It seems the men in my office need a refresher on urinal etiquette. Seriously, its been like working with a bunch of kindergartners, all trying to figure out how the whole bathroom scene works on their first day of school. At a bare minimum I would have expected everyone to realize you shouldn't drop your pants at the urinal, but alas it seems we need to start from scratch, so here are a few common rules for urinal use.
- Don't drop your pants at the urinal. Like I said, thought this one was pretty obvious. No one needs to turn the corner to see a grown man bare assed whizzing away.
- Proximity - Disturbing trend at my work is the urinal hugger, these people are just jamming their stuff and entire midsection into the outer rim of the urinal. There's no avoiding the back splash at that this point, you might as well throw your shirt in the laundry while you're washing your hands. A good rule of thumb is about 9 inches back (assuming your bathroom has the dividers between urinals). Any further and you're risking shoe splatter.
- Eye contact- This should be pretty straight forward, literally. This isn't much of an issue at my office, not many wandering eyes, bad for careers. Head straight down isn't the most natural look either, its uncomfortable knowing the dude next to you is inspecting himself for infections from the past weekend.
- Finally, flush the toilet. It's disgusting and germ-a-phobia is no excuse. You wash your hands on the way out, the half second touch it takes to flush the toilet isn't going to result in you catching a whole new brand of AIDS or hep. No one wants to walk in and deal with your stagnant and unnaturally dark colored piss (you may want to focus on hydration as well).
