Do you vollunteer your time?Follow

You said you couldn't tell. I offered clarification.

I couldn't tell if I should feel better, in light of the fact that these people have garden variety mental retardation rather than a specific hatred for the disabled (or more probably, a lack of desire to fund ease of access tools for their low number of disabled patrons)

There's something amusing about making your subordinates do stupid things and let them deal with the fallout. "You were late to the meeting? Well, while you're in the building you're walking backwards all day."

Years ago, when we were doing renovation of a building for our new test floor, I was sitting in one of the planning meetings when the subject of signage in the bathrooms came up. Originally, they had planned to set up a grey water system for the building, and per regulations had posted signs over any water source that was tapped into that set of pipes warning that the water was not safe to drink. This, of course, included said signage over the urinals. Which was mentioned jokingly at the meeting. Then, one of the facilities guys spoke up and said that the water system plan had fallen through, and they weren't going to be able to implement it, so it was just tied into the normal water system. I then joked that this meant that the water in the urinals really was safe to drink (which got a few chuckles), and the meeting went on.

Sometime later, the signs were removed. Which I kinda understand, but still. They had to pay someone to remove the signs, and then repair/repaint the walls behind them to do this. Or they could have just left them up, cause who's drinking water from a urinal anyway? Was the concern that someone might sue them for creating the false impression that the water in the urinals wasn't safe to drink when it really was? Dunno. Just always found that whole bit amusing.

So you walk past the sink and activate the urinal to lap up some water as it flows down?

So you walk past the sink and activate the urinal to lap up some water as it flows down?

Not that I think this really warrants this level of exposition, but, since your an imagination-less idiot unable to game this out for yourself, it's frequently the case that water mains are compromised by large disasters, particularly earthquakes, but others as well. Hence the recommendation to fill bathtubs with potable water prior to a hurricane or other disaster with adequate warning. Toilets and urinals could be sources of literally life saving potable water in a disaster. Knowing it wasn't potable would be somewhat important, considering in almost all cases in the US, it is.

The water that flows into a toilet or urinal may be potable, but once it's in the bowl (as opposed to the tank or pipes) or any accessible part of a urinal, it's no longer potable water. Cause... Urine and *****, right?

You don't drink the water out of the toilet bowl Smash. You use the water in the tank. Since a urinal doesn't have a tank, the only way to get water that isn't spoiled is if it's running. And if there's water pressure to operate the urinal, there's water pressure to operate the faucet attached to the sink. Hence, while there might be a reason to spend money putting up signs warning people that the water flowing into the urinal *isn't* safe to drink (cause who knows what someone might do for some reason, and liability is liability, and hey regulations, right?). But there's no real reason to spend money removing a sign warning people not to drink the urinal water. Dunno. Maybe there's some obscure regulation stating that it's a violation to put a "not safe to drink" sign on a water source that is safe to drink? That's seriously about the only reason I can think of to do this. Sadly, that's almost certainly the likely explanation, but then that makes it a great example of "rules that make no sense".

Edited, Jun 22nd 2015 1:33pm by gbaji