Monday, February 23, 2004

Evacuation 101

I got an email today from the building manager, to all employees, about “Evacuation Training.” In the interest of protecting us from undisclosed evils that are expected to be likely to take us out at a moment’s notice, we are offered trainings twice a year on how to leave the building in an emergency.  Attendance is mandatory for new employees and recommended for those who have short memories or no sense of what makes for good entertainment.  Evacuation Training.  I guess it’s a good idea. 

But maybe they could stretch a little with this subject.  There are other matters, falling under the same general heading, on which staff here are sorely in need of a refresher course. 

I’m speaking in particular about the failure by the women on this floor of my building to close their bathroom door.  I walk past the womens’ room two or three times on a typical day on my way to the coffee room, and more often than not their restroom is wide open to visual inspection.  These are, in general, staid, unadventurous government-worker-type women who don’t demonstrate much of a penchant for exhibitionism - but for some reason they never close the door to the crapper.  I try not to pay attention as I walk past but if I hear noises my head automatically turns.  I’m not looking for anything, I just spontaneously focus on the source of noise.  Usually it’s a flush or the rumble of an industrial roll of paper being forcefully unspooled.  Sometimes there are other noises.  Cursing my weakness, I look despite myself. 

I’ve never seen anything particularly distasteful in that room, it’s designed well enough that the view is of stalls and sinks.  But even when it’s quiet in there, a cool breeze blows out that doorway and I just wind up noticing it’s open, occupied, and active.  I don’t actually need to have this information; I even wish I didn’t have this information more often than not.  But I’m saddled with it, because the women on this floor seem to prefer it that way.  It’s the “check me out” philosophy of office hygiene.  The “share-a-bit” workplace intimacy program.  The “open door” school of personal function management. 

I’m thinking that some of my colleagues could use a refresher on Evacuation Training.  Lesson One: Unless you’re giving a public presentation, close the damn bathroom door.  Nobody wants to know your style or schedule.  And in the meantime, I might start using the coffeemaker on the 10th floor.  They’ve got a view of the bridge, the island, Berkeley, Mt. Diablo.  Call me old-fashioned but I prefer that to a view of pudgy ankles and a biochorus of digestive outputs.