Thursday, June 23, 2016

Things we don't discuss










When I consider it, there are a lot of things we don't talk about at work. I am generally keen to shorten that list of items, but have no interest in obliterating it. This is why I will be bringing up this particular issue here but have never brought it up in casual conversation with my co-workers. Admittedly here is a gray area in the sense that a smattering of my co-workers (the best, brightest, most dedicated, and spiritually evolved ones) read this. But clerkmanifesto is a bit of a safe area where certain issues can be touched on that would be too much for the analog world of the library.

That is why today we will be discussing the toilet paper.

Yes, I know what you are thinking: "Thirteen hundred blog posts and finally, FINALLY, he is going to talk about the toilet paper."

That's not what you were thinking? 

Well, just because I don't get it right every single time doesn't mean I'm not psychic.

Toilet paper is a beautiful way for an employer to express exactly how they feel about their employees. And, if that is so, which it may be since I said it is, then our library employer hates our guts.

The toilet paper at my library is a thin, hard, single ply that I would describe as one grade better than just using newspapers. Oops, there I go exaggerating again. It is two grades better than newspapers. One grade better than newspapers would be newspapers without ink on them. We're one grade up from that. Our single ply, papery toilet paper comes in gigantic rolls mounted low on the wall in big plastic dispensers that issue forth the paper an uncomfortable five inches from the ground. The paper is not serrated in any way and the only reasonable way to tear off pieces is to grab a section in two fists and rip it savagely apart. In this regard the newspapers would be easier to use, or possibly leaves. To make it worse, when the closer of two mounted rolls is used up we switch to the far side of the dispenser which is even more awkward to reach, requiring the height of Billy Barty, the agility of Nadia Comanici, and the arms of Kareem Abdul Jabbar (or, for my younger readers, the height of Peter Dinklage, the agility of Svetlana Khorkina, and the arms of Marc Gasol).

It is, and please forgive the pun, crappy toilet paper, miserably presented.

But there is one more wonderful thing to this toilet paper that is expressive. These giant, awful rolls of toilet paper are mounted in big, tough plastic dispensers that are locked.

Yes, they're concerned we might be tempted to steal it.










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