Protecting the truly important stuff
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I went to visit a friend at his office during lunch today. While there, I asked for the key to the men's room. I was told that while the key was turned, I also had to enter a four digit code on the pad to gain entry. Ooooookaaayyyy....
As I went to insert the key, I noticed the women's room had the same key+combo setup. Right between the doors was another door. It was ajar. I peeked inside. It was the telco closet with all the ethernet cables and routers for the entire floor. It wasn't just left unlocked; there wasn't even a lock on the door.
Just sayin...
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The closet is obviously a decoy. The REAL stuff is under the floor in the toilet.
Watch where you pee.
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You have friends that work at shitty companies too?
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@blakeyrat said:
You have friends that work at shitty companies too?
I'm assuming it's NY, so it's probably the same crazy real estate pressures that cause people to think tiny apartments are places to live.
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@boomzilla said:
@blakeyrat said:
You have friends that work at shitty companies too?
I'm assuming it's NY, so it's probably the same crazy real estate pressures that cause people to think tiny apartments are places to live.
That thin table from the table site in the other thread looks ideal for those places.
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@dhromed said:
@snoofle said:
the key to the men's room
You say this as if it's normal to lock down toilets.
My company had to introduce a lock, because after everyone had gone home, some ninja ladies in tabards would swoop in and clean them, and everyone was really weirded out by it the next morning.
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@dhromed said:
In many corprate environments it is. This is to prevent the high cost of the occational missing roll of TP and the time it takes to use the restroom (that isn't work!). Of course these are also the same places that make you spend an hour (or more) each week filling out detailed timesheets where every option on where to bill your time points to the same department.
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@snoofle said:
I went to visit a friend at his office during lunch today. While there, I asked for the key to the men's room. I was told that while the key was turned, I also had to enter a four digit code on the pad to gain entry. Ooooookaaayyyy....
As I went to insert the key, I noticed the women's room had the same key+combo setup. Right between the doors was another door. It was ajar. I peeked inside. It was the telco closet with all the ethernet cables and routers for the entire floor. It wasn't just left unlocked; there wasn't even a lock on the door.
Just sayin...
I'd bet a dollar that the door was left open to improve air flow in the closet.
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Also, in the big city you don't want random transients manning the glory hole. Leave that to Bruce in HR.
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I wonder if you could get a photo?
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@dhromed said:
To be fair, it's the stuffier ones that feel the need to put restrictions on everything they can (more on the East coast of the US then on the West coast). My theory is that they aren't companies as we think of them (businesses) but rather organizations designed to piss away shareholder value while turning employees into mindless automations.
EDIT: though figuring out ways around the insane rules can be a fun challenge if you approach it properly, so they can also help you develop "creative problem solving" skills (mostly lies and blackmail).
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@snoofle said:
I also had to enter a four digit code on the pad to gain entry.
The assumption there is that the code was the same for everyone, and in no way used to track how often individuals were 'wasting company time'.
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@dhromed said:
@locallunatic said:
In many corprate environments it is.
What the fucking fuck.
I don't think I've ever heard of this.
When the Shell service station locks their doors and requires customers to get a key, people retaliate by duct-taping the lock open and having miscarriages in the sink. I wonder if the corporate employees do the same..
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@boomzilla said:
@blakeyrat said:
You have friends that work at shitty companies too?
I'm assuming it's NY, so it's probably the same crazy real estate pressures that cause people to think tiny apartments are places to live.
If they leave the bathroom door unlocked for a week, a nomadic tribe of hipsters will take up residence.
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@dhromed said:
You say this as if it's normal to lock down toilets.
You don't want people wandering in off the streets and using your bathroom (and not just for the obvious use; but for drug deals, "encounters" and other shady dealings).
Apparently it is much less of a concern that someone may wander in and rip wires out of their connections. Or make an phone call using your equipment.
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@dhromed said:
@snoofle said:
the key to the men's room
You say this as if it's normal to lock down toilets.
Pretty common around here, especially in buildings shared by multiple companies, where the restrooms are in the hallway. I always assumed it had something to do with not letting men into the ladies' room and vice-versa, but upon reflection, I prefer morbius' hipster theory.
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@sprained said:
Pretty common around here, especially in buildings shared by multiple companies, where the restrooms are in the hallway.
I've been in plenty of office buildings, and I don't remember any having locked toilets. Then again, most of them had armed guards in the lobby who would check your ID before letting you even get on an elevator.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@sprained said:Pretty common around here, especially in buildings shared by multiple companies, where the restrooms are in the hallway.
