Moody Lighting

The bathroom in the staff break room is a high volume traffic area. Beside the Library staff, most of our students as well as the staff from the Learning Center and any faculty who wander by prefer the comfort of a cozier room to a cold stone-walled stall shared with the rest of the campus residents.



We have had our little squabbles with facilities over the accouterments of the bathrooms. I am shocked that they find it acceptable to plunge (no pun intended) the bathrooms into total darkness in the event of a power outage. We have 3/4 generator restoration, but bathroom lighting didn't make the list. So when the power goes out, you have to take your cell phone into the ladies room to be able to see anything - there are no windows in any of the bathrooms.



Then there is the green aspect of automatic water turn on and off. I have clocked the downstairs bathrooms at a stunning 4 seconds, the upstairs ones at an astounding 3 seconds. After a year and a half of asking (and everyone learning the four hand repeat swish), I finally got an agreement from the facilities guy to up it to 15 seconds (which should do it. I am told you are supposed to continue washing your hands until you finish singing Happy Birthday to yourself in order to ensure that all germs have met their demise). Of course, they didn't say when they planned to make it happen.



Such silly little issues. Yet aggravating irritations when left unchecked. Today I encountered yet another bathroom quandary. The staff bathroom lighting has decided to go rogue. When you flip the switch (one of those motion sensor things still turns the light off if you sit too long!) it grudgingly acquiesces to provide a half candle watt of power. The darkness is barely dispelled. Sort of like experiencing pre-dawn grayness even at noon. You have to really work to actually see your hand in front of your face. Laura says its downright scary.



Its not so bad, really. Makes for a peaceful environment, keeps you from noticing the dust on the top of the paper dispensers or the smudges on the little table we commandeered from the old building (otherwise there would be no place to set your reading material!). Sure hope it doesn't take a year and a half to convince facilities to take a look!



Meanwhile, I am back to sharing the downstairs 4 second stalls with the rest of campus! Well, just another occasion to develop my reputation as a hard hitting demanding perfectionist (not).