Toilet Wars

My office at work is on the third floor of the northeast wing, and the washroom on this floor is a unisex one. No, not an Ally McBeal chat-comically-with-the-opposite-sex-while-you-wash-your-hands-and-they-use-the-facilities kind of unisex restroom, but rather a one room/one stall place with a lock on the stall that no one uses and a lock on the outer door that everyone uses because the room is far too small for two people.

The toilet is possessed. It has a sensor on the back wall that is supposed to flush when you stand up and walk away, but it often doesn't have the patience. It will frequently flush while a poor unsuspecting person is still seated. At one point, I thought that leaning forward (to retie a shoe, to scratch one's ankle, etc.) triggered this premature flush, but I've learned that it will also occasionally go off for no apparent reason. All this has led to its nickname: "the bidet".

Because it's a unisex washroom, half the time the seat is up. This means that if and when you put the seat down (with a foot, natch), in the time it takes to turn around to arrange yourself to sit down, it flushes. To combat this and the bidet treatment, there is a stack of post-it notes attatched to the underside of the toilet paper dispenser, that many patrons have been using to cover the sensor, opting to manually flush using the button on the wall beside the sensor (also with a foot, natch.) Some cite environmental reasons - i.e. water conservation. Others just don't like the sensation. Not long ago, a larger post-it note was left beside the sensor asking people to "please do not cover the sensor because then it doesn't flush". Ah, the drama.