I've been in plenty of office buildings, and I don't remember any having locked toilets. Then again, most of them had armed guards in the lobby who would check your ID before letting you even get on an elevator.That works in a building that is just the one company (or maybe 2-3) but becomes problematic if there are lots of them; think a high rise where a company will have a few floors but above and below them are different companies. Now imagine trying to get 10+ different corprate physical security guys to agree on some standard for getting in (not going to happen).
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@locallunatic said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@sprained said:Pretty common around here, especially in buildings shared by multiple companies, where the restrooms are in the hallway.
I've been in plenty of office buildings, and I don't remember any having locked toilets. Then again, most of them had armed guards in the lobby who would check your ID before letting you even get on an elevator.That works in a building that is just the one company (or maybe 2-3) but becomes problematic if there are lots of them; think a high rise where a company will have a few floors but above and below them are different companies. Now imagine trying to get 10+ different corprate physical security guys to agree on some standard for getting in (not going to happen).
It was high-rises I was thinking of. Ten to fifty floors. The security guards work for the building and have a requirement of screening every person who enters.
Oddly, one place I worked had a large defense-related entity on several floors. There were guards at the front, but they never checked ID or anything, just sat and drank coffee. However, the floor I worked on was apparently just generic office space (I have no idea why there were, like, two floors of generic office space in a building with six other floors of high-security defense-related stuff). The high-security floors all had their own entrances made of bullet-proof glass as soon as you stepped off the elevator. You had to swipe an RFID badge to even get the elevator to take you to those floors, but I saw them a few times when riding with people who got off there.
The guys who worked on those floors were weird. All mid-40s or older. All very nebbish and paranoid. Sometimes they'd talk to me on the elevator.. "I don't recognize you. What do you do here?" And I'd tell them I worked on the non-secured floor and they'd clam up like I was a Soviet spy and this was the 1950s.
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At one call center, you could visit the restroom, no problem. But there was a key required to LEAVE the hall leading from the restroom. If you forgot your card, well, better bang on the door or hope someone else was leaving soon. I wondered whether they thought so lowly of their employees, they wanted to trap them in there to increase productivity.
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@morbiuswilters said:
(I have no idea why there were, like, two floors of generic office space in a building with six other floors of high-security defense-related stuff).
If asked, the top-secret employees could claim to work for the non-top-secret company plausibly. In the case of an attack, the non-defense persons could be used as human shields for the defense persons.
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@Medezark said:
@morbiuswilters said:
(I have no idea why there were, like, two floors of generic office space in a building with six other floors of high-security defense-related stuff).
If asked, the top-secret employees could claim to work for the non-top-secret company plausibly. In the case of an attack, the non-defense persons could be used as human shields for the defense persons.Possible, I guess, but unlikely. I think they just said "Hey, we have two floors that are unused. Let's remove the bullet-proof glass from in front of the elevator and rent that shit out to bring in some extra cash!
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@morbiuswilters said:
Possible, I guess, but unlikely. I think they just said "Hey, we have two floors that are unused. Let's remove the bullet-proof glass from in front of the elevator and rent that shit out to bring in some extra cash!
Lol. Yeah right.
More likely they bought the bottom set of floors first, then by the time the budget increased and they had to expand, someone else had already snagged the next two floors at a prime rate and wasn't willing to move.
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@morbiuswilters said:
I'd tell them I worked on the non-secured floor and they'd clam up like I was a Soviet spy and this was the 1950s.
So… the annoying weirdos stopped trying to talk to you? Sounds like an excellent outcome. Wish I could use it where I work, but that's an academic department in a university so fat chance of that; weirdos are usually faculty.
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@Snooder said:
Lol. Yeah right.
More likely they bought the bottom set of floors first, then by the time the budget increased and they had to expand, someone else had already snagged the next two floors at a prime rate and wasn't willing to move.
No, the building was owned by the defense entity. The non-defense floors were just leased from it. (Also, you usually don't "buy" a floor in an office building, you lease it.)
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@morbiuswilters said:
Also, you usually don't "buy" a floor in an office building, you lease it
I wonder if you could find enough people to "buy" floors in an office building... I mean selling all these floors to random companies and then charging a toll for using the Lobby to get to elevators/stairs would probably work to get a pile quick before they arranged to move elsewhere.
