paper towels and the office restroom

Yesterday, we addressed the male hand-washing pattern in the restroom. Today, we address the folks who exit the bathroom door using paper towels to grab the handle. This is a free-flowing blog-entry that may touch on mature subjects. You have been warned.

So, I have noticed this disturbing trend of people grabbing the restroom door-handle with paper towels as the exit the restroom after a use and hand-washing.

On the surface, one may think that it would make perfect sense to use the towel. The restroom door handle is assumed to be filthy since it shares a room with other things that are assumed to be filthy.

Yet, there is an argument to be made that the handle may be the cleanest surface in the bathroom, being exclusively touched by freshly-washed hands.

Still, even if that argument did not hold true...even if we assume that some joker purposely avoids cleanliness and then rubs his hands on the door handle…how does grabbing it with paper towels help?

In my office, after we exit the restroom, we then have to re-enter our offices, going through another series of doors. That’s right. More disgusting door handles. Only now, paper-towel-door-handle-guy just uses his hands, sans towel. How is it different? Whatever diseases and bacteria rest on the restroom door handle probably rest on the other door handles of the building as well.

So, in closing, the only thing that would make sense to me is if the restroom-handler/germaphobe would carry around a package of paper towels to cover and sheath any necessary grasping or holding of common objects.

A simpler idea: keep some hand sanitizer at your desk.