I don't know about where you work, but where I work, they've installed paper towel dispensers as an option for people who don't want to use the already there hand blowers. They're providing personal bottles of hand sanitizers at every desk (for some reason, they skipped my desk). There are hand sanitizer dispensers at every entrance. We are told that there are masks and latex gloves available for each unit, if needed.
...and there are signs every where on the proper way to wash your hands.
Step 1. Grab paper towel (hence the newly installed dispensers)
Step 2. Turn on water tap WITH the paper towel.
Step 3. Wet hands with warm
running water (not standing water) and make a soapy lather. Be careful not to wash the lather away so create the lather away from the running water. Rub soap on the front and back of your hands, as well as between your fingers and under your nails. Must do this for at least 15 seconds.
Step 4. Rinse your hands under the still running warm water (probably steaming hot right now - Question: Do I pick up the paper towel with my soapy hands to adjust the water taps? What happens if I accidentally pick up the side of the paper towel that I used to turn on the water taps in the first place? I guess, I'll need to repeat step 3 and request an extension to my 15 minute break because this is taking a really long time.)
Step 5. Pat hands dry with a paper towel. (The SAME paper towel or a different one? If it's the same one, it's been sitting on the counter among all the nasty counter water and other paper towels. Okay. Different one)
Step 6. Turn off water using same paper towel and dispose in a proper receptacle.
My thoughts:
1. Seeing as this is all being done to preserve our health and live long healthy lives - what are we doing to ensure that Mother Nature is also going to live a long healthy life? Because the way I see it, that water tap has been running for at least three or four unnecessary minutes - longer, if you run into paper towel difficulties. As for all of those paper towels - are we planting more trees? Recycling more? What?
2. Why can't we air dry our hands and flap them around? Sure, you might piss off your co-worker if you enthusiastically flap your wet hands in their face, but we can use a bar of soap to write on the mirror and advise people not to do that. Personally, I use the flap method and if my hands are still damp, I use my fingers to pat down my frizzy hair.
3. If everybody else is going to use paper towels to turn the water taps on or off, I'm willing to take the risk and NOT use the paper towels to turn the water taps on or off.
4. Why are you leaving your used paper towel on the counter? Why?
5. I don't think all of this hand washing is going to prevent you from turning into a blood thirsty vomiting zombie.
6. Are these signs in the men's bathroom? Because some of these guys are in and out of there so fast, there is no way they're doing Step 3 and Step 4. Actually, I'm wondering if they're even doing #1 in the bathroom or if they just went in for a quick scan of the facilities.
7. As a community, since we are so actively trying to get people to wash their hands properly, I really think some effort needs to be put in place to get people to:
a) not pee on the toilet seat or;
b) if you can't manage to contain your pee to the toilet bowl, then some mechanism needs to be implemented to shame the person who left pee on the seat and is now standing in front of the sink using five minutes of running water and 10 paper towels to wash their hands.