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@dkf said:
So… the annoying weirdos stopped trying to talk to you? Sounds like an excellent outcome.
I found them more fascinating than annoying. A story: I was getting onto the elevator at something like 7:00pm. I was clearly pretty exhausted. As I stepped on, there was one of the weirdo-types already on the elevator.
"Hard day of taking people's homes away from them, huh?" he asked. I, of course, was taken aback, not the least of which because I had no idea what the shit he was talking about. His demeanor was rude enough, but I honestly had no idea what he meant.
"Huh? I'm sorry, I don't.." I mumbled. He gestured to the glass door to the office with the company's name listed on it. I stared at him for a second, before it clicked. "You do realize that Venture Capital doesn't deal with foreclosing on homes, right? They don't even deal with mortgages."
"Oh," said he. "What do you guys do, then?"
"Well I write software. The company gives money to tech startups." He still didn't quite seem to comprehend, but seemed satisfied that I wasn't taking people's houses away from them.
What made his attitude particularly baffling is that he probably spent all day working on targeting systems for drones or something. It really seemed he had no ground to judge me. Anyway, aren't we Oppressors of the Proletariat supposed to stick together?
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@locallunatic said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Also, you usually don't "buy" a floor in an office building, you lease it
I wonder if you could find enough people to "buy" floors in an office building... I mean selling all these floors to random companies and then charging a toll for using the Lobby to get to elevators/stairs would probably work to get a pile quick before they arranged to move elsewhere.
You can't really buy individual floors. You could buy the whole building, but you'd still usually be bound by the leases signed with the previous landlord. And those leases tend to include boilerplate that spell out things like access to the leased space, making your "toll" idea illegal. (Also, even if it wasn't explicitly spelled-out, it would still be seen as unreasonable and thrown out by a court.)
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@morbiuswilters said:
You can't really buy individual floors. You could buy the whole building, but you'd still usually be bound by the leases signed with the previous landlord. And those leases tend to include boilerplate that spell out things like access to the leased space, making your "toll" idea illegal. (Also, even if it wasn't explicitly spelled-out, it would still be seen as unreasonable and thrown out by a court.)
Oh, I know I was just thinking hypothetically if it was possible to buy a floor in a building (like what Snooder seemed to be saying when you replied to him) what kinds of crap you could get away with.
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@locallunatic said:
@morbiuswilters said:
You can't really buy individual floors. You could buy the whole building, but you'd still usually be bound by the leases signed with the previous landlord. And those leases tend to include boilerplate that spell out things like access to the leased space, making your "toll" idea illegal. (Also, even if it wasn't explicitly spelled-out, it would still be seen as unreasonable and thrown out by a court.)
Oh, I know I was just thinking hypothetically if it was possible to buy a floor in a building (like what Snooder seemed to be saying when you replied to him) what kinds of crap you could get away with.
Yes you can buy entire floors. It's just like condos. Actually the construction of some brand new office buildings is often funded by pooling individual buyers. The only problem is that you are forced to enter in a coop or corporation with all the other buyers and things like evenings/weekends A/C tend to cause lot of fricition.
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@Ronald said:
Yes you can buy entire floors. It's just like condos.
Yeah, obviously you can buy an entire floor, assuming you've: 1) lost your goddamn mind; or 2) the landlord has. Anyway, I should have been more clear.
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@dhromed said:
What the fucking fuck.
We nearly had a "sign the key out if you need to pee" situation at my work after a combination of...
- The "Turd In The Towel" incident (the forementioned turd & towel was discovered in the cupboard under the bathroom sink)
- Someone taking a crap in the female sanitary bin. No explanation required.
- Someone leaving their underpants, complete with a fairly thick skidmark, above the false ceiling, which was discovered by the electrician replacing a light fitting (we believe the pants had been there quite some time - measured in years)
Clearly, I work with some really house-proud people (and also the three sick f*cks mentioned above, assuming they weren't the same person all three times....)
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@MeesterTurner said:
We nearly had a "sign the key out if you need to pee" situation at my work after a combination of...
- The "Turd In The Towel" incident (the forementioned turd & towel was discovered in the cupboard under the bathroom sink)
- Someone taking a crap in the female sanitary bin. No explanation required.
