Mystery Soaper

Every now and then I do something that makes me shake my head.

I did such a thing about six weeks ago.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I have worked at my present job for ten months now.

I'm a "brown bagger," so everyday at lunchtime I go into the kitchen with a book and make the most of my 45 minutes.

For the longest time, I'd go into the kitchen and have to wash my hands with dish soap...DISH SOAP. This made NO sense to me that the kitchen would not have HAND soap, but hey...I must wash my hands before I eat, so I made-do with the DISH soap.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I went to the 99 cent store and purchased HAND soap for the kitchen.

For the first couple of days it seemed that I was the only one using it. The level didn't go down much at all.

A few more days passed and I could finally tell that it was being used. YES!!! Clearly, my fellow officmates had been longing for HAND soap as much as I.

One bottle got used up and I replaced it with a new one.

I really felt good about my "good deed" and that others were benefiting from it. I never told anyone that I was the one bringing the soap, and it wasn't necessary for anyone to know.

Some time passed and I could see that the second bottle would soon be empty. I made a mental note to bring more.

As I stood at the sink and washed my hands, I saw this skinny little nozzle thingy attached to the sink. Hmmm. I'd never seen that before. I pressed it in an attempt to see what it was, and...YOU GUESSED IT...it was a SOAP DISPENSER! WHAT?!?

I stood there for a minute. You mean to tell me that this soap dispenser has been here ALL ALONG???

Clearly, it HAD been. I just didn't recognize what it was because MY home doesn't have one so it never registered in my mind to even look to see if the office kitchen sink had one.

Well...this left me to wonder if perhaps I'd CREATED a problem versus SOLVING one?

What if folks had gotten USED TO the soap I'd been bringing? What if OTHERS (like me) haven't yet realized that there's a soap dispenser connected to the sink. What if NOW, folks ARE using DISH SOAP to wash their hands because the HAND SOAP is gone? *sigh*

Now every time I go in the kitchen I utter a small giggle. Can't believe how I missed that, but...I did. Maybe I should make a sign pointing to the dispenser. Nah...maybe not.

How 'bout you...Let the DIALOGUE begin: Have you ever done something that you thought was SOLVING a problem, only to find that it actually CREATED one?

Talk to me!

Til next time...