Some time back, tearooms tittered with amusement at the wonderful project planning skills displayed that saw the ripping out of the towels from the cloakrooms before the installation of the hand-dryers... and the subsequent realisation, once the hand-dryers were installed, that - hey, these are *cloakrooms*, there isn't any power source to plug them into.... and the eventual return of the towels.
The amount of water flushed under that bridge in the interim is inestimable, but finally, the hand-dryers went live. Trouble was, no one used them. Whether this was simply because people were so used to the months of seeing them standing idle, that the possibility of their being more than decorative failed to take hold, or due to people not *wanting* to use them, was at that stage unclear. But the issue was forced - the towels were once more ripped out.
Confronted with the gaping holes in the tiles where one towels hung, the wet-handed stared at each other bemusedly, wondering whither next. They glanced up at the gleaming silver fixtures on the wall, before deciding in unision on their course of action. The headed back into the toilets and came out with hands swaddled in metres of toilet paper, dried their hands, and dropped the soggy toilet paper in the bin next to the door.
This practicce has continued. The bin is now overflowing with soggy toilet paper. The toilets are consuming as many toilet rolls as they do during lecture time. The hand-dryers stand, ignored.
The sample I questioned were quite clear about why:
"I don't have all day to stand around waiting for this thing to dry my hands! I've got work to do, and that takes ages - and it sits so high in the sky you have to hold your hands up like you're praying and then the water trickes down your arms and wets your clothing!"
"It's so noisy - like standing next to a jumbo jet taking off!"
"That blast of hot air makes you feel really sick!"
"Yuck - it doesn't dry your hands properly, it just leaves them warm and moist - perfect breeding ground for all kinds of ucky things!"
"It feels like being yelled at!"
And so, like other staff members, I'll now revert to keeping a towel in my office on which to dry my hands. The curtains are, after all, just a little too dusty.
And - I suspect - one day, whoever stole the brass footplates off the office doors will realise the scrap metal potential of the hand-dryers, and they too will be ripped off the wall, and no one will even notice.