Hands Free

Working at a manufacturing facility that strives to be World Class in its manufacturing standards and to be in conformance with the British Retail Consortium means that everything must be stringently clean. 

So we try to actually touch stuff as little as possible and there’s hand washing constantly.  You go to the washroom, you wash (of course).  You sneeze, you wash.  You eat, you wash.  You go outside then come back in, you wash.  You blow your nose, you wash.  Wash wash wash.

Also, it means pretty much everything is motion sensored.  You walk in a room or area and the lights turn on.  As long as you’re moving around in there, the lights stay on. 

This can become a problem if you are in the washroom for a longer period of time….now I’m not sure how long the timer is set for, but it has happened that the lights will suddenly turn off and it becomes pitch black in the washroom.  This requires a graceful (and slightly frantic) waving of the hand while trying to stay on the toilet in order for the sensor to be activated and the lights turn back on. 

It has happened, too, where I’m at home and walk into a dark room and pause, waiting for the lights to turn on….then I clue in and remember that at home, I actually have to turn the lights on myself. 

Back to the washroom….cause that’s where the funny stuff happens….the toilet also flushes on a sensor.  So I learned the hard way that if you lean forward at all while sitting on the toilet that it thinks you have gotten up and will flush.  That is a cold and splashy experience.  Although strangely my little boy is going through a faze right now where he likes to flush while sitting on the toilet.  I think it makes him feel dangerous and gives him a thrill.  I, however, now make sure that I sit very still and upright the entire time. 

When I do stand up it will flush again.  Then I zip up my pants and buckle my belt and depending on how long I stand in the same place in front of the toilet, when I am done, it will flush again.  My record is 5 flushes in one washroom experience, in case you were curious – and I know you were. ;o)

Then I’m on to the motion sensored tap that is always cold and never really warms up.  I tested it once on a particularly boring day.  Just to see if it would ever actually warm up like the maintenance engineer assured me it would.  The answer is no, the best it gets is a coldish lukewarm.  I use that as my excuse to not wash my hands for the full singing of Happy Birthday twice through like the sign beside the sink advises me to.  Although the day I was testing it to see if it ever got warm I was washing my hands for like, 5 minutes. 

All in all, I think you can tell that I have a pretty exciting job.