- Someone leaving their underpants, complete with a fairly thick skidmark, above the false ceiling, which was discovered by the electrician replacing a light fitting (we believe the pants had been there quite some time - measured in years)
O_O
TRWTF is that they thought the sign-out sheet was going to stop this. I mean, what was the plan? Do radiocarbon dating on any turds the found stuffed into the soap dispenser? "Yep, this happened April 27, 2009 at 9:17am. Now let's consult the sign-out sheet to find the perp.."
"Hey, we found this 2 year old shit-covered copy of Dreams of my Father which somebody meticulously inserted into the wall by cutting through the sheetrock and then patching the whole thing back up. Any chance we can find out who did this?"
Clearly the ass-assins in your office were several steps ahead of the fuzz.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Sometimes they'd talk to me on the elevator.. "I don't recognize you. What do you do here?" And I'd tell them I worked on the non-secured floor and they'd clam up like I was a Soviet spy and this was the 1950s.
"What would ya say... ya do here?"
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@MeesterTurner said:
@dhromed said:
We nearly had a "sign the key out if you need to pee" situation at my work after a combination of...What the fucking fuck.
- The "Turd In The Towel" incident (the forementioned turd & towel was discovered in the cupboard under the bathroom sink)
- Someone taking a crap in the female sanitary bin. No explanation required.
- Someone leaving their underpants, complete with a fairly thick skidmark, above the false ceiling, which was discovered by the electrician replacing a light fitting (we believe the pants had been there quite some time - measured in years)
Clearly, I work with some really house-proud people (and also the three sick f*cks mentioned above, assuming they weren't the same person all three times....)
Actually, I can kinda understand the third incident. Suppose you have horrific diarrhea and don't quite get to the restroom on time. This causes a shit stain on your drawers that you don't really feel like sitting in for the rest of the day. Now, you could just throw the underpants away, but what if the trash is full? Do you really really want the next guy who walks in there to see your shit-covered tighty-not-so-whiteys? Hell no. You'd be thinking of the best place to hide the evidence of your shame.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Ronald said:
Yes you can buy entire floors. It's just like condos.
Yeah, obviously you can buy an entire floor, assuming you've: 1) lost your goddamn mind; or 2) the landlord has. Anyway, I should have been more clear.
Obviously. The misleading part was:
@morbiuswilters said:
You can't really buy individual floors. You could buy the whole building, but you'd still usually be bound by the leases signed with the previous landlord.
Typically I'd call someone having this kind of flaky behavior a flip-flopper or a moron, but since it's you I'll make an exception. I know you are in an emotional turmoil since you were voted the most despicable character of the forum, plus we all discovered that you don't understand how databases and storage work. Tough week for you.
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@Ronald said:
Typically I'd call someone having this kind of flaky behavior a flip-flopper or a moron, but since it's you I'll make an exception.
Right, because it wasn't clear I simply fumbled and made an overly-broad statement while thinking of something else.. Sigh. Look, if you're going to troll, at least try to do a decent job of it, kay?
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@morbiuswilters said:
Then again, most of them had armed guards in the lobby who would check your ID before letting you even get on an elevator.
I'm glad that I live in a country where only the police are allowed to have weapons :-)
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@DrPepper said:
@dhromed said:
There's a reason we have our locks on the entrance to the office (and the building outside of office hours) itself...You say this as if it's normal to lock down toilets.
You don't want people wandering in off the streets and using your bathroom
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@ochrist said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Then again, most of them had armed guards in the lobby who would check your ID before letting you even get on an elevator.
I'm glad that I live in a country where only the police are allowed to have weapons :-)
So am I. It means a higher chance you will be raped and murdered in your sleep, which, let's face it, is only going to increase global IQ.
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@Snooder said:
Actually, I can kinda understand the third incident. Suppose you have horrific diarrhea and don't quite get to the restroom on time. This causes a shit stain on your drawers that you don't really feel like sitting in for the rest of the day. Now, you could just throw the underpants away, but what if the trash is full?
You flush them down the toilet. And pray your office doesn't use Saniflo products...
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@PJH said:
@DrPepper said:
@dhromed said:
There's a reason we have our locks on the entrance to the office (and the building outside of office hours) itself...You say this as if it's normal to lock down toilets.
