stereotypical single woman

After spending a few weeks in the service industry I now understand why cleaning people are generally viewed as anti-social, angry, and prone to sabotage. It’s because they have to clean up after the general public and the general public is full of inconsiderate slobs.

This is a public service announcement to the general public to help improve your relationships with your cleaning people, and thus decrease the chances that your favorite coffee cup will wind up accidentally knocked over, smashed, stomped on, and ground into the floor while they’re dusting around the thousands of tchotchkesnd pictures of happy brides and drooling children on your desk.

First, please flush the toilet. Really, there is no excuse not to. It just takes a second. And if you’ve taken an especially large dump, stick around for the extra 15 seconds and flush a second time if needed. There is very little more disgusting than standing over a toilet you need to clean that’s full, gagging, hoping you won’t be cleaning up your own vomit as well.

Second, men, there is only one reason that there are copies of Vogue squirreled away in the furthest stall from the door. Fine, so you’ve been jacking off on company time, good for you, but please don’t leave the magazine on the floor so someone has to pick it up when they mop. When they pick it up they can tell exactly which pages are stuck together, and know which girl or guy you’ve been looking at, and that is just way more information than anyone needs.

Women, I know you need to freshen you lipstick in the bathroom to impress the guy who’s busy with the pictures of Clooney next door, but when you blot your lipstick put the tissue you’ve used in the garbage can. Not just on the floor in the general area of the garbage can.

So let’s say you’re in the break room. There’s a sink and a garbage can right next to each other. You want to throw away your cup of soda. Empty the liquid into the sink first, then throw the cup away. Otherwise there is an unpleasantly aromatic, moldy, watery substance in the bottom of the trash that someone else has to clean up.

This last week you sold enough products to get an office pizza party, great! Break down the boxes before putting them in the trash can, or better yet, go into the cleaning closet (you know you’ve already rigged it so it doesn’t lock), grab another trash bag, and put them in there, next to the trash can. Someone will get the message and take it out with the other trash, and everyone else will be able to throw their other trash away instead of perching it precariously on top of the boxes and spilling crap all over the floor.

I understand that sitting at a counter all day burns so many calories that you’ll fade away if you don’t eat every hour. You need those Milano cookies right there to keep you from looking like Nicole Richie, but please brush the crumbs off the counter and keep the cookies in a closed container. That’s the reason you need all the mouse traps that keep going off whenever someone is dusting in hidden corners, giving them a small heart attack every time one snaps shut in an eerily quiet building.

And finally, if you’re in front of a mirror and sneeze, cover your face. If you can’t, wipe the boogers and any other moisture that comes out of the various orifices of your head off the mirror before it hardens into an off white goo that someone else needs to scrape off the mirror. Thank you.