My Candlelit Wiggly
My employer has recently changed buildings. Today is the first day at the new address. As one might imagine I have a long, almost endless, list of complaints. Mostly lost and missing stuff, like: absent files, vanishing timesheets, missing keys from my keyboard (It’s the Escape Key . . . No Escape, No Exit . . . Huis Clos . . . Fuck You, Sartre!), forgotten mouse wheels, and a mysterious refrigerator omission. You know, typical stuff. [Oh, yes, I just noticed, my bagels have no holes. I’m serious.]
Anyway, while I do wish all of the aforementioned crap were available - except insofar as I already stole the crap of my co-workers as replacement crap - I do not find its absence disturbing. What does strike me as disturbing is the light in the bathroom. This is to say, the lack of the light in the bathroom.
It is not completely dark, mind you; pitch-black I could handle. I would even look forward to the absence of light in the bathroom; a test of my manhood, my aim, my willingness to moisten my shoes. But, No, there is light, just not very much of it. I can even see where I am going. [Get it, “Going”. In the Bathroom! Going!!!! Ha!!! I’m so funny!] What I find infuriating is that the light is missing its harshness; its penetrating vision, its ability to highlight my every wrinkle as I stare obsessively into the mirror. With this bit missing, the light is exceptionally soft and shadowy, covering and concealing, as though I were tinkling next to a burning log in a brick fireplace. In a word, the lighting is most accurately classified as “mood”, as in mood lighting. This is wrong, very very wrong. I am barely subverting the urge to punch the guy at the next stall who insists on carrying on a conversation under normal conditions. And lest anyone misconstrue the thrust of this complaint, let me be clear:
Attention Co-Workers: I need my excretory privacy, preferably with harsh bright lighting emulative of a clinical setting. The bathroom is no place for social interaction of any type! The urinals are ME time. I am more than happy to entertain your inane prattling at my desk
I am uncertain as to what type of employee morale this new lighting policy if meant to facilitate, but I am fairly certain that my morale is going to suffer greatly if I hold my water for another 10-hour day.
And by the way, to whomever in building management my email complaint on this subject was sent earlier today: I do not find the recent addition of Barry White music to the Restroom ambiance in the least bit amusing.
Anyway, while I do wish all of the aforementioned crap were available - except insofar as I already stole the crap of my co-workers as replacement crap - I do not find its absence disturbing. What does strike me as disturbing is the light in the bathroom. This is to say, the lack of the light in the bathroom.
It is not completely dark, mind you; pitch-black I could handle. I would even look forward to the absence of light in the bathroom; a test of my manhood, my aim, my willingness to moisten my shoes. But, No, there is light, just not very much of it. I can even see where I am going. [Get it, “Going”. In the Bathroom! Going!!!! Ha!!! I’m so funny!] What I find infuriating is that the light is missing its harshness; its penetrating vision, its ability to highlight my every wrinkle as I stare obsessively into the mirror. With this bit missing, the light is exceptionally soft and shadowy, covering and concealing, as though I were tinkling next to a burning log in a brick fireplace. In a word, the lighting is most accurately classified as “mood”, as in mood lighting. This is wrong, very very wrong. I am barely subverting the urge to punch the guy at the next stall who insists on carrying on a conversation under normal conditions. And lest anyone misconstrue the thrust of this complaint, let me be clear:
Attention Co-Workers: I need my excretory privacy, preferably with harsh bright lighting emulative of a clinical setting. The bathroom is no place for social interaction of any type! The urinals are ME time. I am more than happy to entertain your inane prattling at my desk
I am uncertain as to what type of employee morale this new lighting policy if meant to facilitate, but I am fairly certain that my morale is going to suffer greatly if I hold my water for another 10-hour day.
And by the way, to whomever in building management my email complaint on this subject was sent earlier today: I do not find the recent addition of Barry White music to the Restroom ambiance in the least bit amusing.