You don't want people wandering in off the streets and using your bathroom
In the cities here, there's either the security guards at the front door or, for smaller buildings, a locking front door (usually RFID these days.) Individual offices might have locked doors, too, or maybe just reception areas. However, in a lot of those city buildings, the restrooms are a common area off the hallway; offices don't have their own. (And it's a damn shame, because there'd probably be better toilet etiquette if everyone had to look everyone else in the eyes afterwards. Making it a common area means people from the private equity firm across the hall will sit in every single stall from 10:00am to 11:30, reading the WSJ. If you have to shit, you're SOL. And since this is the city, there aren't public restrooms anywhere. One time I just went home for the day around noon because after 30 minutes the stalls were still occupied.)
In the suburbs, once you're out of bum's reach, security tends to be more lax, unless the building is for something high-finance or defense-related. Usually you can just wander through the empty lobby, go to any floor, meander through the halls and shared restrooms, and even enter some of the offices. Since space is at less of a premium, they tend to have open doors with reception areas rather than locking doors, unless they have a specific need to lock.
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@morbiuswilters said:
So am I. It means a higher chance you will be raped and murdered in your sleep, which, let's face it, is only going to increase global IQ.
Funny. I assume you are being sarcastic and/or trolling, but I'll bite. Where I live we have a very low crime rate, especially compared to USA.
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@ochrist said:
@morbiuswilters said:
So am I. It means a higher chance you will be raped and murdered in your sleep, which, let's face it, is only going to increase global IQ.
Funny. I assume you are being sarcastic and/or trolling, but I'll bite. Where I live we have a very low crime rate, especially compared to USA.
We've been over this a million fucking times, you moron. We're not rehashing this goddamn argument again. If you want to see why you are a dipshit, just search the forums and weep in shame at your ignorance. Look, I don't care if you and your entire retarded family get murdered--you're clearly not of any value to the rest of humanity, except to the criminals who will end up selling your TV and riding your corpses down a hill like a toboggan, you pathetic twit.
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@morbiuswilters said:
We've been over this a million fucking times, you moron. We're not rehashing this goddamn argument again. If you want to see why you are a dipshit, just search the forums and weep in shame at your ignorance. Look, I don't care if you and your entire retarded family get murdered--you're clearly not of any value to the rest of humanity, except to the criminals who will end up selling your TV and riding your corpses down a hill like a toboggan, you pathetic twit.
Trolling then. Must.not.feed.troll.....
And a nice weekend to you too :-)
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@sprained said:
Pretty common around here, especially in buildings shared by multiple companies, where the restrooms are in the hallway.
You make it sound like that situation makes it more logical to lock toilets. Locking you toilets is fucking idiotic. Stop defending it!
Well, except if you're inside, of course.
- The "Turd In The Towel" incident (the forementioned turd & towel was discovered in the cupboard under the bathroom sink)
- Someone taking a crap in the female sanitary bin. No explanation required.
- Someone leaving their underpants, complete with a fairly thick skidmark, above the false ceiling, which was discovered by the electrician replacing a light fitting (we believe the pants had been there quite some time - measured in years)
What sort of (company) culture has regular people behaving with all the debasement you find on a festival campsite?
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@ochrist said:
@morbiuswilters said:
We've been over this a million fucking times, you moron. We're not rehashing this goddamn argument again. If you want to see why you are a dipshit, just search the forums and weep in shame at your ignorance. Look, I don't care if you and your entire retarded family get murdered--you're clearly not of any value to the rest of humanity, except to the criminals who will end up selling your TV and riding your corpses down a hill like a toboggan, you pathetic twit.
Trolling then. Must.not.feed.troll.....
And a nice weekend to you too :-)
I guess this is probably the result of what passes for the dumbed-down, keep-the-proles-ignorant public education system in Europe nowadays. "If someone disagrees with you and expresses an opinion that has not been approved by the Central Council for Acceptable Ideas, then they are trolling you and you can dismiss them."
But, like I said, I don't care. Europe is most like a group of gasoline-soaked children seeing who can create the biggest spark; you know it's going to end poorly, but intervening would just make Darwin turn over in his grave.
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@dhromed said:
You make it sound like that situation makes it more logical to lock toilets. Locking you toilets is fucking idiotic. Stop defending it!
You say this, but have you ever had to step over a bum sitting in the middle of a 6-foot puddle of his own urine so you could use an ATM? And the door to the ATM was locked, but he still always found a way to get in, pass out and urinate himself. Eventually they hired a security guard to stand outside the ATM and keep the bums out. My solution--electrifying the floor--seemed far more practical.
@dhromed said:
What sort of (company) culture has regular people behaving with all the debasement you find on a festival campsite?
EA? Telligent? An electric car manufacturer?
