was no one cleaned it out regularly. There were plenty of times it got really funky, I gave up and brought my own little refrigerator for my office.
And I’ve dealt with the non hand washer type too, always amazed me how people ate her food during pot luck events.
So the water cooler’s hosting rainbow parties again?
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2009/05/13/sothe-water-coolers-hosting-rainbow-parties-again/