Sherlock Holmes: Office style
Actually, it's more "Watson: Office" style since I observed the phenomena but can't figure out what they mean. Namely, there was a trail of evenly spaced light-tan thin fluid blots starting at the elevator in my building and running down the entire length of the hall an into another (attached) building. At this point, the trail disappeared (it is an area of heavy cross-building foot traffic), but the blots appeared to go up the nearby stairs to the next floor. Presumably, from both my knowledge of my fellow workers and of properties the liquid itself, the fluid was coffee (N.B. Generally it is not a great idea to smell, touch, or taste any liquid to identify it, particularly when you are in a building dedicated to research. Therefore, I made a tentative identification based solely on visual clues).
Now the analysis ceases to be straightforward. The blots themselves were uniformly shaped (circular), without any splash pattern. This suggests a continuous dripping without a spill. Coffee is generally carried in a cup; perhaps the cup had a crack through which the coffee was leaking. The blots were also uniformly spaced, suggesting the coffee was carried at a steady place: either the person carrying it did not notice it was leaking out or did not care. Both possibilities are compatible with the fact that this person did not come back to clean up the coffee; Obviously a mess that isn't noticed won't be cleaned up, but perhaps the coffee carrier is a causal sort of psychopath who disdains to change pace for dripping coffee and who habitually expects lesser beings to clean up after him or her.
There is also the interesting question of why the trail appears to travel from the elevator to the stairs. The building coffeemaker is on the floor above where the trail was. The elevator goes to the basement, which the stairs do not, but why not take the elevator to start with if you need to get to the basement? Very confusing.
Now the analysis ceases to be straightforward. The blots themselves were uniformly shaped (circular), without any splash pattern. This suggests a continuous dripping without a spill. Coffee is generally carried in a cup; perhaps the cup had a crack through which the coffee was leaking. The blots were also uniformly spaced, suggesting the coffee was carried at a steady place: either the person carrying it did not notice it was leaking out or did not care. Both possibilities are compatible with the fact that this person did not come back to clean up the coffee; Obviously a mess that isn't noticed won't be cleaned up, but perhaps the coffee carrier is a causal sort of psychopath who disdains to change pace for dripping coffee and who habitually expects lesser beings to clean up after him or her.
There is also the interesting question of why the trail appears to travel from the elevator to the stairs. The building coffeemaker is on the floor above where the trail was. The elevator goes to the basement, which the stairs do not, but why not take the elevator to start with if you need to get to the basement? Very confusing.