Saturday 18 July 2009

Red for danger

This was waiting on my desk to greet me when I got into work on Friday morning:


Ever-mindful of health and safety – yet not quite enough to give the toilets a really good clean with any degree of regularity – the facilities department had let rip a warning with their red print cartridge.

I'm supposing the alcohol denial is important and necessary, and it's not just intended to be small print, but whoever typed it didn't know how to change the font size. I'm supposing it says something about toxicitiy, or lack of, and rules and legality and blah blah.

Yet in this setting – polystyrene ceiling tiles above, stained carpet below, walls closing in left and right, soul seeping away front and centre – it suggests that they envision their beloved employees attempting to suck tiny drops of numbing comfort out of a sanitising wipe, with the desperation of a dying man in the desert. They are probably right.

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