There is a bathroom with 2 cubicles for all the ladies on our floor. It's locked, so only 3 companies share it. The left cubicle was my preferred toilet because the right cubicle has a strange door in the wall with plumbing or something in it, and the spotlight is pointed in the wrong direction so it is dimmer, and also, someone put a paper sign on the back of the door, typed up, telling you to BE CONSIDERATE and don't mess up the bathroom for the next person. So obviously I used the friendly, brightly lit cubicle over the insulting weird dark one. Especially, I hated that sign. So I avoided the cubicle on the right. But sometimes I forget, and see the sign, and feel rebuked, even though I don't mess up bathrooms. But then one day I took the sign down. That was a heady day.
Thinking about the 2 cubicles, I then reasoned that probably everyone was like me, and automatically avoided the dim lighting and the scary door in the wall. So if I switched to that one, I would virtually have my own reserved cubicle. So I have.
Props for taking down the sign. I'm all for that. Sure, it's vaguely passive aggressive, but work environments sometimes call for that.
ReplyDeleteWe have a lady who is always putting up 'clean up after yourself, I'm not your mother' kitchen signs, with twenty points on how we are doing the wrong thing, and how to correctly fold tea towels.
They kill me. There is never any punctuation. There is always overuse of the caps lock. There are random, terrible clip art pics to illustrate her point. And she goes to the trouble of laminating them. I once took one down and felt deep joy and accomplishment.
Laminating does give things more permanence and authority.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could make a passive aggressive sign about the signs: "use correct punctuation, I'm not your mother" and "BE CONSIDERATE: do not leave your clip art here please!!!".
Or be loving, and make proper signs that are less annoying but still say to put things away, as a happy compromise. But not as fun.