I mentioned once before that I take issue with the way the bathrooms are placed in the new office. There's not much I can do about how the building is laid out, though, so I just deal with it. Recently, though, I discovered another peculiarity about the bathrooms: every now & then, it will smell like food in there.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't eat in the bathroom. Ever. So, this turn of events confused the heck out of me. The first time I noticed this, it was later in the afternoon, and the door to the little cleaning supplies room was open. I kind of figured that someone from the cleaning staff was running late or something, scarfed down a quick bite in the supply room, and then went about their business. It wouldn't have been an ideal situation, but it seemed plausible.
However, I noticed that it kept happening. I can understand one meal in that supply room in a pinch, but multiple meals? Eating in a room that smells like detergent isn't exactly that much of an upgrade over eating in a bathroom. Also, I started noticing the food smells at different times of the day. It was never the same thing, either. Clearly, something weird was going on.
And then, one day, I walked in to the restroom right around lunch time. It smelled like food again, and I was about to go back to being confused. However, I remembered that I had to grab something from the fridge, so I resolved to grab something from there afterward. Suddenly, it clicked. The microwave is roughly on the other side of the wall of that restroom. It smelled like lunch because, hell, it was someone's lunch. I apparently have yet another bone to pick with the people who laid out the floor plan in this office.
Surprisingly, I think solving the mystery makes it worse. Before, I just had a perplexing mystery on my hands. Now that I know that it's actual food that I'm smelling while in the bathroom, my emotions are warring with each other. On the one hand, there's that sense of "hm, that smells good." On the other hand, there's that sense of "um, I'm in the bathroom." Those two thoughts evoke very, very different responses and mental images, and I'm a little worried that through sheer repetition, I will begin to associate one with the other. No possible good can come from this, I tell you.
Also, I have no way of proving this, but I'm guessing that the women don't deal with this problem. The door to their bathroom is a good twenty feet away or so, so there are good odds that they don't have the same smells wafting into their bathroom.
To sum it all up, if any of you are ever involved in designing, planning, or executing the floor plan for a building, I have one simple piece of advice: do not, under any circumstances, allow or create a direct path/conduit for air/smells to travel from something like a kitchen to something like a bathroom. Just don't.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't eat in the bathroom. Ever. So, this turn of events confused the heck out of me. The first time I noticed this, it was later in the afternoon, and the door to the little cleaning supplies room was open. I kind of figured that someone from the cleaning staff was running late or something, scarfed down a quick bite in the supply room, and then went about their business. It wouldn't have been an ideal situation, but it seemed plausible.
However, I noticed that it kept happening. I can understand one meal in that supply room in a pinch, but multiple meals? Eating in a room that smells like detergent isn't exactly that much of an upgrade over eating in a bathroom. Also, I started noticing the food smells at different times of the day. It was never the same thing, either. Clearly, something weird was going on.
And then, one day, I walked in to the restroom right around lunch time. It smelled like food again, and I was about to go back to being confused. However, I remembered that I had to grab something from the fridge, so I resolved to grab something from there afterward. Suddenly, it clicked. The microwave is roughly on the other side of the wall of that restroom. It smelled like lunch because, hell, it was someone's lunch. I apparently have yet another bone to pick with the people who laid out the floor plan in this office.
Surprisingly, I think solving the mystery makes it worse. Before, I just had a perplexing mystery on my hands. Now that I know that it's actual food that I'm smelling while in the bathroom, my emotions are warring with each other. On the one hand, there's that sense of "hm, that smells good." On the other hand, there's that sense of "um, I'm in the bathroom." Those two thoughts evoke very, very different responses and mental images, and I'm a little worried that through sheer repetition, I will begin to associate one with the other. No possible good can come from this, I tell you.
Also, I have no way of proving this, but I'm guessing that the women don't deal with this problem. The door to their bathroom is a good twenty feet away or so, so there are good odds that they don't have the same smells wafting into their bathroom.
To sum it all up, if any of you are ever involved in designing, planning, or executing the floor plan for a building, I have one simple piece of advice: do not, under any circumstances, allow or create a direct path/conduit for air/smells to travel from something like a kitchen to something like a bathroom. Just don't.
Would it not be more troubling if you could smell the bathroom from the break room with the microwaves?
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