November 16th, 2009
There should be some kind of etiquette or protocol around restrooms, and that memo apparently missed the office I work in. I typically use the following rule: always leave a buffer stall between myself and the next person. If you can, leave more than one buffer stall. You see, there are seven, yes SEVEN, stalls in the office restroom I’m subjected to all day long. Many times, thankfully, it’s empty. However, more often than not someone will arrive while I’m in a stall. And very often, more often than makes sense, the stall next to mine will be taken by that person. Seven stalls, only one occupied, and the person will choose the one next to me. And oftentimes I’m in the farthest stall from the door, so they have to pass a whole lot of empty stalls to get to the one right next to me. And this happens regularly enough to warrant a blog post.
It’s pretty simple protocol:
- If you can choose a stall that’s at least one stall away from someone, take it. Give your coworkers some buffer. The more buffer the better.
And while we’re here, also:
- Don’t talk on a cell phone in the stall. That’s gross.
- Preferably don’t talk to me while I’m in a stall. That’s awkward.
There are many pages online about bathroom etiquette. Here’s one of my favorites, although targeted at a mens restroom instead:
http://blag.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerability/
And articles:
http://www.ehow.com/about_5453318_bathroom-stall-etiquette.html
http://ryanswing.blogspot.com/2009/02/public-bathroom-stalluranal-etiquette.html
And other office workers in the same boat:
http://www.unleashyouranger.com/content/view/84/31/
http://www.johnsjottings.com/archives/2003/06/26/a_note_on_bathroom_etiquette.html
At least I’m not alone.
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October 9th, 2009
My cat doesn’t mind the vaccuum. Most loud noises for that matter (motorcycles, trucks, bubble wrap and plastic bags). She’ll let me brush her and clip her nails. However, she has absolutely no tolerance for Fleet Week: particularly the loud Blue Angels flying over or near our house. Or even rather far away.
She low walks to the middle of the house, or under the bed. By low walks, I mean she slinks with her belly to the ground away from all windows. And she will act like this for hours. Initially, before we knew what was going on, we thought she was ill and she almost had a vet trip. (Luckily we figured out why she was acting so weird when a plane went over the house — she was acting like that to the distant sound…)
Anyway, my cat, she hates Fleet Week.
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July 17th, 2008
Lately, News has been reporting about the latest craze of the “staycation“. Or the “holistay“. Due to gas prices and reducing ones carbon footprint, people are staying home this summer to save money or “go green”. Well, I’m proud to say that we’ve been ahead of the craze by many years. I was staycationing back when it was called ‘being poor’. So my bleeding edge staycationing was not for the above mentioned reasons, but due to poor-ness or too damn lazy or indecisive to buy tickets and set things up. And I’m here to say the staycation kinda blows. At the end of your week or two off work, you feel like you’ve done nothing. You go back to work feeling like you never had any vacation time. You go a bit stir crazy. It just feels like a long weekend. And yes, even if you do turn off the computer and neglect errands or don’t take on annoying projects like deep-cleaning the carpet or something.
So they suck. That’s about all I have.
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