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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

OK, this is kind of weird

When you work at the firm, you see all kinds of strange things. Some are strange-legal. This one is just strange. The men's room at this firm (at least the one on the floor contract attorneys are restricted to -- think of it as the ghetto) has a sign on the wall proclaiming it a "Green Restroom." To me, this means they simply don't bother to clean the mold off the grout, but to building management, it apparently means something else.

Beneath the large-type banner proclaiming the restroom's greenness (greenity? greenousity? greeneronomousness? Fuck if I know.) are two sentences describing the  greenness (greenity? greenousity? greeneronomousness? Fuck if I know. But I repeat myself.) of this particular restroom. Both sentences are problematic, in my opinion.

The first sentence reads: "This waterless urinal will save 40,000 gallons of water per year as compared to a conventional urinal." OK, fine. At one gallon per flush (pretty standard for urinals that still use water) 40,000 gallons equates to nearly 110 flushes per day, 365 days a year. Well, I guess that's possible for a communal restroom like this, but is it realistic for this one? There are, at this point, about 100 contract attorneys working at this firm, on this floor, using this restroom. Except roughly half of them are female. So now we have 50 dudes who need to flush this toilet 110 times per day. No problem there, right? In a workday that potentially lasts from 8 am to 8 pm, no question a dude will pee at least twice, so we easily hit 110 flushes per day.

But wait. There are four toilets in that restroom. Two are waterless urinals, two are, shall we say, floor models. All get some action. Assuming nobody pees in a floor model (come on -- really?) but instead everyone always stands around waiting for one of those cool waterless urinals to be vacant, now each guy has to pee more than four times per day to keep up the water-saving pace.

But wait. At this firm, contract attorneys don't work weekends. That means it isn't 110 flushes per day per toilet, it's 154. Now each dude has to pee more than 6 times per day to meet that water-saving goal. I don't give a fuck how environmentally conscious you are, most guys aren't hitting that mark.

Nonetheless, I am willing to accept the first sentence as a legitimate claim. I don't know how much it matters, but I accept it. The second sentence, however, is more problematic. It reads: "Please help maintain its reliability by refraining from adding water as the damages the liquid and odor seal."

Adding water to the toilet damages the liquid and odor seal? Really? Then what does pissing in it do? Can the liquid and odor seal tell the difference?

Have I gone on here at inordinate length about urinals? Yes? Why is that? Because this project is so fucking boring, even relative to other projects, that this is the most interesting thing there is to say about it. Man, how hard does that suck?

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