Please leave this place in the same state as you found it

Chapter 5: Toilets

Dear Communication Department,
I would like to point out a small problem with the sign posted in the bathrooms of our company. The sign reads

Please leave this place in the same state as you found it

Of course, this invitation could work in the case, not necessarily the most likely, where the bathrooms are found in excellent condition, ie clean. If one finds them dirty, as unfortunately often happens, the invitation is counterproductive.
Very cordially, ...



Dear Communication Department,
I am very impressed by the speed with which you reacted to my message last week by changing the sign in the bathrooms. The change certainly solves the problem I raised. However, the new message is just as problematic as the previous one:

Please leave this place in the state in which you would like it to be.

The invitation only works if there are no spiteful or self-injuring users. For a user who wants to live in the dirt (and it seems that there is no lack of it) the sign could have unpleasant effects for other users.
Very cordially, ...



Dear Communication Department,
I’m still writing to you after the new changes to the sign posted in the bathrooms of the company. Now it is very clear, of course, and without the ambiguities of the previous signs:

Please leave this place clean.

But don’t you think that users now feel a bit subject to a request that goes beyond simply omitting uncivilized behavior? That is, you would say that they are asked not only not to dirty where it is clean, but also to clean where it is dirty.
Very cordially, ...



Dear user,
This is company management. Thank you for your feedback. We have closed the Communication Department, also because by now its only task had become to draw up signs for the bathrooms. However, we decided to launch a major competition among our customers, in search of the perfect message to stimulate virtuous behavior in that important and delicate environment.



Dear Management,
At this point I would say that the purpose of the cartels was not so much to improve the behavior of users recalcitrant to education, but to express the resentment and helplessness of others. If you think that it would be good for them to leave a message, then perhaps it is better to install blackboards on which everyone can express everything they think.



Dear Management,
I noticed the new blackboards that had been on the company’s bathroom for a few days. Excellent initiative, I congratulate the management. However, I notice that the markers hanging on the cords have already disappeared and that some nice guy had fun disgusting the boards with obscene writings and drawings using indelible markers. I would ask all users to refrain from such jokes and to politely leave the boards in the same state in which they found them.
Thank you.

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