That tears it!

I've wasted far too much time this week talking about big, important issues. It's time to have a spray about one of those little issues that absolutely shits me up the wall. I've mentioned before I had to move buildings at work recently (my current employer spreads operations across a number of buildings.) Having to move is a minor pain in the arse but coming to terms with all the little changes to the available facilities is what really pisses me off.

The kitchenette has some pluses and some minuses. On the plus side, the fridge seems to get a lot less use here than had been usual in other areas (this is my 5th move of the year) so there's always lots of room for my truckloads of high-caffeine cola. On the down side, there's a bit of a crappy sandwich toaster. I like making toasted sandwiches for my lunch but there are a range of different sandwich presses in the different kitchens and this is one of the crap ones.

Good sandwich presses have a little control on the side that lets you adjust how far the top comes down, thus saving your sandwich from being squashed. This is important because the sandwiches taste better if the bread isn't squashed. It does so make a fucking difference! Stop looking at me like I'm some sort of obsessive-compulsive freak. But this isn't even the thing that's pissing me off.

What's sending me around the bend is the paper towel dispenser in the toilets. Namely, the fucking thing doesn't work. There is a distinct lack of paper being dispensed. It's a real struggle to pull paper out without it ripping. As your hands are wet when you try to get paper (pretty much by definition) this makes it even more likely that you're going to rip off useless little scraps rather than get the full sheet you need which in turn clogs up the dispenser making it harder again to get any paper out.

It boggles the mind how this is possible. This isn't a new building so it isn't as if someone's recently installed the wrong facilities. It doesn't happen in the other buildings. And it's hard to blame the guy responsible for repairing facilities because I've seen him in there a few times trying to solve the problem. He's tried filing the sharp edges off the dispenser and taping over the edges but it still doesn't fucking work!

The only thing I can think of is that someone has recently started buying a different sort of paper and its dimensions are ever so slightly out of whack with the dispenser which results in them getting stuck. This would be a shame if it's the case because it's nice paper - much softer than you usually get in workplaces. Plus, they probably bought a truckload of the stuff and they're not going to throw it out instead of using it.

It's lucky that I like most aspects of this job. In some of my other jobs that had me in a bad mood most of the time anyway, an annoying thing like this would have sent me on a rampage of destruction that would have ended in multiple fatalities. As it is, I've managed to limit myself to punching a few of the more annoying cow-orkers who I figure deserved it anyway.