My work place is celebrating Earth Day by asking employees to volunteer some kind of environmental commitment for the week. Someone created a poster where everyone can write the thing they are doing to help save the planet.
The point of it is to get individuals to volunteer to give something up, not to force everyone to. Some people wrote that they would walk to work this week, others said they would save electricity by turning off the lights in unused rooms and closets. There were several others.
At some point in the afternoon, a coworker decided that everyone would play along by removing all the paper towels from the employee restroom. She announced it gleefully over the walkie-talkie that "now everyone can do their part." Immediately, another coworker turned to me and said "I think that is really rude. The point is that we can choose whether or not we want to do this." While there was an additional reason for my position, I agreed completely.
I confronted the person who removed the paper towels. Those of you who know me may be surprised to find out that I actually really hate confrontation and I was sort of nervous to talk to her about it, even though she is not my boss in any way.
I simply said, "I disagree with your decision to remove the paper towels. I am a complete germ-o-phobe and I require paper towels to feel comfortable and sanitary about exiting the bathroom. I am sure that not everyone who works here washes their hands and I know I am not the only one who uses the paper towels on the door handle. Also, I believe I have an equal point when I say that I'm doing my part to conserve by not wasting electricity with the hand dryer."
She didn't argue. I don't think she expected anyone to say that to her though.
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2 comments:
I think that whole thing is kind of inappropriate, though I understand the point that Banana is attempting to make. But maybe the corporation could do something environmentally friendly on the behalf of the employees instead of expecting them to do silly little, temporary things like walking to work one day.
And you should have walked out of the bathroom and dried your hands on the paper towel remover's shirt. I HATE restrooms that only have blowers--gross.
Bahahaha. Funny.
The company is donating money to a group that upkeeps parks or something. I think that's pretty cool.
But removing the paper towels from the bathroom for a week is only going to cause 90% of the employees to cry about why we have "run out" of paper towels. And who do you think they cry to?
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