MetaChat - Dear Colleague: kindly windex your desk :P

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24 August 2010

Dear Colleague: kindly windex your desk :P →[More:]

(link is an oldie, but goodie)...

my dippy colleague is one of those annoying public toilet freaks who uses ass gaskets and refuses to touch anything in the bathroom. Her keyboard, however, resembles a toxic waste dump, and her desk is a cluttered shitpile that I'm sure hasn't been surface cleaned in months. Unsurprisingly, she's frequently sick with various respiratory ills. Go figure.

Please understand that I'm nowhere even close to the sort who uses clorox wipes on everything and is OMG germophobic or anything. Hell I grew up on a farm. I've shovelled (and breathed) literally tons of shit in my lifetime, swam in cow ponds and stepped on nails, and had mud fights and played in pig pens :P

ahem. However, I don't like to have to even borrow a post-it from this individual. Seriously, it is that gross. I can see hair in her keyboard! I just sent her that link. Was that passive-aggressive of me?

eh, probably. Whatever.

How can people be this completely irrational?

post by: lonefrontranger at: 10:06 | 16 comments

What on earth is an ass gasket?

posted by amro 24 August | 10:25

I once worked at a radio station with a guy we'll call Larry, who was the station's traffic manager. His office looked like somebody's attic, it was so piled up with boxes and folders of paperwork, crap from old station giveaways, random jackets and hats, books, you name it.

One time Larry was out of the building and we needed to find some record or receipt, I don't remember what, so one of the other DJs and I went digging through his office. On a bookshelf behind a stack of folders we found a forgotten coffee mug with a tennis-ball-sized puff of hairy gray MOLD growing out of it. (Turns out it was growing on a quarter-inch of coffee still in the bottom of the cup.)

I couldn't have been more horrified if Cthulhu Himself had jumped out of that bookcase at me. Bleargh.

posted by BoringPostcards 24 August | 10:32

ass gasket = toilet seat protectors. which people generally install improperly, then in their germophobic mania refuse to touch them after they've not flushed down, leaving the mess for the next unsuspecting toilet patron.

ass gaskets (and those stupid TP nests that people build in the absence of ass gaskets) are the leading cause of squalour, disarray and toilet overflows / malfunctions in public restrooms. All because these knobs are afraid of their precious backsides touching a toilet seat that's something like several orders of magnitude cleaner than their home toilet and/or desk.

this concludes your urbandictionary reference / PSA for today.

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 10:32

When I started at my job, the keyboard at my desk was OVERFLOWING with dust- and there had been someone using it the day before I started, so it wasn't a relic or anything. I could see it poking out between every key, like ear or nose hair on an old man. Totally disgusting.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 24 August | 10:48

TPS: EW!

BP: Bleargh, indeed. I'd have preferred Cthulu, at least I'm not allergic.

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 11:00

People, it seems to me, don't make a lot of sense. Sometimes, they make sense to themselves though. That's my guess anyway.

posted by richat 24 August | 11:14

I've seen those dispensers of paper toilet seat covers but didn't know that anyone actually every used them.

posted by octothorpe 24 August | 11:15

I occasionally fill in for one of my coworkers and I have to use her computer. I don't know if it's her lotion or what, but her keyboard is always slimy. I loathe her keyboard.

posted by youngergirl44 24 August | 11:55

"Bacteria Cafeteria" Ha!

posted by deborah 24 August | 13:52

youngergirl, is it a USB keyboard? if you guys have USB equipment, then they're hot-swappable. Just take your clean non-slimy keyboard and substitute it!

I have shamelessly done this before when working the front desk, etc..., but then, I'm pretty shameless. And I hate getting the flu!

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 13:59

I don't think it's a USB keyboard. We're not "advanced" around here.

I miss the days when I worked at a medical supply company. We sold alcohol wipes and they were super cheap, so we always had a box or two around the office for cleaning. I used to clean my keyboard often. Maybe I'll go pick some up and clean her keyboard when she's gone next.

I heard somewhere that the accounting department is likely the germiest department in any company because they're collecting or distributing bills and checks throughout the company, spreading germs as they go. Whether or not this is true, I'm not sure. But it sounds plausible.

posted by youngergirl44 24 August | 15:08

I always wonder what these people's homes look like. I'm fearless that way.

posted by bearwife 24 August | 15:32

I came here to contribute nothing, except to say that "ass gasket" unfailingly brings out the hurf durf church giggles, because I am twelve.

posted by tortillathehun 24 August | 15:56

cheers, tortilla! your username made me hungry, thus I'm off to see if the jicama I got at the grocery store last night is any good.

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 16:19

tortillathehun's username always gives me the hurf durf church giggles, because I am also twelve. :D

posted by deborah 24 August | 20:44

I'll never forget the day I got swapped to a new cubicle and started using the computer (some old AS400 relic). The 3 key on the numpad wasn't working so in between calls, I pried it up and found the thickest, yellowest, gnarliest fingernail I'd ever seen. Seriously, it could have been a toenail it was that thick and horrible that it looked like horn. And it wasn't just a bit of a clipping. Nooo, this was at least a quarter inch of horror.

I brought in a bottle of rubbing alcohol the next day and systematically dismantled the keyboard during night shift and cleaned the fucker out. Filthy keyboards are shoggoth-breeding factories, LFR. I don't know how your cow-worked stands it.

*shudder*

posted by ninazer0 25 August | 05:03

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