The Transition Period Is Over

The building that houses the Valve Store(r) was built in 1973. The offices have been updated several times since we’ve been here, but the restrooms have not been touched. With the icky green floor tiles and walls made out of green glazed cinder blocks they could pass for any interior room belonging to a mid-last century institute for the criminally insane.

Until a few months ago.

Both the Men’s and Women’s bathrooms near the front entrance to the building were brought as up to date as possible with the funds available to a Director of Operations at a medium -sized manufacturing facility. The walls and floors are done in brown hued tiles laid in a mix of straight and diamond patterns. There are new sinks, faucets, vanities and high tech textured plastic stall walls too. Now they resemble the restroom of any non-themed casual dining establishment.

We have new hand soap dispensers (both regular and gritty) and hand lotion dispensers. We also got one of those new fangled micro jet engine hand driers. No paper towel dispenser, but sitting on the vanity was a roll of the brown paper towels that goes in one. At first I thought that the dispensers were back ordered, but as the weeks past I came to realize there really wasn’t a spot left on the wall to put a paper towel dispenser.

Then I figured it was the failed Jimmy Carter mandated change to the Metric System all over again; the new metric units would coincide with the old units until a set transition period past then when we would start using Kilometers and Newton Meters, forgetting all about using miles and foot/pounds. Our new jet air drier would co-exist with the paper towels until sometime in the future, then the paper would go away, but because of mental inertia the towels would stay and eventually the air dryer would be replaced by a dispenser.

I was right about everything except for the failed part. The transition period was over; on Monday there was no roll of brown paper towels in the restroom. There was no roll Tuesday. Not today either.