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The Safety Cone

The other day at work, I was talking with a buddy of mine as we were walking to the kitchen area.  I had to get some water, and he had to grab his lunch, so we were just catching up.  When we walked in, though, we immediately noticed a mess in the sink.  There was water all over the place, and someone had decided that it was okay to just leave it like that.

I grumbled, and my buddy shook his head in disapproval.  However, I needed to use that sink, so I cleaned it up a bit.  It's not like it was hard: all I had to do was grab paper towels and wipe the counter a few times.  Of course, that made me even more annoyed, because the person who made the mess could have easily done the same.

The worst part of it, though, was that someone had used the pop up "safety cone."  If you've never seen one of these things, the link in the last sentence is probably a good place to start.  If you're too lazy to click on the link, it's a collapsible cloth & plastic cone thing that says something like "Caution" on it.  It can even be folded up nicely and stuck in a tube so that it's easily transported or out of the way.  And yes, we have one of these things in the kitchen area at work.

It's meant to be as a courtesy to other people, in case there's something that they should be wary of when in the kitchen.  Of course, it also functions as a "I'm going to be a lazy jackass" tool, since it essentially lets people pretend like they're doing something about a situation when they're just ignoring it.

Well, the guy I was talking to had a similar reaction, and he commented that people are just silly sometimes.  In fact, his words were actually, "man, if I left that at home, my wife would beat me."  (side note: can you see why I'm friends with this guy?)  I chuckled about it, but I know that if I had done something like that anywhere I've ever lived, I also would have been severely chastised.

All of this leads me to believe that we don't actually need more cleaning staff at work, we need someone willing to give out beatings.  Between security cameras and people walking by, I don't think people would ever get away with it.  And if the choice came down to spending 30 seconds to clean up a mess you made or putting up the cone & catching a beating, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't even need the cleaning staff to come by the kitchen anymore.

In fact, I'll volunteer myself as the first inductee to this program.  If you ever see me leave a big mess like that somewhere without cleaning up, you have my full permission to smack me upside my head (consider this a perk of reading this blog).  They're always telling us to think outside the box, I think this one qualifies as way-the-heck-innovative.  Who's with me?

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